ANNOUNCER: Atheists and others, even Christians, have at times accused God of being cruel. Have you ever been tempted to think God is cruel? How should we think when it comes to this subject? We thank you for listening today, and we are happy to bring you this episode of the Grace Evangelical Society’s Grace In Focus. Our website is faithalone.org. We’d love you to go there and learn a lot about us, including our events. Our online seminary, our free subscription magazine, our blogs, our store, and much more. Once again, the website is faithalone.org. Come and check us out. 

Now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and David Renfro. 

BOB: David, you were looking at a book by a former charismatic speaker and preacher who then became an atheist and wrote a book against God. And so the title of this session is, Is God Cruel, because according to this author you were looking at, and a lot of atheists say this, they will say God is cruel. 

DAVID: I would say that’s their battle cry. How can you believe in a loving God when there are passages in the Bible that kind of speak of His cruelty, especially when you take some of this stuff out of context. 

BOB: Right. I mean, it doesn’t literally call Him cruel, but people can present it that way. And some people think that, for example, the lake of fire is cruel and unusual punishment. They think that the torment in the lake of fire is unfair and unjust and cruel. And so either they say there is no such thing as the lake of fire, or they say there is no God. In fact, the person you’re talking about, what was his name? Was it Dan Barker? DAVID: Dan Barker. He wrote a book, 

BOB: Which has a comical name, but he means it literally. 

DAVID: He means it literally. The name of this book is God: The Most Unpleasant Character In All Fiction. That shows you how much of an atheist this guy is now. Let me give you a quote from this book. 

BOB: And by the way, what do Muslim terrorists cry just before they carry out— 

DAVID: Allahu Akbar or something like that. 

BOB: Yeah. And that means God is great. God is good, right? Right. Even though Muslim terrorists have bad theology, they are right that God is good, that God is great. And it seems to me that even some people who are in other religions, they recognize the greatness and the goodness of God. And that part is correct. God is great. God is good. God is the most pleasant person in all of history. In other words, God is beautiful. Read what David says about God. He adores God. He worships God. That’s why he’s a man after God’s own heart. 

A person like this is someone who has been badly tarnished by the experiences he had. You know, a lot of people from the charismatic movement who got involved in speakers and stuff, they became disenchanted. I remember I saw a movie. This was back 50 years ago called Marjoe and this Pentecostal family, these parents, they had a boy and they named him Marjoe after Mary and Joseph. 

And Marjoe, when he was four years old, had a little white suit and tie and he would preach and he was a famous charismatic preacher from the ages of four to 14. But by the time he was 14, some of the novelty of a kid preaching wore off. And so he stopped doing preaching and he ended up and became an atheist and then did a film called Marjoe. And in the film, he contacted some of his former contacts and said, wonder if I could preach some some revival meetings and he did. He was able to do it again, but he brought his own film crew. And it was just real fascinating to see what he did. But he wasn’t as harsh as this Dan Barker saying that God is the most unpleasant person in all, he calls it fiction. Of course, he thinks the Bible is fiction. 

DAVID: Sure. Let me give you just a short quote from the book. He says, “The murderous Old Testament deity deemed human life to be worthless, placing his own maniacal glory above human values.” What does that tell you about how messed up this guy is? 

BOB: Yeah. And you know, the sad thing is he could be a believer who has lost his way in which case he’s going to have to give an account at the Judgment Seat of Christ for this. Or B), he never came to faith, but he was a legalistic, works salvation charismatic, who never came to faith. And that means at the Great White Throne Judgment, he’s going to have to give an account. 

DAVID: He will stand before this God that he denies. 

BOB: At one of the two judgments.The last thing I would want to do would be to impugn the name and the character of God because not only will he give an account at the end times, but he’s also going to be held accountable for this in this life. 

DAVID: Yeah. And this is my opinion, people who get to this point have already made themselves the standard of morality. In other words, acknowledging that God is the standard of all judgment and morality, they’ve made their own, themselves. And then they judge God based upon what they think is right. 

BOB: Exactly. And that’s the wrong way. Instead, we should say, look, anything God says or does, is just. If we don’t find that just, we need to adjust our thinking. You know, I think— 

DAVID: it goes back to the old theology 101. He’s God and you’re not. 

BOB: That’s right. So the very fact that God didn’t take his life before this manuscript hit the press shows God’s mercy and shows God is not cruel. 

DAVID: No, in fact, it shows incredible grace because the guy has had many years to turn back to the Lord. 

ANNOUNCER: The Grace Evangelical Society’s recently published Old Testament Commentary, Volume One is now available. Find it at faithalone.org/store. It’s where you can also find Bob Wilkin’s latest book, The Gospel is Still Under Siege, as well as many other titles by Grace Evangelical Society authors. Please come by and have a look today. You’ll find the GES store at our website, faithalone.org. That’s faithalone.org/store. Now back to today’s topic.

DAVID: To me, it’s yet another example of the Lord’s grace, to allow people to live long lives, sometimes in our morality, that person’s a horrible excuse for a human being. Why is the Lord allowing him to live that long? There’s good people that pass away young. To some people’s minds, that’s not fair or the standard of justice in God is kind of weird. Anytime you do something like that, who are you making the standard of justice and morality? You’re making yourself that and that goes back to one thing that I’ve come to the conclusion of, you know what the most popular religion in the world is? 

BOB: What’s that? 

DAVID: The worship of oneself. 

BOB: Which is more or less atheism. 

DAVID: Pretty close. 

BOB: And by the way, let me get two things in the quote you gave. Number one, the Old Testament deity, that drives me nuts. There is no Old Testament deity as opposed to the New Testament deity. God is God and God hasn’t changed. And so the same God who did, in some cases, like with the Canaanites, wiped out every man, woman, and child, that’s the same God who sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross for our sins so that He’s made us all savable, unlimited atonement. And if we simply believe in the Son, we have everlasting life apart from any good works we need to do. It’s just by grace through faith, apart from works. 

And this same God is going to hold everyone accountable, believers at the Judgment Seat of Christ, unbelievers at the Great White Throne Judgment. And there will be eternal conscious torment, but it will be bearable because God is not cruel. He is not unjust. The torment people experience in the lake of fire will be bearable torment, even though a lot of preachers say, oh, no, wait a minute, the torment in the lake of fire will be worse than any pain and suffering in this life. They have no Bible verses that say that they just make that up. 

And I have a chapter on this in my book, The Ten Most Misunderstood Words, I talk about hell. Most people’s view of hell is based on medieval speculation, like Dante’s Inferno. And they think, well, Dante is telling us the way it really is. No, Dante is just speculating. 

DAVID: Medieval philosophy, if you actually study it, it’s a blend of pagan worship. It’s called syncretism.. 

BOB: Yeah. The second thing I wanted to comment on is Dan Barker said, life worthless, is that how it was? 

DAVID: Yeah. This Old Testament deity deemed human life to be worthless. 

BOB: Deemed human life to be worthless. And that’s the polar opposite of what’s true.

DAVID: There is no place in the Bible where it even comes close to saying that. 

BOB: Now, the whole pro life movement is based on the fact that God deems life worthwhile. 

DAVID: When Psalm 139 says “I’m fearfully and wonderfully made,” that means that the Lord thinks of humans as having worth, dignity. 

BOB: And the ones who are cruel are the people who say, well, humans are just animals, which I assume is Dan Barker’s view. We’re just an animal. 

DAVID: Well, if Dan doesn’t believe there’s a God, then he has to believe in evolution and evolution essentially teaches that we’re not people. We’re not a human. We are a machine. 

BOB: We’re just a mass of cells. 

DAVID: We’re just a bundle of electrochemical processes brought together through a process of infinite time and completely random chance. 

BOB: And therefore life has no meaning. Life has no purpose. It has no direction. 

DAVID: You’re using the wrong term, life. It’s not life. It’s existence. 

BOB: Existence has no purpose. And history isn’t going anywhere. 

DAVID: No. Well, that’s meaningless too. 

BOB: Well, Paul said, if Jesus is not raised from the dead, let’s eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. That’s the Dan Barker philosophy. Now, I don’t know what he preached. It would be interesting to look into it. By the way, we don’t recommend you read his book. We haven’t read it. I think the point of interest here is that there’s actually somebody who used to be a charismatic preacher who now is an opponent of the Christian faith. 

DAVID: And I’m pretty sure he’s not the only one. 

BOB: No, there’s lots of them. 

DAVID: But you know, it would be interesting to interview these folks and find out what made you turn on the Lord. 

BOB: We’re not going to have this guy on a future show. 

DAVID: No, I don’t even don’t even know if I want to shake his hand, but you know, I’m supposed to love one another and so we’re commanded to, but— 

BOB: By the way, did you say he went to Azusa Pacific? Yeah, which is now a university. The guy who led me to Lord, Warren Wilkie, was the head of the track department there. And I think he got his college degree from there, my niece and nephews graduated from Azusa Pacific. The fact that this guy went there and then departed, that’s so sad. 

DAVID: It’s something very traumatic must have happened. I think so, but I’m sorry they didn’t pray for him. 

BOB: Yeah. Well, thank you so much, y’all. And remember to keep grace in focus. 

ANNOUNCER: Be our guest and subscribe to our 48-page magazine, 6 issues per year also called Grace in Focus. It’s free by emailing your name and snail mail address to GES@faithalone.org. That’s faithalone.org. Maybe you’ve got a question or comment or feedback. If so, please send us a message. Here’s our email address. It’s radio@faithalone.org. That’s radio@faithalone.org. And when you do, please make sure your question is as succinct and clear as possible. That would be a great big help.

On our next episode, God hates divorce, God prohibits divorce. Which is it? Looking forward to seeing you again, and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.