GOD and evil
“GOD and Evil
II Chronicles 7: 1-4
Greetings to you, friend! I’m Mack Lyon. The program’s In Search of the Lord’s Way. We produce our program in Oklahoma City, right in the heart of what‘s known as ‘Tornado Alley;’ and we’ve had some doozers here! The question is: ‘If God really is and He really is almighty and all-loving, as He is said to be, why does He permit such evils as tornadoes?’ And that’s our study today; stay tuned.
My warmest welcome to you, friend! Our program’s ‘In Search of the Lord’s Way.’ We’re so glad you have joined our Bible study. We’re sponsored by some churches of Christ in the broadcast area of this station. We would like you to visit one of those churches, very, very soon if possible! Why don’t you just do that today? If you need help locating one of them, let us help you. And I’ll give you our telephone number, our toll-free number in about a minute. Run and get your pen and paper right quickly so you can write it down.
The Holman Bible Dictionary says ‘Evil’ is of two kinds: moral evil and natural evil. In the series titled ‘Deliver Us From Evil,’ which I did earlier, and which is available in this little book, just free for the asking we dealt almost exclusively, but not entirely with ‘moral evil.’ Of course evil men do evil things such as the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City. And that was moral evil. The terrible earthquake in Haiti, as well as the one in Chile, are defined by some as natural evils. I’ve heard remarks on radio and TV which seemed to question why God would do such an evil. If He didn’t do it, if He is a God of love, and He is all powerful, why did He even permit it? That’s what prompted this program about ‘God and Evil.’
If you think you would like a free printed copy, or a CD or an audio cassette tape of it for further study, just address your request to In Search of the Lord’s Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083, or by e-mail to searchtv@searchtv.org. Or, you may use our toll free telephone number 1 (800) 321-8633. You may want to just download it from our website, and that’s at http://www.searchtv.org/. Visit that website, will you, http://www.searchtv.org/? There’s much, much more there, too. Then Ken Helterbrand is going to lead us now in a hymn; and then I’ll be back and we’ll read 2 Chronicles chapter 7, verses 1 through 3.
When David became king of Israel the Old Testament tells us that he wanted to build a temple for the Lord our God. And God said no! He could not build it; he would not be permitted to build it because he was a man of war. But, then he permitted Solomon to build the temple and when it was finished it was a glorious thing. Oh my, it was a magnificent thing! It was a very costly thing; and then Solomon opened it with a prayer. At the end of Solomon’s prayer in 2 Chronicles chapter 7, verse 1 we read these words: ‘When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. And the priests could not enter the house of the LORD, because the glory of the LORD had filled the LORD’S house. When all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the LORD on the temple, they bowed their faces to the ground on the pavement, and worshiped and praised the LORD, saying: For He is good, For His mercy endures forever. Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the LORD.’ And that reads through verse 4. Now let us go to God in prayer. Holy and Heavenly Father, we are thankful for this message that we read about Your holiness and Your purity and Your goodness; and we are encouraged by all of those thoughts. And we are wondering today about the existence of evil in the world, particularly natural evils. And we pray that You will enlighten our hearts as we study this message. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen!
Such disasters as tornadoes, floods, tsunamis and earthquakes are often called ‘evils,’ but they’re not moral agents; therefore, they can’t really be ‘moral evils.’ If they are evils, then, they must be ‘natural evils.’ And, if they are God-sent, the question is relevant then today: ‘Why does a good God (as we just read about in the Bible) send such evils upon men; and if He’s all-powerful and He is a good God why doesn’t He prevent them?’ Seldom, if ever, is an unbeliever heard to say of a beautiful spring day, ‘This is an act of God.’ Yet, he defines a tornado, a disastrous flood, or something of that nature as an ‘act of God.’ And because he thinks so, he refuses to believe in the loving and almighty God that we read about in the Bible.
I was blessed to hear Dr. Thomas B. Warren debate England’s renowned atheist, Dr. Anthony Flew, at the university in Denton, Texas several years ago. Dr. Flew’s strongest argument against God in that debate was the existence of suffering and natural evil. However, since the discovery of DNA and because of the complexity of the universe and its meticulous functions, Dr. Flew has renounced his atheism in favor of creationism. He now argues the case for a god; not the God of the Bible though, but a designer and a creator god. He now believes the carefully designed universe and the human body couldn’t have ‘just happened.’ Our own Phil Sanders spoke to that very clearly just recently. He showed both the universe and the human body demand an intelligent designer.
Some who have studied this matter longer and in more detail than I, say there’s more confusion and contradiction in the beliefs and teachings in the 21st Century American–style Christians, or among us, over the problem of God in a world of evil than any other subject. In the former sermon series I began by asking, ‘What comes to your mind first, when God is mentioned?’ In his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, A. W. Tozer asks the same question; and he says, ‘Before the Christian Church goes into eclipse anywhere there must first be a corrupting of her simple basic theology. She simply gets the wrong answer to the question, what is God like?’ And he goes on from there. Oh, he’s so right about that. But that was certainly not the case in the church in the New Testament period. The apostle Paul had introduced the Christian faith to the people of Thessalonica and they had gladly received it, in spite of the extreme persecution they suffered, as we read about it in Acts chapter 17, verses 1 to 9, and other places. Later the apostle wrote them two letters to encourage them in this new faith. Three times in the first nine verses in the second chapter of his first letter to them, he wrote that persecution and that in spite of it, that he preached to them ‘the gospel of God.’ Consequently, many of the Thessalonians had ‘turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.’ (1Thessalonians chapter 1, verse 9)
The ‘gospel of God!’ Preaching ‘the good news of God’ is the solution to the problem of idolatry with which the 21st Century American-style-Christianity is confused. God is not always ‘the image’ that first comes to a person’s mind at His mention. And that’s the reason for the ‘doubt’ that follows such incidents as the tornado or the flood you’re thinking about.
We’re all apt to define ‘God’ with such terms that will fit Him neatly into our own personal experiences or maybe our expectations of a god. And when we do that we inevitably come up with our own private ‘god’ or perhaps ‘gods.’ Idols they are of experience or of expectation. My god then becomes the kind of a ‘god’ I like. Oh no, as I’ve said so many times, I’ll not make an image of him of wood or brass, and keep it on the mantle and bow before it every time I pass before it. It’s a mental image. And it’s limited in what it is and what it can do, limited to my own expectations of it. Well, such gods ‘have mouths, but they do not speak; eyes have they, but they do not see; they have ears, but they do not hear; noses they have, but they do not smell; they have hands, but they do not handle; feet they have, but they do not walk….’ Well now, that’s God description of them in Psalm 115, verses 5 to 7. ‘But,’ verse three in that same passage says, ‘our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases.’ And in Genesis 17, verse 1 God says, ‘He is the Almighty God.’
The first verse of the Bible says, ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ That’s the answer to the question of origin, then, isn’t it? ‘In the beginning.’ ‘In the beginning God.’ ‘In the beginning God created.’ ‘In the beginning God created the heavens’—the first heaven, where the birds fly and the clouds gather; and the second heaven where the stars are, and the sun, and the moon and other galaxies. ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ It was God who brought light out of darkness. The Bible doesn’t tell us of life in other planets if there is such a thing. And from that verse forward, the Bible tells us of happenings on the earth and the hope of heaven. The Bible story of creation continues: it says God even created day and night, and seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter. He powerfully separated the earth from the seas. God created the vegetation; yes, and the sea creatures and the animals of every kind that creep on the earth.
It was God who worked five days making this magnificent world environment in which we, you and I, are blessed to live! He even created it, not in cold drab, black and white, but in the warmth and beauty of full color! On the sixth day He created man and woman. ‘Then the LORD took the man and put him in the garden’ that He had prepared for human habitation and He told him ‘tend to it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’ (Genesis 2: 15 through 17). How good is our God! That is what our text said, ‘God is good.’ When His creative work was finished, ‘God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.’ (Genesis 1: 31) So, all was right with the world!
But suddenly something happened that disturbed the peace and tranquility of that lovely paradise garden! Evil—sin—entered it. Adam sinned! He disobeyed God! God said to him, ‘…of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat.’ And he ate of it! Then God said to him, ‘Cursed is the ground for your sake…’ (Genesis 3: 17 through 19) Yes! Because of man’s disobedience, his sin, God put a curse on the earth. Could it be that part of that curse that was the flood, the tornado that we’re talking about? Some say ‘Yes!’? Then for all who will, our loving and just and almighty God, promised a redeemer, the ‘seed of the woman’ (Genesis 3: 12 through 15)—His Son Jesus Christ. And by whom the family can be reconciled to God. ‘Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and thus death (that would be suffering and the natural evil, death) spread to all men because all sinned.’ (Romans 5 and 12; and 2 Corinthians 7 and 15f) Yes, yes, that’s what I’m saying! Just as it was with Adam in the garden, natural disasters, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, what are sometimes called ‘natural evils’ are the result of the presence of sin in the well-ordered world of creation.
God had made the world free of evil, but subject to certain, well, we’ll call them ‘natural laws’ because they strictly regulate the world of nature. Life can flourish only in a stable environment. Once in my university studies of philosophy, our professor, an atheist, marveled at the absolute dependability of four seasons in every year: spring, summer, fall and winter. When I asked, to what or to whom he gave credit for that certainty, he brushed me aside saying, ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ and he continued with his lecture. But you see, he couldn’t tell me without admitting a creation demanded a Creator. But I had made my point with the class. There’s the law of day and night; the law of gravity; the laws of sowing and reaping; and others that give harmony to life. And it is by these dependable natural laws that sometimes come tornadoes, floods, and the like. Were it not for the faithful function of earth’s built-in laws, we couldn’t have the harmonious life that we have on the earth. But it’s also true, that were it not for the faithful functioning of these natural laws, we would not have an occasional flood or tornado or an earthquake. On March 8th Oklahoma had its first tornado of the year. We watched it on national TV. It was a demonstration of the natural function of the well-designed law of the Creator.
Now that brings up the question: Are not some natural disasters sometimes due to the sinfulness of men? Well, there’s no doubt about that; the great flood of Noah’s day in Genesis chapters 6, 7 and 8, it was so. The Scripture says, ‘Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually…..So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth.’ That’s Genesis 6: 5 through 8.
However, Luke 13: 1 to 5 says, ‘There were present at that season some who had told Him (that would be Jesus) about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answered and said to them. Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them, do you think they were worse sinners than all the other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.’ So then, there must be other causes for tornadoes and earthquakes, than God’s intolerance of moral evil. Let’s pray. Holy Father, we are thankful for the enlightenment of Your word on a problem that is so current with us; and we pray that we have cleared up some questions in the minds of some people. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen!
Does God ever exercise judgment on, or punish an evil society or nation? Oh yes, He does, friend, and rightly so! God commanded Israel to totally destroy both man and beast, even the infant children, and the King of the Amalekites as punishment for their evil-doing. And God’s judgments are always just. ‘The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’ That’s Psalm 19, verse 9.
For that reason, I shudder when I think of the present immoral state of our country. It is humanly impossible to maintain a justice system capable of keeping a society, keeping order in a society like our present one. It must be in the hearts of the people like you and me, my friend. Jesus said, ‘The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah….’ (Matthew chapter 12, verse 41) God needs the preaching of ‘repentance’ in America today! Phil Sanders and I say it almost, if not every Sunday: ‘Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’ That’s God’s word, that’s the LORD’S way to be saved, friend, in Acts 2: 38. If we can guide you to a place where you can do that, please, please do call us at once.
If you think you would like to study this message more, you may have a printed copy, a CD or an audio cassette tape of it free by mailing your request to In Search of the Lord’s Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK. The zip code is 73083 or by email to searchtv@searchtv.org. Or you may access it or download a copy of it from our website at http://www.searchtv.org/. Or if it were me, I would probably just pick up the telephone and dial 1 (800) 321-8633. Visit a church of Christ today, will you? God bless you now. We love every one of you.”
“GOD and Evil
II Chronicles 7: 1-4
Greetings to you, friend! I’m Mack Lyon. The program’s In Search of the Lord’s Way. We produce our program in Oklahoma City, right in the heart of what‘s known as ‘Tornado Alley;’ and we’ve had some doozers here! The question is: ‘If God really is and He really is almighty and all-loving, as He is said to be, why does He permit such evils as tornadoes?’ And that’s our study today; stay tuned.
My warmest welcome to you, friend! Our program’s ‘In Search of the Lord’s Way.’ We’re so glad you have joined our Bible study. We’re sponsored by some churches of Christ in the broadcast area of this station. We would like you to visit one of those churches, very, very soon if possible! Why don’t you just do that today? If you need help locating one of them, let us help you. And I’ll give you our telephone number, our toll-free number in about a minute. Run and get your pen and paper right quickly so you can write it down.
The Holman Bible Dictionary says ‘Evil’ is of two kinds: moral evil and natural evil. In the series titled ‘Deliver Us From Evil,’ which I did earlier, and which is available in this little book, just free for the asking we dealt almost exclusively, but not entirely with ‘moral evil.’ Of course evil men do evil things such as the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City. And that was moral evil. The terrible earthquake in Haiti, as well as the one in Chile, are defined by some as natural evils. I’ve heard remarks on radio and TV which seemed to question why God would do such an evil. If He didn’t do it, if He is a God of love, and He is all powerful, why did He even permit it? That’s what prompted this program about ‘God and Evil.’
If you think you would like a free printed copy, or a CD or an audio cassette tape of it for further study, just address your request to In Search of the Lord’s Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083, or by e-mail to searchtv@searchtv.org. Or, you may use our toll free telephone number 1 (800) 321-8633. You may want to just download it from our website, and that’s at http://www.searchtv.org/. Visit that website, will you, http://www.searchtv.org/? There’s much, much more there, too. Then Ken Helterbrand is going to lead us now in a hymn; and then I’ll be back and we’ll read 2 Chronicles chapter 7, verses 1 through 3.
When David became king of Israel the Old Testament tells us that he wanted to build a temple for the Lord our God. And God said no! He could not build it; he would not be permitted to build it because he was a man of war. But, then he permitted Solomon to build the temple and when it was finished it was a glorious thing. Oh my, it was a magnificent thing! It was a very costly thing; and then Solomon opened it with a prayer. At the end of Solomon’s prayer in 2 Chronicles chapter 7, verse 1 we read these words: ‘When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. And the priests could not enter the house of the LORD, because the glory of the LORD had filled the LORD’S house. When all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the LORD on the temple, they bowed their faces to the ground on the pavement, and worshiped and praised the LORD, saying: For He is good, For His mercy endures forever. Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the LORD.’ And that reads through verse 4. Now let us go to God in prayer. Holy and Heavenly Father, we are thankful for this message that we read about Your holiness and Your purity and Your goodness; and we are encouraged by all of those thoughts. And we are wondering today about the existence of evil in the world, particularly natural evils. And we pray that You will enlighten our hearts as we study this message. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen!
Such disasters as tornadoes, floods, tsunamis and earthquakes are often called ‘evils,’ but they’re not moral agents; therefore, they can’t really be ‘moral evils.’ If they are evils, then, they must be ‘natural evils.’ And, if they are God-sent, the question is relevant then today: ‘Why does a good God (as we just read about in the Bible) send such evils upon men; and if He’s all-powerful and He is a good God why doesn’t He prevent them?’ Seldom, if ever, is an unbeliever heard to say of a beautiful spring day, ‘This is an act of God.’ Yet, he defines a tornado, a disastrous flood, or something of that nature as an ‘act of God.’ And because he thinks so, he refuses to believe in the loving and almighty God that we read about in the Bible.
I was blessed to hear Dr. Thomas B. Warren debate England’s renowned atheist, Dr. Anthony Flew, at the university in Denton, Texas several years ago. Dr. Flew’s strongest argument against God in that debate was the existence of suffering and natural evil. However, since the discovery of DNA and because of the complexity of the universe and its meticulous functions, Dr. Flew has renounced his atheism in favor of creationism. He now argues the case for a god; not the God of the Bible though, but a designer and a creator god. He now believes the carefully designed universe and the human body couldn’t have ‘just happened.’ Our own Phil Sanders spoke to that very clearly just recently. He showed both the universe and the human body demand an intelligent designer.
Some who have studied this matter longer and in more detail than I, say there’s more confusion and contradiction in the beliefs and teachings in the 21st Century American–style Christians, or among us, over the problem of God in a world of evil than any other subject. In the former sermon series I began by asking, ‘What comes to your mind first, when God is mentioned?’ In his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, A. W. Tozer asks the same question; and he says, ‘Before the Christian Church goes into eclipse anywhere there must first be a corrupting of her simple basic theology. She simply gets the wrong answer to the question, what is God like?’ And he goes on from there. Oh, he’s so right about that. But that was certainly not the case in the church in the New Testament period. The apostle Paul had introduced the Christian faith to the people of Thessalonica and they had gladly received it, in spite of the extreme persecution they suffered, as we read about it in Acts chapter 17, verses 1 to 9, and other places. Later the apostle wrote them two letters to encourage them in this new faith. Three times in the first nine verses in the second chapter of his first letter to them, he wrote that persecution and that in spite of it, that he preached to them ‘the gospel of God.’ Consequently, many of the Thessalonians had ‘turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.’ (1Thessalonians chapter 1, verse 9)
The ‘gospel of God!’ Preaching ‘the good news of God’ is the solution to the problem of idolatry with which the 21st Century American-style-Christianity is confused. God is not always ‘the image’ that first comes to a person’s mind at His mention. And that’s the reason for the ‘doubt’ that follows such incidents as the tornado or the flood you’re thinking about.
We’re all apt to define ‘God’ with such terms that will fit Him neatly into our own personal experiences or maybe our expectations of a god. And when we do that we inevitably come up with our own private ‘god’ or perhaps ‘gods.’ Idols they are of experience or of expectation. My god then becomes the kind of a ‘god’ I like. Oh no, as I’ve said so many times, I’ll not make an image of him of wood or brass, and keep it on the mantle and bow before it every time I pass before it. It’s a mental image. And it’s limited in what it is and what it can do, limited to my own expectations of it. Well, such gods ‘have mouths, but they do not speak; eyes have they, but they do not see; they have ears, but they do not hear; noses they have, but they do not smell; they have hands, but they do not handle; feet they have, but they do not walk….’ Well now, that’s God description of them in Psalm 115, verses 5 to 7. ‘But,’ verse three in that same passage says, ‘our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases.’ And in Genesis 17, verse 1 God says, ‘He is the Almighty God.’
The first verse of the Bible says, ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ That’s the answer to the question of origin, then, isn’t it? ‘In the beginning.’ ‘In the beginning God.’ ‘In the beginning God created.’ ‘In the beginning God created the heavens’—the first heaven, where the birds fly and the clouds gather; and the second heaven where the stars are, and the sun, and the moon and other galaxies. ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ It was God who brought light out of darkness. The Bible doesn’t tell us of life in other planets if there is such a thing. And from that verse forward, the Bible tells us of happenings on the earth and the hope of heaven. The Bible story of creation continues: it says God even created day and night, and seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter. He powerfully separated the earth from the seas. God created the vegetation; yes, and the sea creatures and the animals of every kind that creep on the earth.
It was God who worked five days making this magnificent world environment in which we, you and I, are blessed to live! He even created it, not in cold drab, black and white, but in the warmth and beauty of full color! On the sixth day He created man and woman. ‘Then the LORD took the man and put him in the garden’ that He had prepared for human habitation and He told him ‘tend to it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’ (Genesis 2: 15 through 17). How good is our God! That is what our text said, ‘God is good.’ When His creative work was finished, ‘God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.’ (Genesis 1: 31) So, all was right with the world!
But suddenly something happened that disturbed the peace and tranquility of that lovely paradise garden! Evil—sin—entered it. Adam sinned! He disobeyed God! God said to him, ‘…of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat.’ And he ate of it! Then God said to him, ‘Cursed is the ground for your sake…’ (Genesis 3: 17 through 19) Yes! Because of man’s disobedience, his sin, God put a curse on the earth. Could it be that part of that curse that was the flood, the tornado that we’re talking about? Some say ‘Yes!’? Then for all who will, our loving and just and almighty God, promised a redeemer, the ‘seed of the woman’ (Genesis 3: 12 through 15)—His Son Jesus Christ. And by whom the family can be reconciled to God. ‘Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and thus death (that would be suffering and the natural evil, death) spread to all men because all sinned.’ (Romans 5 and 12; and 2 Corinthians 7 and 15f) Yes, yes, that’s what I’m saying! Just as it was with Adam in the garden, natural disasters, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, what are sometimes called ‘natural evils’ are the result of the presence of sin in the well-ordered world of creation.
God had made the world free of evil, but subject to certain, well, we’ll call them ‘natural laws’ because they strictly regulate the world of nature. Life can flourish only in a stable environment. Once in my university studies of philosophy, our professor, an atheist, marveled at the absolute dependability of four seasons in every year: spring, summer, fall and winter. When I asked, to what or to whom he gave credit for that certainty, he brushed me aside saying, ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ and he continued with his lecture. But you see, he couldn’t tell me without admitting a creation demanded a Creator. But I had made my point with the class. There’s the law of day and night; the law of gravity; the laws of sowing and reaping; and others that give harmony to life. And it is by these dependable natural laws that sometimes come tornadoes, floods, and the like. Were it not for the faithful function of earth’s built-in laws, we couldn’t have the harmonious life that we have on the earth. But it’s also true, that were it not for the faithful functioning of these natural laws, we would not have an occasional flood or tornado or an earthquake. On March 8th Oklahoma had its first tornado of the year. We watched it on national TV. It was a demonstration of the natural function of the well-designed law of the Creator.
Now that brings up the question: Are not some natural disasters sometimes due to the sinfulness of men? Well, there’s no doubt about that; the great flood of Noah’s day in Genesis chapters 6, 7 and 8, it was so. The Scripture says, ‘Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually…..So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth.’ That’s Genesis 6: 5 through 8.
However, Luke 13: 1 to 5 says, ‘There were present at that season some who had told Him (that would be Jesus) about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answered and said to them. Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them, do you think they were worse sinners than all the other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.’ So then, there must be other causes for tornadoes and earthquakes, than God’s intolerance of moral evil. Let’s pray. Holy Father, we are thankful for the enlightenment of Your word on a problem that is so current with us; and we pray that we have cleared up some questions in the minds of some people. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen!
Does God ever exercise judgment on, or punish an evil society or nation? Oh yes, He does, friend, and rightly so! God commanded Israel to totally destroy both man and beast, even the infant children, and the King of the Amalekites as punishment for their evil-doing. And God’s judgments are always just. ‘The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’ That’s Psalm 19, verse 9.
For that reason, I shudder when I think of the present immoral state of our country. It is humanly impossible to maintain a justice system capable of keeping a society, keeping order in a society like our present one. It must be in the hearts of the people like you and me, my friend. Jesus said, ‘The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah….’ (Matthew chapter 12, verse 41) God needs the preaching of ‘repentance’ in America today! Phil Sanders and I say it almost, if not every Sunday: ‘Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’ That’s God’s word, that’s the LORD’S way to be saved, friend, in Acts 2: 38. If we can guide you to a place where you can do that, please, please do call us at once.
If you think you would like to study this message more, you may have a printed copy, a CD or an audio cassette tape of it free by mailing your request to In Search of the Lord’s Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK. The zip code is 73083 or by email to searchtv@searchtv.org. Or you may access it or download a copy of it from our website at http://www.searchtv.org/. Or if it were me, I would probably just pick up the telephone and dial 1 (800) 321-8633. Visit a church of Christ today, will you? God bless you now. We love every one of you.”
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