Sermon Tone Analysis

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the climax of the movie saga entitled the Avengers was the movie Endgame where these fictional superheroes were trying to undo the global destruction of the movie’s main villain, Thanos.

The way to undo this terror was to travel back in time and remove piece by piece the elements of power that allowed him the opportunity to destroy.

In one scene, as the characters grapple with this new found time traveling ability, one character jokingly suggests that they could just travel back in time to when the the villain Thanos was a child and take him out.”

While the suggestion itself invites disgust at even the mention of killing children, it raises a great theological question that many people grapple with in history when considering the existence of God,

Why does God allow evil people to be born?

Obviously we do not ask this about Thanos, but we might ask it regarding evil people like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Genghis Khan, etc.

These evil men caused destruction and terror across the world, bringing great death with them.

Where was God in all of this?

A question like this is reasonable and logical when considering the existence of God and yet sadly, many Christians are not equipped to answer such a question from a friend or foe.

The good news is that the Bible does seem to give a satisfactory explanation of the great problem of evil in light of the reality of the existence of the God of the Bible and I hope to help equip you in afternoon in that direction.

Why?

Not only is this an important topic to consider but it directly relates to the book of Ezra that we began to study last week.

During my time today, I want to reasonably explain that God’s complete sovereignty is the underlying principle which explains how the existence of evil in the world is used by God to brings about his good purposes and His supreme glory.

What is God’s sovereignty?

To answer that question let’s look to God’s words as He reveals himself to be.

Exodus 3:14 (ESV)

14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.”

And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”

Starting with the name of God that was given to Moses on Mt Sinai.

Moses asked God from the presence of the burning bush, who he is.

God replied, I AM WHO I AM.

From this declaration of God, we can deduce two major key attributes about God:

Self-existent and eternal

God does not exist by any means other than himself.

He needs nothing to aid in his existence which was symbolized in the burning bush.

The very elements of that fire were created out of nothing and they maintained the properties of fire, not with the aid of the bush itself, dry wood, air, etc but instead were maintained outside of the properties of nature.

We could should actually not call that they “burning bush” because as we understand fire from the scientific world, that is not what was happening to that bush.

Acts 17:24–25 (ESV)

24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

Creatures like ourselves need food, air, heat, shelter, relationships, gravity, cheeseburgers.

God needs nothing from us.

God exists in and of himself, and therefore is not limited by anything and cannot be bound by anything.

This means that the name of God also communicates that time does not grasp a hold of God but God instead holds time in his hand.

He does not all himself, I WILL BE or I WAS but simply I AM.

Psalm 90:2 (ESV)2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Sovereign and Independent

Secondly, the name of God communicates his dominance and rule over all that exists as creator and king of all.

He says again, I AM WHO I AM and not I AM WHO MY CREATION NEEDS ME TO BE or WHO I AM CONSTRAINED TO BE BY OUTSIDE FORCES.

He is ruler supreme because he rules over that which he created for His own glory.

Isaiah 46:9–11 (ESV)

9 remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, 10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ 11 calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country.

I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.

In this passage from Isaiah 46, we see that God is the supreme Lord who stands outside of time and yet makes his declaration of time and his sovereign will effective in our world.

In other words, God’s sovereignty contains many aspects that we need to discuss so that we might understand God’s nature as He reveals himself to be and not how we might conjure up our ideas about him from thin air.

Theologian Joel Beeke writes,

God’s Sovereignty has many facets.

It resides in his infinite divine nature, appears in his decreeing of all things, crystallizes in his election of those whom he will save by Christ’s grace and in his reprobation of them whom he will damn for their sins, and carries all things along by his works of providence, which are according to his will.

In order for us to grasp the book of Ezra, we must understand God’s sovereignty because it immediately is on display in his rule, authority, power, and work through all of his creation, even pagan kings.

Consider with me some of the facets of God’s sovereignty that Joel Beeke mentioned.

God’s power:

We understand that as the Sovereign Lord, God is not limited by anything and therefore his power is unmatched by others and unlimited in accomplishing his purposes.

Looking back to Isaiah 46,

‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ 11 calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country.

I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.

Notice in this passage that whatever God sets out to accomplish, nothing can stand in his way.

This is not merely self-determination like a ambitious young adult who is determined to achieve the goals they set out in life.

This is a divine self-determination that literally cannot be stopped or hindered because his resources and his power are unlimited to accomplish all that He sets out to accomplish.

God’s authority:

Closely connected to God’s sovereign power, is God’s sovereign authority over all that exists in the world.

As the one who made the world by his power, when he spoke everything into existence out of nothing, so he rules all that He created.

Psalm 24 state that the “earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.”

What God had made and who God has me, he rules over without apology and need for some assistance in his rule.

He did not created humanity to the wise counsel to the Almighty God because he has some wisdom to add to his unlimited knowledge and wisdom.

Psalm 115:1–3 (ESV)

1 Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness! 2 Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” 3 Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.

God’s Will:

Now we come to another aspect of God’s sovereignty, and that is his will.

These are his purposes, his plans, the goals that he has set and will accomplish in this momentary existence of life which pales in comparison to God’s eternal existence.

Looking back again at Isaiah 46:10

‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’

What is God’s counsel and what is God’s purpose?

All that operates under the rule, power and authority of God is directed according to his will or his plan.

By the prophet Isaiah, God states that what he determines to occur in this existence and into eternity, is not by accident, or by coincidence, but specifically and perfectly by his divine will.

As finite humans, we cannot understand and see all of God’s will.

We only have what He has revealed to us and therefore we operate on a limited knowledge while God’s knowledge is unlimited.

Deuteronomy 29:29 (ESV)29 “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Secondly, his will is not separated from his other attributes of love, goodness, mercy, grace, and holiness, to name a few.

His purposes or his will flow out from his attributes and therefore are bathed in the personality of our divine creator.

We could simply say that God’s will is a loving will, a holy will, a just will, a merciful will, and a gracious will.

Theologicans smarter than me have wrestled through the centuries to understand the will of God revealed to us in his word.

They simplified the complexity of it by classifying it into two categories:

God’s desires and God’s decrees.

God’s Precepts and His promises.

Again Joel Beeke writes,

“We express this distinction most accurately as that between God’s preceptive will and his decretive will.

The first describes what God instructs us to do and the second what he has decreed to take place.

A helpful examples is found in 2 Peter 3:9 (ESV)

9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Now when considering this verse, we see that God is “not wishing” that any should perish but that all should reach repentance.

Wishing is desire and God’s heart toward humanity is that none would rebel against him and perish in eternal damnation.

But his eternal decree stands that he can “by no means clear the guilty” (Ex 34:7).

Punishment will come to those who rebel against him and his enemies will perish because God has decreed it.

Ephesians 1:11 (ESV)11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,

In this passage in Ephesians, in considering election, we would NOT interpret the counsel of his will as his desire or preceptive will.

This is not something God is commanding or desiring of his people for election is never revealed as a responsibility of mankind but an act of God.

Instead we would say that the salvation of the elect is based on the decree of God, established before the ages began, that will certainly come to pass without hindrance or hiccup.

As we consider the decree of God as a part of his holy will, then we understand that all that God decrees comes to pass although a sinful humanity does rebel against God’s desires.

With the existence of sin that entered the world through Adam and Eve, we must ask the question asked at the beginning of this sermon, how does this help us understand the problem of evil.

If the decree of God always comes to pass, and nothing comes to pass outside of the power, authority and sovereignty of God, then logically we must deduce that sin entering the world was part of the decree of God.

It was the decree of God to allow sin in and it was the decree of God to provide a way of escape.