Lesson 2: God’s Sovereignty and Origin of Evil

God alone sees all things and this means that He also knows all things. This is why nothing catches Him by surprise! Now couple that with the fact that He is the Creator of all things, He controls all things, and all things are dependent upon Him, and it begins to answer some typical questions we get asked from the skeptic like, "If God is so loving, why is there so much evil and suffering in the world?" In other words, "If He is so Sovereign, why do we have all the evil and suffering in the world today?" It is in knowing the true Sovereignty of God that helps us answer this objection.

The first question we need to ask about the Sovereignty of God before we can answer the objection about evil and suffering is, we need to know where suffering comes from. Where did it start? Why does it have to be this way? Are His hands tied? Is He inept? Contrary to the cry of the critic, evil and suffering did not start with God.

Isaiah 14:12-15 - "How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit."


In these verses we find the classic passage where we deal with the existence of the devil and his "fall." By the way, he is literal, not figurative. My point is, this is important to understand when it comes to the existence of evil and suffering in the world. This is where it all started. It came from the devil, not God! And even though this is plain in the Scripture, Old and New Testaments, the moment you say that God is NOT responsible for all the evil and suffering in the world today, the skeptic usually raises objections.

The first objection usually goes something like this: "God is not loving, because He created evil."

The Bible says satan is the evil one, not God, and it started with him. He was the one with the original "I" problem. He wanted to be God. In fact, notice how many times the word "I" was used in just a few verses by the devil. J. Vernon McGee wrote: "These are the five wills of Lucifer. He was setting his will against the will of God. This is sin in embryo. It began by a creature setting his will against the will of God. The sin of satan was over-weening [arrogant] pride. It was not the purpose of satan to be different from God; he wanted to be God. He put his will above the will of God, and any creature who does that puts himself in the place of God.”

* How do you ever find yourself wanting what you want rather than what God wants?