Sermon: "Why is there evil?"

Fourth in the "Real Questions" series.
Delivered September 4, 2005 by Rev. George Antonakos.
Other sermons in this series - 1 / 2 / 3 / 4

Theme: Why does evil occur in the lives of God's people? While there are no easy answers, this sermon, based on key verses from the Book of Job tries to help us put the mystery of suffering into perspective.

The audio file of this sermon is available for download and listening in MP3 format.

Click to Download & Listen (4.0MB)

I got an email this week from a friend up in Paoili, and some of you if you were here for the installation service last Sunday may remember Bob Zinc. He is an elder there, and he came and read a passage of scripture and said some nice things that I paid him to say. And he just sent me an email just a few days ago, and it was a very sad email where he mentions a high school classmate of his daughter who was in a very bad car accident two weeks ago. Her two daughters were in the car with her, a four-year-old and a two-year old. The two-year-old was killed and the driver, the mother, has sustained severe brain damage and is in a coma. The four-year-old escaped without a scratch. And then he asks this as a prayer request and this prayer request would apply not only to them, but to everything we see this past week in the news. Please pray not only for recovery, but for the entire family as they deal with the terrible tragedy of losing a two-year old and the long struggle they face during the physical, emotional, and psychological healing process.

We look at this kind of thing or we hear about this kind of suffering and if you want to call it evil, call if evil. One person said that evil is really nothing other than a privation of a good thing that God has intended for us. Something good that has gotten twisted and there is a lot of evil and a lot of sources of evil; the human heart being one of them. Love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. The Bible says it's evil to put God out of the equation and say I am going to do this tomorrow and do that next week. James says all such boasting is evil. So that leaves God out. But we look at these kinds of things and we say, why? And ultimately the real answer to that is we don't know. We don't fully know why and we may never know why until eternity. But God is in charge. God is in control and it's again not coincidental, I don't think that this message is being given in the aftermath of everything we have seen and all the suffering that continues and the anniversary of 9/11 which is this coming Sunday. This coming Sunday at 9:10 in the morning will be the fourth anniversary of 9/11 and the tragedy of that day.

One thing that many of us think is that we would never desire the suffering of our children. We wouldn't want to put them through anything difficult or harsh that we say, "Well why God are you allowing the suffering of your children?" Again, we can rationalize it. We can say well, it's the human heart. It's the people that have gone their own independent way and it's true that so much suffering comes because of people not obeying God and not walking with Christ. But ultimately it's a difficulty because God could stop evil. God could change it. God could make it go away, but we live in a cause and effect universe and storms happened and stuff happens and we don't know quite why. And there are no tidy answers. There are no easy answers. I mean to sit there and try to say to somebody who's lost everything, "Well, its God will" or something like that, that is unspeakably cruel and difficult. But for insight, even though we don't have answers for insight, we can turn to the Book of Job and to a story that plums the depth of human despair. It reflects anger and moral outrage and the anguish of an apparent desertion by God. But because this is so challenging of a topic and because there are no easy answers, I would like to ask you to pray with me and for me. Okay? Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for your love and grace. We thank you for the scriptures which are written for our instruction, so that we might have encouragement and hope, and so we ask that your Spirit would open our minds to understand what it is you are trying to tell us in these days and call us to and we ask it in Christ's name. Amen.

We can't read the whole Book of Job, of course, but I would like to read a few selected passages in the first couple of chapters and then one at the end and we will start with the first three verses of the Book of Job. It says:

"In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East."

So right off the bat we see in the Book of Job, the main character is a righteous man in spiritual language. He is a person who trusts God, who fears God, who reveres God upright. He is morally straight. He shunned evil. It doesn't mean that he just walked away from evil; he actually rejected evil in his life. He was a person that followed God, as well as anybody could follow God and he is in a way portrayed as a very unique individual in the beginning parts of the book. He is prosperous. He is well known. He is wise. He is reverent uniquely. It says that Job feared God and because Job fears God so much, and reverences God so much, it sets up the tension of the whole story, because you know the story and we are about to read part of it where everything goes wrong. Now, for a person who doesn't believe that God is good and God is sovereign and in control of all things, there really isn't much of attention. I mean if you are a dias, which means that oh yeah you believe in God, but he kind of launched things and you know like the watchmaker he wound up the watch, but then he just is going to go off somewhere and let it run down and whatever happens happens. There is not as much tension. If you are an Atheist, there is no God. Well there is no tension and this just happens and if you are an Agnostic, you are not sure, then well who knows. But somebody who says I believe God, I believe that God is in control, that God is sovereign, that God is someone who desires our good there is tension. Because why? Why do these things happen? So Job, like Genesis doesn't explain anything apart from the belief that God is, and that God is to be revered and God is to be honored and God is to be followed. Paul said it this way, that we pray to the one who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will. He works out everything in conformity to the purpose of his will. And this comes out very clearly after we move down in to Verse 6.

"One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, (this is the heavenly council) and Satan (that means the adversary) also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, "What are you doing here?" (That's really the translation). "What are you doing here, you do not belong here among this group." So it kind of comes out "Where do you come from."

Now do you think God knew? I think it's kind of like that question to Adam, "Where are you?" I mean God knew, but it's like what are you doing here, you are in contrast to this whole reality. And Satan says,

"From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it." Then the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job?"

It's interesting that God raises the topic, right? Not the devil.

"There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."

This verse is so important because it reinforces the second verse. That in God's own thinking, as he thinks about Job it's the same thing as the way he describes it. He is a good man in my eyes. He is a righteous person. He is somebody who walks with me and there is no evil really found in it. I can't really detect anything so to speak. This is really important because it addresses our human propensity when faced with evil or suffering to ask questions like "Well what did I do to deserve this?" When things happen that are really negative it's very easy to say, what did I do? Or we can say, what did I do to cause this? Sometimes we take on that kind of thinking. And then we also can turn it around and we can say, "You know what? I think we know the cause. I think New Orleans got blasted because it was such a sinful place." I mean I know I kind of thought that in my head, but I tell you we are skating on thin ice when we start to say those kinds of things, because we don't know the mind of God and if that were true then there would be a lot of other places that should be blasted as well. So we need to be very very careful.

I remember slipping down the steps in January and rupturing my disc and I have got a lot of pain and discomfort around that and from time to time there is a part of me that says, "Lord what's up with this? What are you doing?" I said it to somebody last week, " How does a ruptured disc and Romans 8:28 go together?" I mean how is God going to take this and work it together toward good, I don't know. I have no idea. I can say that I have avoided surgery and I think with your prayer I am getting better. I actually swung a golf club last week and I couldn't believe it, that it didn't hurt. I mean, I don't know how that is all going to work out. But sometimes things happen. Sometimes people slip down steps and hurricanes happen and yet God somehow in the mystery of it all can take these things and turn them.

Other religions like Hinduism believe in Karma, that all bad things happen due to sin in this life or a previous one. That's why people in India for the longest time never fought to relieve suffering because then you kind of get in the way of that whole Karma thing. But you don't have to be a Hindu to believe in that. All you have to do is go to John, Chapter 9 in the Gospels and there you see a question asked of Jesus himself. "Lord, who sinned? This man or his parents, that he should be born blind? Who sinned?" And Jesus said, "Neither". Jesus didn't give a glib answer and say it was because of his... he said as a matter of fact it was neither one. This man is the way he is so that the works of God may be manifest through him. Another time in Luke 13 people came up to Jesus and talked about a current event that was very tragic, how Pilate was offering sacrifices and he slew some people and he mixed their blood in with the sacrifices that he offered and then Jesus quite unsolicited said, "Well wait a minute, did you hear about the Tower of Siloam that fell on 18 people and killed them all?" And he said, "Do you think that these people were worse sinners than all the other people in Jerusalem because this fate happened to them?" See, he specifically disconnected, he specifically disconnected the sinfulness from the event. In fact, if you continue to read through Job you will see that God chastises Job's friends because that's exactly the counsel that he was being given or they were giving to Job. Job it's because you have sinned, just repent. Job said, "I have not." And there in again lies the tension of the book.

Pastor John quoted Max Lucado at a funeral yesterday and basically the quote was this that "God's purpose is not to make us happy, but to make us His, even if he has to use suffering to achieve it." What we see in these passages from the New Testament and from this kind of thing of tying sin with suffering, it's like human always have a means or a way or something about us that causes us to look backward and try to find reason. Whereas, God looks forward toward a goal. "I want you to repent. Unless you repent you will likewise perish" Jesus said. This thing happened to this fine man because the works of God are going to be realized at the end and something good is going to come out of it.

So we come to Job, Chapter 1, verses 9 to 12. Satan says to God, "Does Job fear God for nothing?" Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has?" See this is the reverse of the argument that we were just talking about. He believes in you and blesses you because you have made it so easy for him to do."

"You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face." The Lord said to Satan, "Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger."

See how God limits, God allows this far no further.

"Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and everything went wrong."

But we see that the Lord is in control even though we don't understand it. The adversary sends marauders and he sends fire from heaven and more invaders and a mighty wind leaving everything that Job owns and every relative and servant gone. And then we come to 1:20.

"At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head in signs of grief and mourning and then he fell to the ground in worship and said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. I am creature, not creator. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing."

His opinion of God did not change even though his world did. He did not sin by saying to God you are wrong for doing this. He did not bring God down to his level. And he proclaimed that all he enjoyed was a gift and that God could do with it as he pleased. So Job teaches us not only about avoiding blame and being careful about assigning blame, he also teaches us about the nature of blessing.

Let's say somebody in your neighborhood, on your block, just got the idea of putting $500 in your doorway on the 1st day of every week. Everybody in your neighborhood. You just got a special neighborhood and every Sunday, every first day $500 in your doorway, every week. You don't know how it got there. You don't know who did it. Nobody could figure it out, it just happened. The neighbors are a buzz. This is awesome and this goes on for exactly 12 months. At the end of the 12th month it stops. It's just not there anymore. The neighbors are a buzz again. You know what they are saying this time, "Hey where's the money. This guy's got a lot of nerve to stop giving us all this money. We've come to depend on it and rely on it. Where is he? I can't believe it".

Isn't that right, that's the way we are that we think the blessing that we have are just entitlements, but the Bible says that everything we have, everything we own, you know what the Bible says that the breath of our life is in the palm of Gods hand and if God were to close his hand, that's it. We are creature, not creator. We are the ones who are dependent and God in his plan, his sovereign plan has chosen to create and bless and give and everything is a gift. Paul said it in the Epistles. "What do you have that you haven't received?" "Then why do you go about acting as though you hadn't received it?" It's a gift. Everything is a gift. Now that doesn't really help us with the pain and feeling of difficulty and being disconcerted when we see these suffering, but Job said, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be his name." In other words, he can do whatever he wants to do.

I wish we had time to go to Psalm 73, but we don't. I would encourage you to use Psalm 73 as your devotion this week, because there you will see the Psalmist deals with the same issues, why do the evil prosper? Why do good people suffer? And he goes on to say that God alone is enough for me.

Well, Chapter 2 in Job gets a little bit tighter and tougher and it's more of the same. The conversation happens again with God and Satan and the limits are changed and now God allows the adversary to afflict Job physically. Skin for skin. Yeah, he didn't curse you this time, but if make him suffer physically, then he will do it. Until we get all the way to Job, Chapter 2 in verses 9 and 10 to add misery upon misery those closest to him say,

"His wife said to him, "Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!" He replied, "You are talking like a foolish [a] woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" In all this, Job did not sin in what he said."

The word trouble here is Hebrew word "Ra" and it's translated as adversity, calamity, disaster, evil, distress, misery, injury and hurt in different places in the Bible. But one thing that Job did do even though he didn't curse God, he did challenge God in the rest of the book. And the three friends and Job they are back and forth, back and forth about why all of this is happening and Job laments and agonizes over his pain and problems and that's one way that we deal with suffering and we are called to deal with suffering in the Bible. It's okay to tell God how we feel. God welcomes it. One of those questions that we often ask when we are suffering is why doesn't God do something about this? Why doesn't God stamp out all evil? You don't' really want that, do you? Do you really want God to eradicate all evil? Let's say that God eradicated all evil at midnight tonight, how many of us would be standing at 12:01? None of us. None of us. If God stamped out all evil, he would have to stamp out all the evil that runs through our hearts.

Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday were talking about this and Friday says, "You say God is so strong, so great, has he not as much strong, as much might as the devil? Yes, yes, says I. Friday, God is much stronger than the devil. But if God was strong, says Friday, much might as the devil, why God no kill the devil and so make him do no more wicked. You may well ask says Crusoe, why has God not killed you and me when we do wicked things that offend him? Because God is merciful and just. He sends his reign on the good and evil alike. He has compassion like a father has compassion on his children and he has not dealt with us according to the way our sins deserve according to our iniquities said the Psalmist. God is not distant or aloof. God is not far removed from his people, but he comes and he carries his people in his arms. He heard the suffering in Egypt and he sent a deliverer. He saw Daniel in the lion's den. He saw Joseph in the pit. His sovereign hand lifted them out of their misery and brought glory to his name.

We think about those people who are suffering in the Gulf Coast and God is right there with his arms wrapped around them and you know what, expressing it through people like you. So many people, so much help is coming and God will bring glory and his name. This is so the works of God might be manifested and that people might find their way to his bosom. Now here's the puzzling thing and here's the crux or the core of the mystery. Try to keep your head around this one. Only God, first of all, only Jesus can take on the suffering of the world and not be crushed by it. So that's why we have to stay close to him. But only God can transform evil in to good so that in retrospect and only in retrospect, only in looking back does it seemed to have actually been good without the diminishing of the actuality of evil. In other words, in Genesis 50:20 Joseph says to his brothers, "What you intended for evil" and when they put him in the pit and when they harmed him and were almost going to kill him, that was wrong, that was evil. God didn't necessarily put them up to that, that's the mystery, that the evil is still evil and they are responsible, but he said "What you intended for evil, God intended for good." God somehow took it and turned it around so that all these people who would have died in the famine are not going to die in a famine. I don't understand it, but that's the mystery of God; that he takes even those evil things and he turns them for his purposes.

Helmut Thielick said, "If you look at a piece of fabric under a magnifying glass, you look at that real close, the middle is clear, the edges are blurry." We know that edges really aren't blurry, it's because they look blurry, but we know that they are clear because of what we see right in the middle. And he said, "Life is like that fabric." There are many blurred edges that come in the form of events that we don't understand, but they are to be interpreted by the clarity that we see at the center and at the center is the cross. At the center is the Lord Jesus entering into the suffering of his people. One person put it glibly and maybe somewhat irreverently, but God has played by the rules of his own game and has entered into our suffering and taken our sin in his body on the tree, and we aren't left to guess about God's goodness from isolated edges of data. He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. How shall he not with him freely give us all things? God never asked us to fully understand. In fact, if we fully understood, and I know you have heard this a million times, where would faith be? And so at the end of Job, if you turn to Job 42, we will get right to the end and we will finish this up. Job 42. The very end of the book. That's where this book goes. God finally asked Job probably five dozen questions, all with the same answer. The same answer is I don't know. Where were you when I stretched out the universe? Where were you? Can you walk on the depths of the sea? Can you figure out how a fawn has its young? Can you figure out how it survives? Can you do that? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. God says, "Exactly" And Job says, "I am sorry" and that's where 42 is.

"I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know."

Verse 5: "My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have see you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes."

One commentator said you know if Job was upright, then what was he repenting of? He didn't think he was repenting of a particular sin, what he was repenting of was an attitude that says I have to understand God before I believe in him, before I keep following him. It's got to all make sense to me for me to trust him and not take what we already know, the sufficient amount of knowledge that we already have to believe that he's got our good in mind. Kids can't explain why we take them to get immunization shots. We can't explain that to them when they are little, but we do it for their good. Not a great analogy, but it helps a little. Here's the bottom line. The Lord will remove all evil because he has fully met the problem head on in a gift of himself and that's the gift that we celebrate today. The consequence of evil in the human heart is removed forever when we embrace the Lord Jesus. When we embrace the Lord Jesus in his pain and suffering and we take into our bodies his death, we are assured that one day there will be no more mourning, there will be no more crying, there will be no more pain, there will be no more tears. That's the hope that we have and that's the hope that we proclaim as we gather around this table. And so we do that very thing in trust and in faith.

I, as representative of the Lord in this place today, invite all of you who trust in God's grace to come and to find comfort and nourishment for your soul and strength for your heart by proclaiming and acknowledge again, and participating in the oneness and the union of Jesus in a visible way. Somehow, something happens here that doesn't happen just in another context. We are made one with God and one with each other and we are reminded of that, that we are strengthened. And so all who trust in his grace, all who bank their hope on Jesus alone are welcome to this table and if you are not sure about it, if you don't know for sure, I encourage you today to just trust the Lord and just believe it to help you and even in the midst of your confusion say, "Lord Jesus come. Make me one of yours."

Let's pray. Lord, we give you thanks that those who come to you you will no wise cast out, that you love us with an everlasting love, that you created the whole world and called it good, that you sent the Lord Jesus as good shepherd even when we went astray, each to our own way and laid upon him the iniquity of us all by his strife's we were healed. We thank you that he has come to seek and to save that which is lost and that you gather us into your arms as the good shepherd. We thank you that he is still a friend to sinners that he has dealt with evil as much as we can understand in his own life and death and resurrection and ascension to glory and one day he will come again to make all things right. Until that day Lord, we proclaim that you are God and that there is no other and that you alone are sovereign and live with the inconsistencies of that reality from a logical perspective rather than believing that there is no one there to hear our prayers. Yet this is something that we have not manufactured in our own life Lord, but something that you have worked in us by the Holy Spirit and by that same Spirit we pray that you would come upon us and these elements so that they might be to us nothing other or less than the body and blood of Jesus as we partake in faith. We ask it in your holy name. Amen.

© 2005, Rev. George Antonakos
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org