1. How Can a Good God Allow Pain, Injustice and Suffering?

3. What kind of world do you want? 1.We don’t exist? 2.We live in a ‘survival of the fittest’, ‘dog eat dog’ world? 3.We live in a world that is pre- determined – a closed system!? 4.This is the best of all possible worlds but something has gone terribly wrong.

4. Something has gone wrong! –John 16:33, “In this world, you will have trouble.” –Perhaps the response or answer is… –He is doing something, but we may not be seeing the whole story!

5. The Option for Evil –Genesis 2:16-17 NIV “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

6. A Perfect World –Genesis 1:31 “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” –Romans 5:12 NLT “When Adam sinned, sin entered the entire human race. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.”

7. Two Kinds of Evil –Romans 8:22 “...all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”

8. Is God impervious to our pain? –Hebrews 4:15-16 (The Message) We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.

9. Is God impervious to our pain? –2 Corinthians 5:21 (NIV) God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. –2 Corinthians 5:21 (The Message) God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God.