before us this morning is profound. As I develop this subject, I ask for your undivided attention that you might be able to follow along and grasp the import of what is spoken this morning. Not only is the subject profound, but our approach to it will be very controversial. We are standing against modern evangelical Christianity and maintaining the truth of the Word of God. Follow, if you will, as I read some scriptures to build a foundation for this message. Genesis chapter 50 and verse 20, But as for you, Ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive." Simply listen to the Scriptures, you will not have time to turn to them. This was Joseph speaking to his brethren. They meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Judges chapter 2 and verse 15, Whithersoever they went out, Speaking of the children of Israel, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had said, and as the Lord had sworn unto them, and they were greatly distressed. Judges chapter 9 and verse 23, Then God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem, and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech. 1 Samuel 16, verse 14, But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him. 2 Samuel 17, verse 14, And Absalom and all the men of Israel said, The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel. For the Lord had appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that the Lord might bring evil upon Absalom. 2 Samuel chapter 21 verse 1, Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year. And David inquired of the Lord, and the Lord answered, It is for Saul and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites. I remark that Saul had been dead thirty-seven years at this point, and God was only at that time judging the entire nation for the blood that he had shed unjustly. Psalm 76 and verse 10, Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee, and the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain. Proverbs chapter 16 verse 4, The Lord hath made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. Proverbs chapter 21 and verse 1, The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water, so he turneth it, whithersoever he will. In Isaiah chapter 10, verses 5 through 15, we read that God raised up the king of Syria. Unknown to the king himself, God raised him up as an instrument to execute divine judgment upon his people, Israel. O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger and the staff in their hand is mine indignation. I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so, but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations, not a few. Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? Or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? As if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood. Isaiah chapter 45 and verse 7, I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things. Amos chapter 3 and verse 6, Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it? Acts chapter 2 and verse 23, Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." We find here the reading in the original, that foreknowledge is based upon God's eternal decree. Acts chapter 4 verses 27 and 28, For of a truth against thy holy servant Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before, or predestinated to be done. Romans 8 and verse 28, and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. And in our final Scripture, Romans chapter 9 and verse 17, for the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised thee up. that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth." Our subject this morning is, America under attack, a Christian discontinuity. I repeat, America under attack, a Christian discontinuity. On September the 16th of this year, the Lord's Day after the terrorist attack upon the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we brought a message entitled, America Under Attack for Perspectives. Because of intervening publications, attitudes toward this terrorist attack on the part of professing Christians, because I have been mightily impressed to speak to this subject by necessity, and because in our usual series that we are presently engaged in, What is the Gospel?, in which we are going to in the next few weeks deal with some of these very things, I've been impressed to deal with this subject again and take a further step with it. America under attack, a Christian discontinuity. Almost every minister, I would suppose, in our country and society addressed his congregation on the 16th of September concerning the terrorist attack in New York and Washington, D.C. I want to begin first with the attitude which is typical of modern evangelical, fundamentalist, and charismatic Christianity toward this incident. I'm going to quote from two local newspapers. These newspapers are published publicly by two influential churches in our local area. One is a charismatic community church the other is a fundamentalist Baptist church. I want to read these articles and you will clearly see the modern, typical attitude or approach of evangelical, fundamentalist and charismatic Christianity toward this incident. The first article is from a charismatic church in this area. The article from the pastor is entitled, A Theological Response to the World Trade Center Tragedy. Why do bad things happen to good and or innocent people? Where was God? Why did he let this happen? Those questions have been asked many times over in times like these. God is love. Love demands freedom. Since God is the Creator, all of His creation was created with freedom. The Bible says that it reigns on people who are good and bad. Why? The only way that God could keep bad things from happening to people would require God to take freedom away from His creation. He loves His creation too much to do that. The result is that people who make selfish and sinful decisions often harm others. What is God's response? Our pain hurts Him deeply, but He does not sit idly by. He moves to the aid of all those who seek His help in prayer. He turns our tragedy into triumph by giving us His strength to walk through valleys of fear, pain, sickness, and even death. He also helps us to reinterpret painful events in our life so that our character is deepened. Was the World Trade Center an act of God? No. It was an act of man. It was an act of war. God weeps at the loss of life and the pain it has caused His beloved creation. Will He move to bring relief to those who suffer? Yes. What should we do? Pray for all those, including ourselves, who have been tragically placed in the middle of this storm by the heinous acts of those influenced by sin and selfishness. Then expect God to bring His grace and power to all those who turn to Him as they walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The second article is from a fundamentalist church in our area. in their October paper entitled, Praying for America, a personal word from Pastor Blank. Fellow American, though we reside on the other side of this great country and may be far removed geographically from the recent tragedies, we have not been far removed in our hearts. On September the 11th, 2001, the lives of many people in California came to an immediate halt as we witnessed the attacks on the East Coast. We were not only deeply saddened by the pain, but we immediately began to do what we could do. We prayed. God is very much alive and ready to help us in our time of need as a nation. He is not a far off. He is the God of all comfort, and He is ready to comfort each American during this time of fear, loss, and uncertainty. Times of tragedy cause a wide array of responses, especially when it comes to the nature of God. We ask ourselves, did He allow this? Why? If He's God, couldn't He have prevented it? On and on these questions could go. Friend, very simply put, the attacks on our country were the acts of evil men. But just as it would be foolish not to defend our land and protect our citizens, it would also be foolish not to look into God's Word and into our own hearts and let God teach us through this. The Bible is clear that God is there through good times and through bad times, ready to help us, refine us, strengthen us, and restore us so that we will come forth as gold. He is ready to comfort us, to help us, and to change us if we will come to Him. He has never forced Himself into the affairs of men. Your response to Him is utterly voluntary, yet He does love you and He is eager to be your loving Heavenly Father. The pamphlet you hold in your hands is an admittedly small attempt to provide some source of comfort and insight to God's love and grace during a time of sorrow in America. The pages of this brochure contain a message of hope, a prayer for America. As you read it, we sincerely hope that you will find comfort from the words of the Bible and the truth of God's love. This brochure also contains a small article about calling to God for help during a time of tragedy. It speaks of personally trusting in Jesus Christ as Savior. Perhaps as you read it, this will be a decision you'd like to make or at least investigate in the days ahead. Whatever the case, let us all take the needs of our country to the throne of God. Pray for the victims. Pray for our president and national leaders. Pray that we will come forth as gold through this trial. Pray for God's comfort in the thousands of lives that have been devastated. May God bless you and may God bless America. Having given two examples, graphic examples of the typical attitude or approach To such things in our society, I want now in the second place to list our objections to this attitude of approach. This attitude of approach is philosophical and psychological, not theological. What we find in these two articles is the typical mixture of humanistic philosophy and Christian pop psychology. It begins with man and his natural concept of God, not with Scripture. It reveals, additionally, a very defective view of the nature and character of God and of history. It begins with human needs rather than divine revelation. Thus, it necessarily proves to be both inadequate and contrary to fact. It is sad that such things have to come from the pens, or in our day, the computers of men who claim to be men of God. If this is an attempt at being theological, it is definitely not Christian theistic belief. We use the term Christian theism in a very technical sense. There are many cults who claim to derive from the Bible. To simply say that we believe the Bible is not enough To use the term Christian theistic belief or Christian theism means that our doctrine of God derives from the Bible and is thus Trinitarian in nature. We hold to the absolute sovereignty of God. In short, we hold that God is God and not simply attempting to be God in certain areas of existence. We hold to the full final deity in the eternal Sonship. of the Lord Jesus Christ as clearly revealed in Scripture, and to the personality of the Holy Spirit as the one who applies God's eternal redemptive purpose in time, history, and experience. If this is an attempt To be theological, it is an unchristian theology in these two articles, because it is the God of their imagination that they declare, and not at all the God of the Bible. I want to list and explain some particular objections to the first article. First, it posits that evil is a mystery that exists independently of God. Why do bad things happen to good and or innocent people? Where was God? Why did He let this happen? Was the World Trade Center an act of God? No, it was an act of man. If evil exists independently of God, how can we pray? How can we pray for protection? How can we pray for the souls of wicked and ungodly sinners to be converted? How can we ask God for our daily bread? What kind of God will we have if evil exists independently of Him and He has no control over it? Indeed, we have only the God of our own imagination, a God quite contrary to the God who is revealed in His Holy Word. Second, it supposes that love exhausts the divine nature. God is love. Love demands freedom. Since God is the creator, all of his creation was created with freedom. The only way, the Bible says, that it reigns on people who are good and bad. Why? The only way that God could keep bad things happening to people would require God to take freedom away from His creation. He loves His creation too much to do that. Therefore, therefore, I submit to you logically that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon become demonstrations of God's love for His creation. Preachers should not only study the Bible, they should take the basic elements of philosophical science, including logic. Love does not exhaust the divine nature. God is holy. God is righteous. God is just. And He will judge sin. His love answered His holiness, His righteousness, and His justice in sending His Son to die in the stead of sinners and provide redemption. Love, however, does not exhaust the divine character. If it does, then the entire creation is out of order and out of control. Can we rejoice in a God May I give you the French for the absentee God? Deism. Deism that God created the world and left it to run on its own principles independently of his oversight and moral government. What I find in these articles is an approach to deism. I do not find Christianity at all. Number three, it supposes and presupposes the myth of free will. The only way that God could keep bad things from happening to people would require God to take away freedom from His creation. He loves His creation too much to do that. The result is that people who make selfish and sinful decisions often harm others. What is God's response? He moves to the aid of all those who seek His help in prayer. That means That everyone who dies in unbelief and goes to hell to suffer eternally will do so because God loves them so much He will not interfere with their free will. And if that is true, what good does it do to pray for the conversion of men? What good does it do to beseech God for the conversion of the ungodly, the wicked who are willing bond slaves to sin? Fourth, it perceives God as subject to human passions and frustrations, passive to human suffering, and limited by man's will. What is God's response? Our pain hurts Him deeply. But He does not sit idly by. He moves to the aid of all those who seek His help in prayer. God weeps at the loss of life and the pain it has caused His beloved creation. The one who occupies the throne of glory and rules this created universe is frustrated on his throne. He bows to the lordly free will of man, and he sits there frustrated, weeping, because he loves his creation too much to interfere. The only thing that man can do is bend his free will to pray, and once he has this prayer as a magic talisman to wave in the face of God, then God's power and will can be released to help man. Such a God is the God of this preacher's imagination, and not at all the God of the Bible. Paul writes under inspiration in Romans chapter 1, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God neither were thankful, but became futile in their reasonings and darkened became their incapacitated heart. They turned the reality of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, to birds, to four-footed beasts, to creeping things. Man's desire by nature is to bring God down to the sensual level and make God into someone like himself. And that is what this article has done. Fifth, this article is existential in that it makes reality subjective to one's experience. God turns our tragedy into triumph by giving us His strength to walk through valleys of fear, pain, sickness, and even death. He also helps us to reinterpret painful events in our lives so that our character is deepened. How am I going to reinterpret the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the loss of thousands of relatively innocent lives, civilian lives, by an act of terrorism so it deepens my character? That is existentialism. And most modern religion, be it evangelical, charismatic, or fundamentalist, is religious existentialism, whereby everything is interpreted or understood in realms of not the external, unchangeable, infallible Word of God, but rather my subjective feelings and experience. My thinking is to be aligned to God's Word, never apart from it. Sixth and finally, this article limits prayer to mere wish and desire or perceives it to be irrational. God moves to the aid of all those who seek His help in prayer. Was the world trade center an act of God? No, it was an act of man. It was an act of war. Will God move to bring relief to those who suffer? Yes. What should we do? Pray. Then, then expect God to bring His grace and power to all those who turn to Him as they walk through the valley of the shadow of death. If I must pray, to unleash God's grace and power, then God's grace and power are helpless in the time of need. In the light of these entire articles, where does Romans chapter 8 and verse 28 fit? And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. To be consistent, the authors of these articles must take a pair of scissors and cut Romans chapter 8 and verse 28 out of the Bible. Indeed, they should simply cut the Bible out of its cover and retain the cover. Leather has many purposes yet in this day of plastics. I now give you some particular objections to the second article. First, it fails to see God as absolute and makes Him relative to His creation. Times of tragedy cause a great or wide array of responses, especially when it comes to the nature of God. We ask ourselves, did He allow this? Why? He's a God. Couldn't He have prevented it? What does this imply? It implies that God is relative to created reality. By using the term Allah, we imply that there is an absolute, an impersonal force above and beyond God, and God merely allows what will be anyway. or he seeks to work around and frustrate what will be. But he himself is not absolutely sovereign over all things, even evil and sin. What then is the ultimate? It is an impersonal force with which God has to contend. And we call that impersonal force fate. It is not the Calvinist who is the fatalist, for everything comes forth from a wise, gracious, righteous, and holy God. It is the one who makes God relative to created reality and puts ultimacy in the hand of fate, luck, or chance who is the fatalist. I see deism. I see fatalism. I see religious atheism. which is not an oxymoron, it's a reality. All atheism is religious because man ultimately posits by faith the axioms and issues of reality. The metaphysical things of discussion are all posited by faith. The atheist does not believe in God as an act of faith, as much as the Christian believes in God, the God of the Bible, by an act of faith, and his faith is governed by God's Word and prompted by God's Spirit. My second objection, it assumes that evil men can act independently from God. Friend, very simply put the attacks on our country were the acts of evil men. If men can act independently of God, then the truth that all things work together for good, that's a moral term, moral good, should be taken out of the Bible. We have no confidence, we have no assurance in divine providence that there is from God an unseen hand governing all the affairs of men and giving us confidence, assurance and courage to live in our human experience. It is gone when men posit the God of their own imagination. Third, it also posits the myth of free will, thus limiting God in His actions. It makes man's free will, rather than God's eternal purpose, the determining factor. The Bible is clear that God is there through good times and through bad times, ready to help us, refine us, strengthen us, and restore us so that we will come forth as gold. He is ready to comfort us, to help us, and to encourage us if we will come to Him. We have a God in heaven who is bound and gagged on the throne of His glory until we unleash His power and grace by the magic of prayer. Not so. The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water. He turneth it whithersoever He will. Joseph, the prime minister of Egypt, looks at his brother who sought to murder him, sold him into slavery. All of the evil things that conspired to put Joseph in his position, he said, he meant it for good, for evil, but God meant it for good to save many people alive as it is this day. The overruling providence of God. One of the Christian's great pillars and foundational truths of hope and encouragement. in his experience. This article denies it all. Robs Christians of the blessedness that is ours very clearly in God's holy word. Our third objection, it completely misrepresents God in his relation to his creation. Quote, he has never forced himself into the affairs of men. Let me tell you, my friend, the God of the Bible is the God who judged this world in the flood and eradicated mankind in time and history for their sin. The God of the Bible is the one who judged the nation of Egypt and brought forth the children of Israel. The God of the Bible is the one who ordered the extermination of the Canaanites for their homosexuality and religious practices. The God of the Bible is the God who ordained the crucifixion of His Son to provide redemption and use the wicked hands of men to do so, to fulfill His will. Paul, speaking under divine inspiration before the philosophers at Athens, said this, He giveth to all life and breath and all things. It is God alone who keeps your heart beating and keeps you alive. He gives you every breath you breathe. He sustains and holds together the electrons and protons and neutrons of the atoms by His fiat decree. I will have none of this quasi-deism and absentee God. Paul states to those philosophers, in Him we live and move and have our being. This article denies the Christian philosophy of history that God is made of one. All nations of men for to dwell throughout all the face of the earth. And He has done this and put His footprints and handprints and fingerprints in human history so men will turn and feel after Him and seek Him. History is indeed His story, and the rise and fall of each nation and succeeding civilization can only be explained in terms of God's eternal purpose. Fourth, it belittles and misrepresents the character of redemptive love. Quote, your response to Him is utterly voluntary, yet He loves you and is eager to be your loving Heavenly Father. Can I recite a blasphemous cliché? Give Jesus a chance. God loves you. Christ died for you. The Holy Spirit is seeking to draw you. God has done all that He can. Does the Word of God teach us that God's desire is frustrated? If you but have the time to look to the six different terms in the original language that manifest God's will, God's determination, God's pleasure, and God's desire, and look at them all in the context of biblical teaching, you will see that God is absolutely sovereign and His will is always It is infallible. Can I pray to a frustrated God? If this is true, how can I pray for God to convert sinners? Have you heard some of these mealy-mouthed prayers? Lord, we pray for Joe Smith. No, no, no, Lord, we know You can't save him against Your will. So you know immediately it's an Arminian prayer. An Arminian prayer is the prayer of the Pharisee. Lord, I thank you I am not as other men are. I do this and I do that. There's no difference between the Pharisee's prayer and the Arminian's prayer. But Lord, we pray you'd make his life miserable. Lord, we pray his business will fail. Lord, we pray that you'll make him suffer. Lord, we pray you put him flat on his back until he makes his decision. I don't ever want to pray like that. Lord, make him wealthy so when you convert him, he'll help out our church with our finances. We're praying for God in a mealy-mouthed, cowardly way to make this man's life miserable so his lordly free will will bow? That's not prayer. It's a nightmare. It's a horrible fantasy to an irrational God who doesn't exist. Lord, have mercy on the ungodly. Your Word says you justify the ungodly and save sinners from themselves. Enable them to believe. Enable them to repent. Speak life unto them. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. Free will is mentioned several times in the Bible. You want to study it out before you posit free will. These ministers posited free will as an axiom, an unquestionable axiom or first truth before they ever opened their Bible. These articles completely and clearly display that. Free will is mentioned in the Bible. It has to do with the Old Testament, not with the New. It has to do with offerings. There were two types of offerings in the Old Testament under the Levitical system. Those that were commanded for specific sins, And those that were voluntary out of a full heart in devotion to God, and that's the only time and the only context in which free will occurs in Scripture. Free will is the product of philosophical speculation in metaphysics. It is not at all a biblical truth. And those who read free will, into the Bible, do so philosophically, as an axiom, unquestioned, and therefore are incapable of arriving at biblical truth. If God cannot and does not change the hearts and minds and thinking of men and women, then we cannot pray, we must become fatalistic, And all we can do is seek to make people as miserable as they can and get them in a corner so they might change their will and make their decision. What a horrible doctrine. My friend, the gospel is good news that there is deliverance from self, from the reigning power of sin, from divine wrath and condemnation, through saving faith in Jesus Christ. And the Bible says that this saving faith is the gift of God, not of works, not of human ability, lest anyone should boast. Decisionism creates boasters. Sovereign grace creates humble, grateful sinners who are converted. Fifth, it substitutes modern decisionism for biblical conversion by the grace and power of God. Perhaps, referring to trusting in Christ, this will be a decision you would like to make or at least investigate in the days ahead. Is that what I am called upon to do as a pastor and preacher? Would you like to make your decision? What is the message from the Bible that God has given me? God commandeth all men everywhere to repent, 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." The gospel invitation is a command. It's a summons to be reconciled unto God through Jesus Christ. This brings us to the third part of our message this morning. That is the profound subject of the problem of evil. This is not a biblical problem. This is not a theological problem. It's not something that Bible students worry about or lose sleep over. It's a philosophical problem. It is man, apart from divine revelation, beginning with his own mind, living in a fallen, sinful world, and wonders how and why evil exists. Let me put it in the language of the philosopher for you. I will not have time to completely develop this today and to deal with it thoroughly, but out on our literature table is a paper, a few copies are left, entitled, The Problem of Evil, A Biblical Philosophical Approach. I suggest that rather than come up and make my life miserable on this Lord's day, you go and read and study that. And read it again and again and again and again, until you begin to understand. Because to understand it, you have to set aside your own sinful, corrupt, depraved, humanistic axioms or first truths or presuppositions to truly see the glorious teaching of the Word of God. But let us go on. Philosophically, how can evil exist in a universe created and governed by an all-powerful, benevolent God? That is the question that philosophers have queried for centuries. This is what they push in the face of Christianity. You believe in an all-powerful, well, some of us do, beneficent or benevolent God. How then can you explain the existence of evil? If God is all-powerful, He'll put it out of His universe. He'll take it out of this world. If God is benevolent and loves, He will love us so much that He'll deal with this. Why does evil exist? So let me repeat the question. How can evil exist in a universe created and governed by an all-powerful, benevolent God? There are six possible answers, and I give them to you in summary fashion. Number one, evil exists, therefore there is no omnipotent, benevolent God. This is the argument of the atheist. Empirically, he looks at the world, he sees the existence of evil, and he X's out in his own thinking the existence of God. Others, evil exists, and therefore if God exists, He must be either limited in His power or arbitrary in His moral character. He is not altogether benevolent, in other words. Or He's limited in His power. This is a pagan argument, not Christian. When Christians limit the power of God, as these articles do, They leave their Christianity, they leave the Word of God, and they enter into non-Christian secular thought. Third, evil exists, therefore there is more than one God. This is the polytheistic argument. There's a good God and a bad God. There's the good side of the force and there's the dark side of the force, you see, the Star Wars mentality. This is as old as can be. Dualism, it's called. You have a good principle and a bad principle, the yin-yang and whatever else it might be called. Of course, Christians don't believe this, do they? Oh, yes, they do. Well-meaning preachers in the pulpit say, now look, The matter of salvation is very simple in the matter of election. Don't let that dark, foreboding doctrine bother you. It's very simple. God cast His vote. The devil cast his vote. It's up to you to cast your vote. That is pagan dualism. That's not Christianity. And you don't find it in the Word of God. It's very subtle, isn't it? God said it. Don't amen this, please. I'll call you down. God said it. I believe it. That settles it. That is so humanistic. That is the God complex of man. God said it. That settles it whether you believe it or not. That's what we're talking about today. That's where these men go astray and these churches go astray. I want to see converted lives. I want to see lives transformed by the grace of God. We've had enough decisions. And look at our churches. And look at the low state of Christianity today. Fourth, evil does not exist. There's an alternative. Evil does not exist, except as an illusion in our thinking. The view of some western cults and eastern religions, Christianity, Buddhism and others. Or, God's moral character is completely arbitrary, so the good and the evil really make no difference at all. Islam. It is the will of Allah. That's it. It's fatalistic religion. Wicked, fatalistic religion. I was reading the Koran the other evening. For several hours, persecute, murder and crucify the Jews and the Christians. Pursue them! Cut off one hand and one foot and crucify them and cut off their fingertips. That's the Koran. Now, if they interpret that as we Christians literally interpret the Word of God, what do we have to say about fundamental Islam. They're consistent. More consistent than Christians are. And those Moslems who live in this country and society who say, we don't agree with Islam. They don't say that Islam means submission, subjection to a fatalistic religion, which is the dark reflection of Old Testament Judaism and New Testament Christianity. Beginning in the 7th century, that's what it is. They said, we don't agree with that. They're inconsistent if they don't. Therein is the dilemma our government has not discovered as of yet, but we'll go on. In the fifth place, evil exists as a mystery independent of God, who remains to a very limited degree powerful and benevolent if we will only pray and ask Him. Then prayer becomes the talisman, the rabbit's foot, the magic thing, the fetish that we can release the power within us, release the power of God. It's like the faith healers who write you letters and want your money. If you just send me $5,000, God will release your faith. Financially, I'm known as, oh, ye of little faith. I can't release much faith with the money I have. Some hold that God simply works in a utilitarian fashion. He does the best He can because He foresees what will happen, and He lays His plans accordingly, but is often frustrated. Or with process theology, which is the rage now in liberal circles, even God Himself doesn't know what's going to happen. So as new situations are presented, He simply does the best He can in any given thing. Now listen carefully. God, according to Arminians and Pelagians, those who believe in free will, those who have a limited, unbiblical concept of God, if they believe that God looked down through the avenues of time, saw what was going to happen, and laid His plans accordingly, then God is still responsible for sin, because He might have prevented it, and He couldn't do it, or didn't do it. I have great problems with the moral character of that God. If God simply allows evil, can we trust His moral character? If He looked ahead and saw evil as a certainty, and could not prevent it, then God is relative to His universe, He is not absolute, and we must indeed become fatalistic and think within ourselves there must be an impersonal principle or force above and beyond God to which God Himself is necessarily subject, and we must call that fatalism, fate, chance, or luck. The final view And the only view that is biblical, whether we agree with it or not, whether we believe it or not, whether we stumble at it or not, makes no difference. You and I use the term Trinity. I am a Trinitarian Christian. I believe in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all co-equal and co-eternal. I can't explain the Trinity, but I believe it. We are called upon to believe God's Word, even the scriptures I read at the beginning of the message. We may not understand them, but it does not mean that we don't believe them. Evil exists in the universe of an all-powerful, benevolent God who is completely sovereign over evil and uses it for His own glory and for the highest good. This and this alone is the reasoning and argument of the Bible-believing Christian. Everything else is not only unbiblical, everything else is non-Christian. I find these articles to be entirely non-Christian, because they do not square with the Word of God. Now, some final remarks. Considerations on the sovereignty of God over evil. This is profound. And we attempt in less than an hour to deal with the things that have left philosophers and theologians in a quandary disputing for hundreds of years. Yet we're called upon to do this. And it must be done to prepare for the next messages in what is the gospel. To make a consistent stand for God and to give an answer to people who ask us in the day and time in which we live. And to deal with the misrepresentations that we have read. The existence of evil in a universe created and governed by an all-powerful benevolent God is not contradictory or incoherent if God has a morally sufficient good reason for this evil to exist. And evidently He does. You see, the problem of evil is more psychological and spiritual than it is philosophical or theological. It is the sinful mind of man that cannot, in faith, submit itself in complete trust to a God of love, grace, and mercy, who has ordained all things together for good to them that love Him, to them who are the called according to His purpose. Again, such a view that God is entirely sovereign over evil, that is, that God is truly God and not merely struggling to be God. The view that God is sovereign over evil and uses it to bring about the greatest good does not take all of the mystery out of the problem. We are finite, God is infinite. We are His creatures. Can the creature think the thoughts of the Creator? On an equal basis, absolutely not. When we commit ourselves to the Word of God without reservation, we are only beginning to think God's thoughts after Him. And the creature, finite, can never come to the Creator, infinite, and completely understand. We only begin to understand. If we could understand, there would be no place left for faith. But man takes it upon himself not to repent, not to believe, but to call God into question. Again, as finite creatures, we are limited in our thinking to the present and to the past. We have no idea what the future holds as to its specifics. If we understood what the future held, perhaps much of what we would consider to be evil, we would see would become the highest good. Jacob spoiled his son Joseph. His brethren sought to kill him and then sold him into slavery. Potiphar's wife tried to seduce him. Everything was against Joseph until his late thirties. His life was one tragedy after another. Not one thing in Joseph's life was good. But they all worked together for good, and made Joseph the prime minister of Egypt. He says to his brethren, ye met it for evil, but God met it for good, to save many people alive, as it is this day. Limited to the past and the present in our thinking, Facing the future as an unknown as to its specifics in this life, we cannot rightly judge anything. We live by faith and not by sight. Much of what we consider to be the most horrendous evil may result in the greatest Again, the Scriptures teach that God is both benevolent, absolutely good, and He also ordains evil deeds. If evil exists independently of God, God, the God of the Bible, simply does not exist. We only have left to us the God of our own imagination. Only if God has ordained evil, and controls evil, can we be assured that all things work together for good to them that love Him, to them who are the called according to His purpose? Only then can we be assured of the goodness of God, because evil is only evil by contrast with the goodness of God. God is absolute. God is the source, support, and end of all things. For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen. Paul's great doxology in Romans chapter 11, when he surveyed the relationship of Israel to the gospel, that the fall of the Jews was the salvation of the Gentiles, and then later the fullness of the Jews will be brought in. And He shows the glory and the wonder and the blessedness of God's eternal redemptive purpose. Only if God ordains and controls evil can we be assured that God has a good purpose in it. And all things not only work together, that could be fate, But all things work together for good, and that's a moral quality. God has ordained that. Put up Romans 8.28 against these articles and you have nothing left. I must go on. My time is through. God does not ordain evil in the same sense that He ordains good. He takes no pleasure in evil. God is not the author of sin. When men sin, they sin of themselves. And they are punished for their sins. We cannot put to God's account what men do of their own volition. God ordains sin, but He neither commands it nor commends it. Nor can any man stand before God and say, you are responsible for my sin. In the great theodicy of Romans chapter 9, Theos, God. Dike, righteous. The vindication of God's action. Is God unrighteous? Why doth He yet find fault if God has ordained election and reprobation? If God has ordained the salvation of some and He's passed others by? How can He yet hold us responsible for our sin? Paul ends the whole discussion by saying, No, but, O man, who art thou that replyest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? The end, for I must close, is simply this. As God's creatures, proudful, boastful, sinful, depraved, with a God complex, as God's creatures, we have no right to question Him, but submit to Him in humble faith, live before Him, trust in His moral self-consistency that He will do right, He cannot do wrong, and He will be glorified in all things. This is the God with whom you have to do. Not a deist God, not the God of someone's imagination. This is the God who will one day sit in judgment upon your soul to bring you to Himself in glory or to damn you forever. Make peace with this God. Make peace with the God of the Bible through faith in Jesus Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Father, bless thy words. Glorify Thyself, give us understanding. To Your glory, through Jesus Christ we pray, Amen.