Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

I doubt that I have to convince you that evil exists.

Two years ago, I was in a South African township, and there I witnessed public, blatant human trafficking.

We had these two young boys that were dressed in rags and approached us, asking for milk and bread.

When we gave them the milk and bread, the gentlemen that we were with told us to watch where they took it, and we watched as they ran behind the store where they took it to pimps.

Back there, there were lined up more than a dozen young girls, none of whom could have hardly been out of of their teenage years with their hands behind their back standing in perfect attention as though they were in a military formation.

The South African government has done a study of these girls, and out of the girls they researched one hundred percent of them came back HIV positive.

These girls are targeted in impoverished townships, typically in abusive homes, and given at no charge strong, addictive drugs like heroine.

Then, the drugs are taken away from them with their only access being if they will agree to come to work for them.

It’s evil, and I saw it along with two other men in our church.

With everything inside of you, you want to run to them and fight and steal them away.

So, what do we, Christians, do about the question of evil?

Honestly, this very question led me to a crisis of faith a few years ago.

The question fleshed out goes like this:

If God is all-powerful, He is able to prevent evil.

If God is entirely good, He wants to prevent evil.

But, evil exists.

This is a big question, and big questions need big answers.

So, let’s go together to the word of God.

God’s Word

Read

God Rules It All

If I’m honest with you, from both a philosophical and a personal standpoint, I have trouble with the text that we just read.

It’s difficult for me.

From a philosophical standpoint, I want to exonerate God and excuse God from the evils I’ve seen.

I want to say that a good God will only want good to happen.

From a personal standpoint, it’s difficult for me to conceive of God’s control and approval of my own suffering and my own hardship.

And, so, if you’re like me, as much as this troubles me philosophically, it troubles me much more personally.

Because, I’ve experienced pain and evil, and people that I love have experienced pain and evil and suffering.

But, God, and this is God speaking in the first person here, does not seek to exonerate himself.

This is, frankly, a shocking passage, isn’t it?

Instead, He says, “There is only one God.

There is only one God by which everything was made to whom everything will answer, and it is me.

And, being the only God.

Being the supreme Ruler of the universe.

I am the Ruler of all.

I am the Ruler of the full spectrum of the human experience.

I make light and darkness.

I make well-being and calamity.

I do it all.

I rule it all.

I control it all.”

So, God says in a way that we cannot get around: I control everything good, and everything bad.

I control everything wonderful and everything terrible.

And, He contributes this to his being God, as this is what makes him God.

Take this control away from him, and He ceases to be God.

In fact, the word ‘calamity’ here is most often translated as ‘evil’ and can be translated as ‘wickedness’ or ‘disastrous.’

It’s the very worst Hebrew word you can use to describe something terrible, and God attributes it finally and ultimately to himself without need for exoneration and without fear of it compromising his character or goodness.

You might think to Job chapter one.

All seven of Job’s children die.

Job loses the entirety of his livelihood.

In an instance, calamity strikes Job’s life.

Job comes face to face with the evil of this world, and he went from wealthy and prosperous to bankrupt and lonely.

And, Job responds by saying, “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”

That is, even though Satan instigated this attack on Job as we see at the beginning of chapter one, Job ultimately attributed it to God himself.

And, maybe you’d think Job was wrong for doing that except that the very next verse says: “In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.”

You see, Job said that God was in control of it all, God was designing it all, God was ruling it all, and Job was right!

Job was not sinning against God by crediting God with something that seemed at the time so terrible.

God is Praiseworthy, but Not Culpable

But, this brings us to the big question, I think.

In his controlling of evil and ruling over evil and, we can even say ordaining evil, must we say that God is evil?

That is, if God designed the world knowing that evil would exist, or even that evil must exist, does that make him culpable and guilty for the evil that does exist?

This is why we need the entire Bible, and not just one verse.

If all you have is one verse, and I don’t care what that verse is, you are in danger of building a very dangerous, unbalanced theology.

And, if all you had was , and a couple of other passages like it, you could conceivably come away with an unbalanced and dangerous understanding that turns God into a moral monster, just like others turn God into a feel good hippy because of their focus on only a few verses.

But, God has given us the full counsel of his word through which He has revealed himself.

And so, we have to read and this difficult question of evil in the context of the entire revelation of God.

And, it’s within that revelation that I think we begin to get a clearer, firmer grasp on God’s relationship with evil.

“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is not darkness at all.”

Listen to what it says in : “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” God is all light and no darkness.

That is, that God is all good, and not evil!

God may control both good and evil as we see in , but God is good and not evil.

Darkness and light cannot coexist.

So, it is unacceptable to say that evil exists in God or that any motive of God or attitude of God is evil.

For ‘in him is no darkness at all.’ God is in no way evil and has no sinister motive or component whatsoever.

God controls both good and evil, but God is good and not evil.

God Permits Evil for Greater Good

So, why?

Why would an entirely good and an entirely powerful God ordain evil that He could have prevented to come into this world?

Now, I’m going to tell you on the front end that this isn’t an entirely intellectually satisfying answer, but no worldview has one, and I would defy you to find a worldview that has a better one.

But, here is my premise and then, we’re going to unpack this together: God permits evil because its existence brings about greater good to his people and greater glory to his Name.

That is, God being entirely good and the source of all good will only permit evil that serves good and accomplishes good, which He can ensure because He controls it all.

This is how and come together!

He ordains all calamities, yet no darkness is in him at all.

Joseph

God gives Joseph a dream of his brothers bowing down to him.

God gives Joseph a dream of his brothers bowing down to him.

Joesph tells his family, and his brothers get jealous.

Joesph tells his family, and his brothers get jealous.

His brothers plan to kill him.

Reuben, the oldest, won’t let them.

They throw him into a pit.

His brothers plan to kill him.

Reuben won’t let them.

They throw him into a pit.

Reuben goes away.

They sell him into slavery.

Reuben goes away.

They sell him into slavery.

Joseph prospers in slavery to become head of the estate.