Sermon #1088 The Problem of Evil - Part 2

Sermon #1088 The Problem of Evil - Part 2 My respected friend and evangelist, Wayne McKamie, of the Johnson Drive Church of Christ in McGregor, TX, has published a book of sermons on the Parables of Jesus. Our message today, is part two of his sermon, The Problem of Evil, from this book edited because of time limitations. If you are ever in the Waco area, be sure to visit the congregation in McGregor. You watch Let the Bible Speak because you are not interested in human opinion in matters of eternal consequence; you book, chapter, and verse from the Bible. In your quest to live out God s will, we offer over three hundred videos, podcasts, and transcripts of Bible messages at LetTheBibleSpeak.com. We read in Matthew 13:24-28, The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, "Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?' He said to them, An enemy has done this.' Jesus is so emphatic about the enemy He calls him THE WICKED ONE. We must see Satan for what he is a serpent a devil a slanderer of God, and we should see him as he is. He is REAL today... An enemy active hostility toward God and everything that is good. Until somebody begins to sow the seed of the Kingdom, Satan has no problem. So unless we are sowing the seed of the Kingdom in various parts of the world, Satan won t worry about it. We have to sow seed and our Lord is saying that when we get busy, Satan gets busy. If you decide you are going to really do something for God you would like to be a Christian, you would like to begin serving the Lord you are going to get some opposition. If a congregation decides to really do something for God you are going to have some problems. And it should not come as any shock. Satan labors in a field that is not his. As the sunshine gets brighter, I promise you the shadows are going to get deeper. We are looking at a battle between right and wrong, between God and Satan, between all good and no good, between light and darkness. You and I are right in the middle of it. We are privileged to be in this great drama of human kind. And we are in a position just exactly as man was so long ago in the Garden of Eden. We have the capabilities of sinning, but there is a no reason why we should do so. Now notice, He said that after the enemy had sowed the seed the enemy went his way. How innocent Satan seems. He goes out and sows the noxious seed and walks off. The job s done. He doesn t need to do any more until it comes up. And the Scripture said, When the blade was sprung up, and it brought forth fruit, THEN appeared the tares also. Please notice, he did not say when the little blade came up, they knew it was a tare. No! And when the stalk began to grow, they still didn t know it was a tare, but when it began to BEAR fruit THEN they understood. Our Lord said, By their fruits you shall know them. Our Lord does not say we are known by the leaf, by the branch, but by their FRUITS you shall know them. It is true with evil, also. The beginning of evil is just barely discernible. James said in James 1:15, When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin. When this child is conceived, then the child of sin is born and when it is finished. Please notice, sin is progressive. When lust hath conceived not before but when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. 1

The Problem of Evil - Part 2 by Brett Hickey, sermon #1088 2 of 5 One of the greatest needs is simply to have men within our congregations who can discern evil before it s full grown. So many times We are not acting; we are reacting. Our Lord is saying that evil is not bad looking when it is little. A baby ANYTHING looks pretty good a baby frog is not bad looking just any little tiny thing looks pretty good. In fact, I suppose some of us looked pretty good when we were very small... And the Bible is saying that sin is born; and he says when it is little, it doesn t look too bad. That s why we so often hear, I don t see any problem with that. We need somebody who can see the end result. Ten years, fifteen years, twenty years from now how is that thing going to look? So our Lord is saying, When the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So it s a lesson in contrast. Our Lord is saying that in this field we have wheat and we have tares. All of us are one or the other. Now the servant of this householder came to the man and said, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? What happened? Remember the servants said, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? Now they had a solution Sir we know what to do. We ll get rid of these tares for you because we are your servants and we want to take care of this. What are they proposing? They are proposing violence. We re going to jerk them out! But immediately the Lord said, No! The spirit of these individuals so reminds us of the times in which we live. Today we may look at this and we say, They ought to have known better than that! But I ll tell you, there are times when we are tempted to root out the tares even today. I still see some situations that are repulsive, repugnant, abominable situations, and we think, those things need to go. It reminds me of Luke 9:54. James and John went down into a village of the Samaritans... It wasn t long until they came stomping back no wonder He called them the sons of thunder they came back and said, Lord wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them? The Samaritans didn t want Jesus to spend the night down there, and James and John didn t appreciate it a little bit. They said the thing to do with tares, Lord, is to root them out. Annihilate them. But Jesus rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. He said, The Son of man is not come to destroy men s lives, but to save them. I still feel a little of the spirit of James and John when I sometimes see some of the situations that exist in the world in which we live. When I see parents who have worked to teach their kids to be honest and to be decent and to be good and then down the way someone is waiting to push across a polished bar a drink to that young man or young lady caring less about his soul, but simply what he can get out of him. Or, when you see the person standing over on the periphery of the school ground pushing his drugs to our young people; or you read about children being forced into prostitution; or homosexuality defended by men claiming to be Christians. These are times in which we, like these people of old say, Lord, there some things that need to be gathered out. Why, if indeed this is your world, Father, why are things like these going on? It s not just in the realm of morals that occurs either. People are teaching some things that are amazing. I sat in a class of sixty young men some years ago who were going out to become the preachers of a leading denomination. I couldn t believe that man said the Red Sea was not a Sea This was in what was supposedly a southern orthodox institution. The Red Sea is not a Sea indeed the walls did not pile up on either side, and they didn t go through on dry ground, and they weren t baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea! It was just a marshy place, and they just walked over. He didn t bother to explain how the Egyptians were drowned in that place! The walls of Jericho never were! That reminds me of a painting I saw some time ago by Bruegel He shows the picture of some poor French peasants who were walking along looking straight ahead through unseeing eyes they were blind. They were following a man and this is what makes it so pathetic the man they 2

The Problem of Evil - Part 2 by Brett Hickey, sermon #1088 3 of 5 were following was blind, too and they were all headed for a ditch. He was illustrating what Jesus said, that if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. We are living in the times of the blind leading the blind. Let both grow together until the harvest. Our Lord is saying that we will not use force. If we ever gain a victory, it will be a moral victory. I remember in school when I was introduced to the Holy Crusades, I used to wonder, What s holy about the crusades? Nothing! You hear about the Christians fighting so and so it wasn t the Christians I promise you. We cannot use force. Let me put it this way, you can destroy the seed, but once it becomes a tare, He said let it alone. The law of the Master, Let both grow together until the harvest. Let me give you another reason our own unworthiness. If we were to proceed to root out all the tares, where would we start? Ah! I know where to start! Somewhere across the ocean. There are still people who walk down to the Ganges River and throw their first born to the crocodiles to appease the anger of an idol god, and we say that has to be stopped. That can t go on! But you don t have to go over there. If we want to talk about simply rooting out all tares, we don t have to walk out the door. You see, if all the Jonah s shall be cast overboard, we can start here and cast the first stone. But one of the best reasons tares can become wheat. Now biologically that isn t possible, so you say you have a flaw in this matter. No! That s not true in the world, but it s true. Why? Because we are not trying to reform men, we are not just trying to put people in a good environment that alone doesn t change people. We are talking about rebirth being born again! So tares can become wheat. If I had been living in the days of the early church, I could have gotten some of the brethren together and said, Look, brethren, we need to root out some tares We need to get rid of Saul of Tarsus. But what a mistake that would have been! That tare became wheat! He became one of the greatest preachers that ever walked the face of the earth. Who knows when an individual has crossed the line and cannot be recalled: only the Master knows. He is saying please stay out of my field. In fact, He gives His reason. He says, Lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat. Let Both Grow Together Until the Harvest The Lord has a real concern for His people. He doesn t want his people pulled up He who notes the fall of the sparrow is so much concerned about us. He loves you, and He says Please don t walk over my people; please don t pull my people up. Leave them alone; I want them to grow We are going to let them grow together, not forever, but we are going to let them both grow together UNTIL THE HARVEST. That is one of the greatest statements in all the Bible. The law of the Master, Let both grow together until the harvest. Our Lord is saying that evil and good will exist, not in the church, but in the world: The field is the world. He says, Let both grow together. When our Lord comes, Will he find faith on earth? Yes, He will! But He also says that evil is going to be here and, it s going to grow, and it s going to unfold, and it s going to move toward fruition. Good and evil are going to stand face to face until one is ripe for salvation, and the other is ripe for destruction. Now we don t have to be a prophet to understand that. Regardless of what else you want to know about the great Revelation story or what Daniel had to say about some things, I can tell you, it won t contradict what He is saying here Truth always harmonizes with truth. 3

The Problem of Evil - Part 2 by Brett Hickey, sermon #1088 4 of 5 We are going to have to get stronger; we are going to have to get better. We are going to have to expect more than we have ever expected of ourselves as the Lord s people. We ve got to bring the best that we have to give. We have got to bring up the best talents that we can muster better than we have ever known. He said THIS is what s going to occur. Some have used this passage to prove that the church can have no discipline because they both grow together. No! He says, The field is the world. This does not negate 1 Corinthians 5 and other passages where the Bible teaches the church to deal with problems in its midst; it does not offset the fact that the reputation and the strength and the power of the church and its integrity should be maintained. Then the Lord says it s just a matter of time: In the time of harvest I I like that. He is still on the throne! Daniel said a long time ago that the great Ancient of Days removeth kings, and setteth up kings and that He rules in the kingdoms of men. I still believe that. He s still in control! In the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers the reapers, of course, are the angels. Acts 17:31 says, Because he hath appointed A DAY, in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. In Matthew 25, Jesus says, When the Son of man shall come in his glory then shall HE sit upon the throne of his glory: and before HIM shall be gathered all nations: and HE shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. The separation is inevitable. The tares must be separated from the wheat. Burning the Tares Then the Lord commands, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them. Notice there is no room here for discussing two separate resurrections and discussing a thousand years reign and all the kind of things we sometimes hear. He is simply saying we come to the end it s harvest time. And what does He say? Gather ye together first the tares. And do what? Burn them. And so Jesus is saying death and hell shall be cast into the lake of fire. He simply is saying that there is coming a day in which all the evil shall be removed, but it will be the harvest time it will be the end of the world, and then He says you will gather out of my kingdom all things that offend. those things that entangle others and those things that cause men to fall. My people, this is the Bible s constant picture, parable or no, to indicate the finality of judgment. Burned in a furnace of fire, call it what you want to call it; it took no less than Jesus Christ, coming to this world and giving His life on the cross to make it possible that you might miss that place called Hell -- a furnace of fire where there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. One of the old time preachers, way back yonder, was trying to describe for the people this very scene. He went on to say something like this: Descending down into caves of hopeless depth, I saw most miserable beings walk, burning continually yet unconsumed, forever wasting yet enduring still. Some wandered lone in the desert flame and some encounter fiercely met with curses loud and blasphemies that made the cheek of darkness pale. And to their everlasting anguish still, the thunders from above, respondingly spoke 4

The Problem of Evil - Part 2 by Brett Hickey, sermon #1088 5 of 5 those words which through the caverns of perdition forlornly echoing fell on every ear, You knew your duty, but you did it not. I ll never forget those words. He was describing intolerable pain and unutterable loss and unutterable woe. Then after we have dispatched the evil that exists in the world. Then shall the righteous shine forth. The light so long struggling, finally, eventually will come to fullness The Lord s people have been put down, they have been maligned, they have been nobodies for ages and ages, but someday it s not going to be that way. Someday the righteous shall shine forth. I want to ask you this morning, are YOU in the Lord s Kingdom? He says it is like this: it s like sowing seed, and it s like opening up your heart and letting it come inside. It s like believing the gospel; it s repenting of your sins; it s confessing Christ; it s being immersed in His precious name for the remission of sins. It means obeying the Lord, letting Him add you to His church, to His Kingdom Are you ready? Are you a Christian? Surely we ought not listen to one of the great sermons of Jesus and then just dismiss these truths and walk out and forget them. Are you wheat or are you are tare? And if you know, or if you even remotely think you are anything but wheat, a child of God, you ought to make that right with him today. Before our song and wrap up, we want to encourage you to begin a life-changing six Bible study by mail at no cost to you. I ll be back in a moment for a final word. Please send us any comments or questions you may have about today s message or any related question about the church of the Bible. Tune in every Lord s Day and join us for worship at one of the congregations listed shortly. Call or write for a transcript, CD, or DVD of #1088, The Problem of Evil Part 2. We close with the words the apostle Paul issued in Romans 16:16, the churches of Christ salute you. Until next week, goodbye and God bless! Are you searching for the truth of God's word and have a sincere desire to learn about the Bible? Do you want to know what the Bible says about salvation and about Christ and His church? If you are looking for Bible Founded discussion on these topics and many others, then please accept this invitation to explore "Let the Bible Speak" and then contact us for additional studies. We are members of the church of Christ as found in the New Testament. We are not members of a denomination or earthly religious organization. We are a brotherhood of believers, joined by a common bond, Jesus Christ. We try to live and worship following the patterns found in the New Testament. (For manuscripts of other sermons visit: www.letthebiblespeak.com) COPYRIGHT Let The Bible Speak. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. IMPORTANT COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Express permission is granted to distribute any video, audio, or transcript of any broadcast message as long as the material is: unedited and attribution is given to Let The Bible Speak; a hyperlink to LetTheBibleSpeak.com is included for electronic distribution; a text reference is included to www.letthebiblespeak.com for printed distribution; and the original author receives attribution. An irrevocable, world-wide, royalty free license for distribution is granted as long as such distribution has the intent of: supporting the truth as presented; giving glory and honor to God; and spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. 5