Sometimes some of you or other
people will ask me about a specific subject, or will ask that I consider
preaching on a specific subject, and while I may appear not to
pay any attention to it, that's very seldom. I try to seek the
mind of God in the appropriate time. Some time ago I was asked
to bring a message on the problem of evil. And that's a subject
I probably would not have chosen personally, but it was a subject
from which I could not escape. And my mind has been coming back
to it for several weeks now, for several months really. I
wrote an article in the bulletin a couple of weeks ago dealing
with it that sort of would prepare the way for the message this
evening. But I want us to begin this evening over in the book
of Isaiah. Hold your hands in Isaiah chapter
45, and I want to talk to you the best I can about this very
perplexing problem. The fact that evil is in this
world is a fact that believers struggle with continually. The
fact that evil, sin, corruption, depravity is in our hearts. is even more painful than the
evil that is in the world. We recognize that there is evil. We recognize that God Almighty
in his wise and good providence has brought things to pass as
he has, and yet we understand. The scriptures are explicit and
clear. That God is not the author of sin. God does not compel any
man to do anything corrupt, morally evil, or wrong. We understand
that. And at the same time, we understand
that God rules everything. He has purposed all things that
come to pass. And so without any effort to
satisfy the curiosities of our flesh, without any effort to
pry into things that are not revealed, we simply bow before
our God, we acknowledge God is light, we're darkness. He's wisdom,
we're ignorance. He knows all things and we know
nothing as it ought to be known. So we simply bow to the revelation
of God in Holy Scripture. And yet there are some things
clearly revealed for our learning, clearly revealed to teach us
to worship him even as we behold the evil that is around us. We begin in Isaiah chapter 45. I want you to see what God himself
says about himself. In this way, he declares who
he is and makes himself known with distinction and superiority
above all the gods that men have invented. Isaiah 45 and verse
5. God says, I am the Lord, and
there is none else. There is no God beside me. Now, this is what he said. He
said, there's no God like me. And there's no God sitting up
here on my throne with me. I am God alone. I girded thee,
though thou hast not known me, that they may know from the rising
of the sun and from the west that there is none beside me. I am the Lord. There is none
else. Now listen to how he describes
his absolute infinite superiority to every man's opinion of who
and what God is. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things. All right, turn back to Psalm
76, Psalm chapter 76, the 76th Psalm and verse 10. When we read God declaring, I
make peace and create evil, he doesn't bother to tell us whether
he is talking about moral evil or social evil, or whether he's
talking about the physical evil that comes as a result of his
judgments in providence with tornadoes, earthquakes, floods,
wars, and such like. He simply declares that he's
God over everything. Here in Psalm 76 in verse 10,
the psalmist says, surely the wrath of man shall praise thee. What? The wrath of man shall
praise thee. The remainder of wrath wilt thou
restrain. Now there's only one reasonable
understanding of that text of scripture. I can't think of any
way to explain that text of scripture except this. The Lord God here
declares to us by the inspired psalmist that all the evil men
do In their enmity against God, in their wrath against God Almighty,
all that men do with their fists shoved square in God's face with
an attempt to shove God off His throne and take over as gods
themselves, God's going to use for His praise. And the evil that men would do,
that God will not use for His praise, He won't let them do.
No, we're talking about God. We're talking about God. This
is clear and plain as the nose on your face. All things are
of God, no exceptions. In the light of those things,
it seems obvious to me that God has chosen to bring things to
pass as he has. because it would not have been
possible for him to so gloriously reveal the perfections of his
being as they are now revealed in Christ in any other way. Had he never permitted sin to
enter the world, we could never have known his justice in punishing
sin. Had he never allowed evil to
exist, we could never have known his wisdom in overruling evil. Had sin never entered the world,
we would never have known the goodness of God in forgiving
sin and pardoning sin in our own lives and experiences. Had
there never been any wickedness in God's creation, we would never
have seen the power of God overruling the wickedness for his glory
and our good. All things are of God. And all
things work together for good to them that love God, to them
who are the called according to his purpose. That includes
all things. All things. The presence of sin
in God's universe is either according to God's will or it's contrary
to it. You've got to live with one of
those two things. You just got to live with one of them. Either
sin's here because God has willed it, or it's here because God
can't prevent it. One of the two. What are you
going to take? I, God, rule. And there's nothing here in heaven,
earth, or hell that God doesn't rule absolutely. Our God is in
the heavens. Whatsoever the Lord pleased,
that did he in heaven above, in the earth, in the seas, and
in all deep places. The fact is that our father Adam
sinned and fell in the garden, and sin entered into the world
by him. as one of the many countless
links necessary to the incarnation, birth, life of obedience, and
death of Jesus Christ as our substitute, so that Christ himself
ascends up to the throne of glory and sits on the throne of glory
as a man, as a result of what happened back yonder in the garden.
That's exactly right. To suggest, as many ignorantly
do, That the fall was not at all purposed by God. That somehow
God was unable to prevent it. That somehow Adam's sin snuck
up on his backside when he had a blind eye turned and sin came
into the world somehow by accident. is to suggest that the incarnation,
the birth of Christ, the life of Christ, the death of Christ,
the resurrection of Christ, and the salvation of God's elect
were all matters of blind fate, luck, chance, or some other blasphemous,
idolatrous, God-despising notion. The fact is all evil in God's
creation exists only by the will and purpose of God for the everlasting
glory of his own great name and the eternal good of his people. Let me show you three things
from the scriptures. I won't be long and I won't be
complicated. I want to be perfectly clear.
I want you to see what I'm saying and I want you to worship the
God of all grace. Number one. The evil that's in
God's universe is here by God's purpose, God's design, God's
decree, and God's wisdom. It's not here by accident. I
know that religious infidels, people who imagine that they
are smarter, wiser, and holier than God, hoot and holler and
get all bent out of shape when they hear things like that, but
that's just the way it is. Let them hoot and holler. It
does not matter whether we talk about moral evil, social evil,
physical evil, or evil under any other name. It's either here
by accident or by purpose. Either God rules it or he's ruled
by it. There's no alternative. The book
of God tells us plainly. It tells us plainly that our
God is in control, absolute control of everything. People readily
ascribe to some degree, though they certainly don't absolutely
do so, people readily ascribe blessings to God. The child's born and even the
man and woman who has no profession of faith at all says, oh, what
a blessing from the Lord. How good. And God takes the child. And people say, well, God didn't
do that. People readily ascribe a bountiful harvest to God's
goodness. God did that. But if God sends
drought, as he did this summer, and the farmer who bought cattle,
bought feeder calves in early spring was feeding them hay in
July, they were, oh, that's a terrible thing. Devil did that. God Almighty
rules everything. And everything comes to pass
exactly according to God's purpose. When God sends a morning dew
and he sends the gentle rain and he causes everything to flourish
and go well, that's God's hand. And when God sends a tidal wave
and destroys a nation, that's God's hand. God rules everywhere. Well, what about moral evil?
Let's see. You remember in 1 Samuel 16,
when David is running from his son Absalom, fleeing for his
life, and Saul's son Shimei saw his chance. Cowardly men always
do. They saw, he saw his chance and
he says, now! But David's on the run, I got
him. God's gonna get you now. And he came out cussing him.
I mean cussing him for everything he was worth. And David, serving
a bishop, came over. He said, let me go over and lift
his head off his shoulders. That meant let me kill him. And
David said, you leave him alone. For the Lord said to Shammai,
curse David. That's what David said about
him. And he said, perhaps, I don't know. I don't know why God did
this. I don't know why Shema's out
here doing this. I don't know why he's behaving like this,
but perhaps the Lord will requite me good for his cussing today. Oh, now that's faith. That's
faith, Gary. When David was in Saul's court,
King Saul, that wicked, wicked man, That wicked man who pretended
to be, and claimed to be, and thought himself to be a great
servant of God. Often an evil spirit came on
Saul. And sometimes, well, David would
be sitting in Saul's court. He's sitting there before the
king, playing his harp, singing Amazing Grace. And Saul would
grab his javelin and try to kill him. Oh, what a horrible thing. You know what God says that was?
God says an evil spirit from the Lord came on Saul. That's
what God says about it. You mean God directed that? God
directed that. Turn over to Isaiah 14. Make what you want to of Lucifer.
Say what you will about Lucifer. But here in Isaiah 14, Lucifer
is described, that great, great being created by God. in his
pride and loftiness, saying, I will ascend to the throne of
the Most High God. I'm going to take over the God
business. I'm going to be God. I'm going to be God myself. I'm
going to push God right off his throne. And this is how God responded
to Satan's pride. Look at verse 24. The Lord of
hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely As I have fought, so shall it
come to pass. And as I have purposed, so shall
it stand. Look at verse 26. This is the
purpose. This is no accident. You read
it in Revelation chapter 12, when the man-child is born, the
dragon standing there ready to devour the man-child. He says,
this is the purpose that's purposed upon the whole earth. And this
is the hand that's stretched out upon all the nations, for
the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? His
hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back? Hear the
word of God. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil. Now, turn back to Genesis chapter
2. Genesis chapter 2. Let's see what happened in the
garden. God created the heaven and the earth. God created man,
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and set him in
the garden. And this is what God said to him. Genesis chapter
2, verse 17. He said, Adam, look here. Look at what I made. Look at
it. See the trees? See the rivers? See the heavens
above? See the earth beneath your feet?
See the beast of the field, see the creeping things on the earth.
You see them? You see them? It's all yours, buddy. It's all
yours. You can have it all. Just one
thing I require. You constantly acknowledge that
I'm God. You constantly acknowledge that
I'm God. So right here's a tree. Right
here's a tree. Don't eat it. One tree. Everything else is yours, but
this one tree. It's the symbol of me being God
and your subjection to me. Now look at what it says, verse
17. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt
not eat of it. Four. Four. That's not there by accident.
In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Isn't
it amazing? He didn't say, if you eat this
tree now, buddy, you're gonna die. He didn't say, now Adam,
Adam, if you decide not to go along with my purposes, and you
eat of this forbidden fruit, you're gonna die. He said, in
the day you eat of it, you're gonna die. You see, the fall
of our father Adam, was by divine design. It was not accidental. It was not. We see it pictured
in the first chapter of Genesis. In Genesis chapter 1 verse 1,
in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. God
created the heaven and the earth. He created it beautiful, perfect. And something happened. And the
earth was. Now that word was is translated
almost everywhere else in the Bible, became. And the earth
became without form and void. Something happened to God's creation. I don't know what, but something
happened to it. And darkness was upon the face of the deep.
Now Skip Gladfelter, that's you and me. God created man upright
with light, holiness, righteousness, a brightness of heart, a brightness
of character. And we fail in the potter's hands,
but still fail, and darkness engulfed us. And then God comes
in his restoring grace, and the Spirit of God moved upon the
face of the waters, and God said, let there be light, and there
was light. And so thus, in the very beginning,
by God's work of creation, by the ruin of the world, and the
restoration of the world, God declares what he's going to do
with us. Man, created in God's image and likeness, plunged into
sin and darkness and depravity, corruption, curse, and condemnation,
but God comes and gives light, life, and salvation. as the federal head of all men
was designed by God to be a type and picture, as well as the preparation
for the redemption of God's elect by Christ, our covenant head,
our covenant surety, our federal representative. Turn back one
more time to Romans chapter 5. Let me show you this. Romans
chapter 5. In this passage, the Spirit of
God is telling us how the love of God is shed abroad in our
hearts by the Holy Spirit. He's telling us how that God
manifest his love toward us. And while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. He's telling us how that God
has given us life eternal by the hope of glory in Jesus Christ
who made blood atonement for our sins and reconciled us to
God. Now look in verse 12. Wherefore,
wherefore, Isn't that a strange way to begin this sentence? No.
In order that God show us his great love in Christ the substitute. In order that God accomplish
his purpose of grace toward us in Christ the last Adam. In order
that God show us his great glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death
by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Now look at verse 18, therefore. Therefore, since that's the way
we got to be sinners, this is how we're going to get to be
righteous. As by the offense of one, judgment came upon all
men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one,
the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For
as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by
the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Let me see
if I can show you the title. Adam, when he sinned, knew exactly
what he was doing. That's what the book says. Eve was deceived, not Adam. He
went into this thing, David, with his eyes wide open. He knew
exactly what he was doing. He knew that when he took that
fruit from Eve's hands, he was about to plunge himself
and all his race into wrath and sin and death and condemnation. And our Lord Jesus Christ, the
last Adam, when he came into this world, knew full well what
he was about to do. He was about to be made sin for
us. He was about to plunge himself
into sin and wrath and death and condemnation. Well, why did
Adam do it? Why did he do it? Because he
loved Eve. He loved that woman. He loved
that woman. And the Lord Jesus Christ, the
last Adam, was made to be sin for us by his own voluntary will,
because he loved his church and gave himself for it. What Adam did, he did as a representative
man. And what Jesus Christ, the last
Adam, did, he did as a representative man. So that when Adam sinned,
he was typical of, and a picture of, Christ's obedience unto death. That by which we were made sinners
was in itself a prophecy of the way by which we would be made
righteous through the obedience of Christ. All right, here's
the second thing. All the sin and evil there is
in this universe is under God's absolute control, serving his
wise purpose for the glory of his name. You
say, Pastor, how can you explain that? I can't. I can't begin
to explain that. But let's see if it's not obvious
to you. You're familiar with the scriptures. Look at some
of those things that are most commonly known in the scriptures.
Some of those common events that are recorded in the scriptures.
Everybody knows about them. Everybody. Everybody who's even
vaguely familiar with the Word of God knows about them. And
they demonstrate clearly God's absolute, absolute control over
all things, even the sin that men perform, while they themselves
are responsible for it. Now I'm going to tell you about
some of the most horrible crimes men have ever committed in the
world. Some of the most horrible things men have ever done. And
those men are responsible for what they did. God did not in
any way coerce them, force them, or make them do what they did
not want to do. They acted according to their
own will. And yet they fulfilled exactly what God had purposed
from eternity. Let's see what scripture says.
There's old brother Lott. God came to deliver him out of
Sodom, and Lot wasn't willing to go, but God took him, laid
hands on him, sent his angels to take him out. He was just
about out of the city, and Lot still wanted to stay right where
he was. He wanted to stay in that burning plane. And he said,
Lord, there's Zola. Let me go over there. All right,
Lot. I'll get you out of the fire.
Over there you are. And his daughters get him in a drunken stupor.
And he commits incest with them. And he has two nations to rise
up from his incestuous behavior. I can't think of anything more
despicable, can you? I can't think of anything in the world
more despicable than incest. Two cursed nations, the Ammonites
and the Moabites. Two cursed nations. But hang
on now, hang on. Was God in this? Did God control
it, buddy? One of Lot's daughters, her name
was Ruth. The great, great grandma, the
son of God, our savior. Oh yeah, this is in God's purpose.
Well, we can't blame Lot. Oh yes we do. Oh, yes. Lot has no excuse for his behavior.
His daughters have no excuse for their behavior. But God sits
on his throne and accomplishes his purpose. Joseph's brothers. Man, they despised him. And if
I misjudge this, my brother Joseph will forgive me. But I suspect
Joseph kind of contributed to it. Joseph, you know, was kind
of like us. His daddy looked on him as his
favorite son. And I tell you what, if I had
a house full of brothers and my daddy looked at me and bragged
on me all the time, my brothers would never cease to hear about
it. They'd know it every day. One day, Joseph's daddy made
him a coach like none of his brothers had. The man fixed him
up with a hard shaft and a mock suit. And his brother's standing
out there in Walmart clothes. And Joseph said, look here what
daddy made me. Look here what daddy made me. One of these days,
you fellas all want to bow down before me. God told me so. And
they said, we'll see about that. We'll kill you. And one of them
stepped in and said, no, don't kill him. Don't kill him. That's selling for slavery. Don't
kill him. And they sold him into slavery.
And he was finally taken down to Egypt. He was put in prison.
He was a faithful man in the midst of his most abject circumstances. And he was forgotten in prison. Until finally, Pharaoh had a
dream, and one of the fellows who was in prison with him, oh,
I remember Joseph. And Joseph is set on the throne
in Egypt. And his brothers finally come
around. Because famine has come in the land of Goshen. The children
of Israel are brought down to Egypt, where they must sojourn
for 400 years to typify redemption by Christ Jesus. Well, how are
they going to get there? How are they going to get there?
Joseph's sitting on the throne. And you know what Joseph said
to them? They thought he was going to kill them. He said,
fellas, y'all meant it for evil. God meant it for good, to save
much people alive. Their betrayal of their brother
set their brother on the throne where God purposed him to be.
David sinned with Bathsheba. In the matter of Uriah the Hittite,
horrible, horrible sin it is, murder and adultery. But David's sin with Bathsheba
gave us Solomon, beloved of the Lord, through
whom the Messiah, our King, Jesus Christ the Lord came into this
world. Judas' kiss betrayed the Son of God into the hands of
the Jews. Pilate's weakness delivered him
into the will of wicked men, and it was the will of God-hating
rebels that nailed Jesus Christ to the cursed tree, by which
he accomplished our redemption according to the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. Surely the wrath of man
shall praise thee, and the remainder of wrath wilt thou restrain." All the evil that is in this
world, all the evil there is in God's creation, is here by
the will of God, ruled by the hand of God, and will at last
bring forth praise to God. forever and will be one of the
multiplied sources of everlasting happiness for God's people in
heaven. You see, our God is God indeed. And one of these days, Bob, he's
going to put all Christ's enemies under his feet and ours. And I want to tell you something.
We look now, I look at myself, what I am. I look at the corruption of my
nature. I look at the hell that's in my heart. And my heart breaks for it. But
I want to tell you something. When God gets done, when he's
made all things new and he wipes all tears from our eyes, Lindsay,
among the redeemed, there'll be no regrets. He has done all things well. Amen. All right, let's sing a
hymn and endeavor to worship him who does all things well.