Theodicy. This is not an easy topic to approach no matter what the age of your audience. However, the question of evil came up more than once:
-Why does God allow all of the suffering on earth? Is God angry or disappointed in man? If He is, is it just time for the rapture?
-Why is there so much crap in the world?
-Why can't God get rid of all the evil and temptation or just the devil?
These are great questions without great answers. Theodicy, the problem of evil, has intrigued many theologians and philosophers for thousands of years. If God is love then why doesn't he act out of love to "rescue" us from bad things? If God is all-powerful, why doesn't he use his power to stop evil in the world? If God is both love and all-powerful, what is he doing with all of his love and power while the we here on earth suffer? We obviously cannot make God the author of evil or else he isn't all good. But if he is not the author of evil in means that he is not the creator of all things.
Here is the bottom line of this argument: we live in a fallen world. God cannot get rid of the devil because the Lucifer was one of his angels that chose to go astray. This set a course into motion that has to be seen to the end. God doesn't make things happen, but He does allow them. We have been promised that God works ALL things together for good for those who love him... I have a hard time believing that but God promised it so it must be true. I don't know if God is angry or disappointed. Being outside of time he sees how everything will be put together in the end... so perhaps He gets to skip some of the harder emotions that accompany the suffering here on earth. However, I would like to believe that He is sitting in the midst of our heartache with us... isn't that why Jesus sent the Comforter. I guess there really isn't any easy answers to these types of questions.
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