Should All Good Christians Feel Guilty?

Tom:

Thanks, Gary.You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to him.Dave before we get into our main topics I am really curious to see if you picked up an Aussie accent having just returned from Australia for three weeks.

Dave:

Well I found out that my name is not Dave, it’s Dive.

Tom:

Dive?

Dave:

Dive, yes, I don’t know why, everything—

Tom:

And you last name is Mate?Dive Mate?

Dave:

Well they do say mate quite a bit.

Tom:

Well how was it?What’s going on down under Dave?

Dave:

We had a terrific time.We had meetings in four cities.

Tom:

Covered the continent, or close?

Dave:

Well not quite.We didn’t get to the west.We were on the Eastern, Northern, and Eastern.We didn’t get to southern Australia or Western Australia.Tom, it’s thrilling.I couldn’t tell you how many people come up to me and say they read The Berean Call, the instant that it arrives, that this is their spiritual food.They can’t find a church that teaches the truth.We had meetings in some churches where they rented the venue as they say, in Australia.But the pastors didn’t show up and nobody from the church came.Of course I wouldn’t know, maybe there were a few churches that are involved in apostasy, but at least they let sponsors of the meetings rent the place.Probably eight or nine hundred would be the largest groups we had and that would have been—one church seated about 1500.We probably had 900, maybe 1000 there.But people love the Lord, that’s thrilling to find all over the world, the Lord has his people and they love him, they love his Word, they are hungry to know him and to study his Word.People came from New Zealand, came from Tasmania, and came from Perth, Western Australia, a long trip for them.One of the things that amazed me Tom, oh I guess we can dare mention my latest book once in awhile on this program?

Tom:

That’s okay.

Dave:

So many people, some of them rather elderly ladies, came up to me and said, “That new book of yours is really great!We’ve read that!”I didn’t even know they’d gotten it down there.

Tom:

Of course you are referring to What Love is This?

Dave:

Right, yes.Calvinism’s Misrepresentation of God.

Tom:

Yes, so a controversial subject, but elderly women—you’d wonder what excited them about it.But I think I know Dave.It’s because you deal with the heart of God, the character of God.Why wouldn’t that be a blessing and encouragement to anybody who reads it?

Dave:

Yes, many people tell me it was a blessing to them.

Tom:

Well, if you are a first time listener, oh by the way, our programs are taped, so by the time this program reaches the air, Dave will have been back in this country, but then you are taking off again for Germany, so you are really out and about.

Dave:

Canada first.

Tom:

Yes, but anyway if you are a first time listener to the program, the name of the program is Search the Scriptures Daily, and that’s our hope, our prayer is that we can encourage our listeners to get into God’s Word.We’re privileged to be a part of this program but we certainly don’t want anything pointing to us.We want to be as Tozer said, “Signposts pointing to the Lord and to his Word.”And that’s our encouragement.And we are going through Dave’s book In Defense of the Faith as a sort of syllabus.It has many, many things in it that address certain subjects that we think are important.So let’s get right to a question that’s found in your book.And of course these questions as we’ve mentioned in previous programs, Dave in your many years of ministry, how many years now?Fifty years?

Dave:

Oh, more than that, yes.

Tom:

Fifty years of ministry, met a lot of people, they’ve had a lot of questions, some tough questions, and some questions that seem tough, but you just wonder why they ask.So in your book throughout it In Defense of the Faith, Gary will tell you a little later, if you’d like to get a hold of a copy of the book, how you can do that.Anyway, here’s our first question: The pain and suffering caused by crime is bad enough.Christianity, however, has added to that pain and suffering by convincing mankind that it has rebelled against God and broken His laws.Consequently, the threat of eternal punishment haunts everyone who has come under Christianity’s influence.Wouldn’t the world be better off without these delusions to trouble it?[That’s] pretty blunt; pretty wrong.

Dave:

Yes, Tom, first of all, it’s a long time since I looked at this question.I don’t know what the person has in mind—well the person who didn’t commit the crime is not going to suffer from the consequences of breaking God’s laws because they didn’t break them.Somebody broke God’s laws to impose himself or herself upon them.And the pain and suffering caused by crime is really felt by the victim.Not by the perpetrator.And the perpetrator is the one who ought to fear God’s judgment.Of course, we are all guilty, although the questioner doesn’t say that, or the complainer, but it’s hardly true that Christianity has created the feelings of moral guilt.That is—

Tom:

You can go to lots of different places around the world and people have never heard of Christianity and it’s pretty prevalent.

Dave:

Right, they are all concerned.They all know that they have broken the laws even if they don’t believe in the God of the Bible.The law of some God—their conscience troubles them, they’re involved in any number of techniques or methods they hope that will appease this Great Spirit or whatever it is.Sacrifices sometimes even human sacrifices, so it’s not Christianity that has brought the pain of guilt and the fear of suffering.In fact, Christianity is the only one that relieves that.Because there is no relief for those who do not believe in Christ.What relief would you get as a Muslim for example?The Muslim believes that on the last day his good deeds will be weighed in the balance with his bad deeds and if the good deeds outweigh the bad, then he makes it.First of all, that’s—I don’t want to offend Muslims, but that’s absurd.It won’t work in any court of law.You can’t tell the judge that when you’ve been arrested for speeding that you have driven more times within the speed limit than you have exceeding it, couldn’t your good deeds outweigh your bad?Everybody knows that good deeds don’t outweigh bad.They don’t balance.There’s no way that saving the lives of two people tomorrow will make up for murdering one person today.So the whole concept of Islamic justice so-called and reward or punishment for what a person has done, it just isn’t rational.It’s not just, it won’t work.But this is Allah and this is what they hope for.

Tom:

Dave, back to this question, blaming guilt on Christianity, well Islam, sharia—you have laws that just cover everything, so you can’t tell me there’s no guilt among Muslims.It’s not just a fear of judgment, but the fear of breaking the law, or having broken the laws.

Dave:

And the punishment is horrible.There is no freedom of thought, no freedom of conscience, no freedom of religion.It doesn’t come from your heart.Belief in Islam does not come because you are convinced by the facts, the evidence or by the love.[There are] ninety-nine characteristics for Allah in the Qur’an and love is not one of them.But you simply must repeat the formula: There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet.If you do not, off with your head.They kill you.Or if a Muslim examines the evidence and decides Jesus Christ really is God, he really did become a man, he really did pay the penalty for our sins, and he becomes a believer in Jesus, it’s off with his head.Muhammad said whoever relinquishes his faith, kill him.Or if a thief, off with the hand, they cut off the hand, cut off a foot, hand, or foot on opposite sides, and then that person is branded for life.The arm is useless now because it all works together.When you look at the hand, it’s one of the most marvelously engineered, planned, it works so beautifully.The God who created it would never have it cut off.That’s not the penalty in the Bible.Obviously Allah is not the God who created the hand.Rembrandt if he had a little splotch or something on one of his portraits or landscapes or whatever, he’s not going to rip the whole thing apart.He’d go back and fix it.But the peoples in every religion—pagans, nature worshippers, witchdoctors, whoever they are all over the world had no contact with Christianity, they have horrible guilt.And they live in fear of death and of judgment.Christianity delivers from that.So I think this is a false accusation and it’s a tragedy that people think like this.It’s not rational.

Tom:

Dave, you quote Jacques Alul with regard to Christianity not only isn’t the problem, it’s the only solution.Let me read this:We must also remember constantly that biblically and in truly Christian thought, sin is known and recognized for what it is only after the recognition, proclamation, and experience of forgiveness.Because I have been pardoned I realized how much of a sinner I was.Sin is shown to be sin through grace, and not otherwise.Just as the abruptly freed slave realizes as he sees his chains, how great his misery was.

Dave:

Well there is deliverance in Christ and at the beginning of this chapter I quote Samuel P. Putnam, he was a leading nineteenth century atheist and without reading the whole quote basically what he says is if God knew what was going to happen—and he would have to if he is God—and he created beings that he knew would suffer, then that’s inexcusable.He says if God is too weak to stop pain and suffering then he’s not strong enough to be God and if he could stop it and doesn’t then he’s a monster.Of course, this is a common, but faulty complaint against God and it leaves out free will.Unfortunately, it’s a complaint that could be made against God as the Calvinist describes him.Because the God of Calvinism predestines some for heaven and some for hell.In fact, takes pleasure in damning multitudes and this is not the God of the Bible.The God of the Bible is love, scripture says.He’s not willing that any should perish.So this particular complaint that this person has against Christianity simply isn’t valid.

Tom:

You know I think of the example in scriptures of the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and dried his feet with her hair.There she is weeping, doing something that nobody else in that environment, in that setting did.We are taking about at the home of Simon, the Pharisee right?

Dave:

Yes.

Tom:

But Jesus said she loves much, because she was forgiven much.

Dave:

She is forgiven much because she recognized that she’s a sinner.She recognizes the depth of her guilt, whereas the Pharisee who may have been even more guilty, because of his hypocrisy, and pride—pride is one of the worst sins.He didn’t realize what a sinner he was.Therefore he was not grateful to God for having forgiven him.And this person, who’s making this complaint, doesn’t have any gratitude, doesn’t have any sense of guilt, complains that Christianity imposes a sense of guilt.I would think that the thief, the rapist, the murderer ought to have some guilt and it comes from the conscience and if God did not put that recognition of right and wrong in the human conscience, this would be a horrible world.People would just do any thing.No guilt whatsoever.

Tom:

Dave, our next question seems to go along the line of people complaining about God.The Bible claims that God knows the future.Surely, then, He knew that Adam and Eve would sin and that immeasurable evil and suffering would follow.The Bible’s God must have known every rape and murder and war and every bit of pain and sorrow that would follow.Since He went ahead and created man anyway, how can He be anything but a monster or a sadist?

Dave:

Well Tom, once again this thing called free will comes up.And if man does not have the power of choice, but if man, as John Calvin taught and as many Calvinists today—we could quote them, from R. C. Sproul on to many others, they say God literally causes every thought word and deed because man cannot do anything on his own.If he could, then he could receive Christ.He could say yes or no to the gospel and that would supposedly give man the last word.No, man doesn’t have the last word.God is the one, who has the last word, but he does offer salvation, but he offers it to those who are willing to accept it.It’s a gift and you must accept a gift.So that changes the whole formula.If man has the power of choice, and God has given him that power so that he could love—we can love one another, husbands can love wives, wives can love husbands, parents children and so forth and we can love God without the power of choice, without the ability to say no, the power to say yes is meaningless.So this is what God did.He gave us this power because he wanted responsible beings.When we say and we ought to say it often, and I say it over and over, but I don’t say it enough, O God I love you with all my heart.Thank you so much for who you are.Is that an expression from my heart?Or is that something that God caused me to say?So now if man does have the power of choice and if God gave this to him because he wants man to be responsible, he wants him not to be a puppet on a string or a robot, he wants man to be able to genuinely love.He wants man to be able to examine the facts, come to his own conclusion, decide for himself, then that’s where sin comes from.You could say well, then why would God create anybody?That’s another question.But this person is asking why would God allow rape and murder and so forth?Well he didn’t cause this.It’s man who does it.It’s the evil in man’s heart and you cannot blame God for it.

Tom:

Dave you quoted Samuel Putnam and you have another quote regarding this topic.Let me read it: “In the place of that suffering he [God] could have made happiness.Of his will, and without compulsion, he made suffering.What is he, then, but an almighty fiend?His good acts cannot excuse his evil acts, any more than the good acts of a murderer can condone his crime…God must be all good, or else not good at all.”

Dave:

Well, God is good and God is love, but he did not create suffering.He did not create suffering, he did not cause man to sin and though the Calvinist says that.This man complains that God without compulsion made suffering.No, he didn’t make suffering.Well look, there is suffering because of the consequences of sin.Because of who God is.He is perfect, holy, righteous and if we rebel against him, there are consequences.Would you like there to be no laws?You want to just have the whole thing be a jungle?It’s a jungle enough in some places in this world.But if there were no laws, if there were no police, if everyone could just do whatever he wanted to do, you really would have suffering.Now the suffering is going to come because men break God’s laws; because God is just and there is suffering even on this earth.We recognize you break the law, you suffer the consequences.You don’t have to break the law.The law giver, let’s say the legislative body that lays out these laws for the good of mankind, for the safety of society, they can’t be blamed when you break the law.The law is there to prevent crime, to warn the criminal not to do this.But when the criminal does it, he can’t blame those who made the laws and he certainly can’t blame the judge who sentences him for causing him to commit the crime.So Putnam again, is complaining against God irrationally and unjustly.Now he acts like an intelligent man.His arguments that he lays out, but the arguments are not rational.They don’t work.

Tom:

Well, just look around.There’s no evidence really of what he’s talking about.And when I say no evidence, you make an interesting point here.If God is, as Putnam says, an almighty fiend, the worst of all evil, well as you point out here, why isn’t everything evil?

Dave:

It would be a whole lot worse, wouldn’t it?

Tom:

Well think about it.Do we, even though we are sinners and under the curse, the lost as well, their lives are not continually overwhelmed by evil—everything that they do.Dave, you point out, your taste buds—why do we eat things?Well because we have a joy of eating things and so on.Procreation, there’s joy in sex, okay?But if God were evil all these things would be evil—all the way down the line.

Dave:

Furthermore we could turn this thing around on Putnam himself.I presume he was a father.He had a wife and children.Now why would they even have any children knowing that those children might suffer?They might become criminals, or they might become cripples—horrible suffering might happen.So to blame God because he created beings who could by their own choice reject his salvation and considering that God has provided forgiveness, even for those who hate him, even for those who like Putnam, cry out against him, reproach him, falsely accuse him, nevertheless Christ came and paid the penalty for their sins.And as he hung on the cross for those who nailed him there, for those who mocked him, he said, “Father forgive them,” and his blood was shed to pay the penalty for their sins.I don’t see how you can complain against the God who does that, who is love, who is not willing that any should perish.He wants to bless all mankind, but man flaunts his rebellion in God’s face and refuses to accept the love that God offers and blessing God wants to give.Well then let him not complain.

Tom:

Yes, and Dave as you say, no one can honestly complain.Because God has provided everything for salvation for all that they need.

Dave:

Amen.