Back to the Beginning No.4 The Origin of Evil

Welcome, we're glad to have you here this morning, and the song that you've just heard being played, at least the hymn tune you've just heard being played, is the signature tune of FIBA radio, and if you're in India or in, there's a boom on this mic, can you take it off please? If you're in India or in North Africa, and you pick up that tune, you'll know that following will come a Christian broadcast. We're thanking God today for the work of FIBA ministries, along with the work of many missions around the globe, but particularly concentrating our attention on the work of communicating the gospel through the ministry of radio. One domestic announcement, we're getting a little flack from the police in terms of parking here on a Sunday.

If you're on the double yellow line outside, you should not be there, and the police's patience is running a little thin. We don't want to embarrass anyone in the church, so we're giving you notice now, perhaps you could move your car if you're on the double yellow line. Subsequent Sundays, we will flash the registration number of the cars that are offending.

Please take that as a warning. We're too kind to do it this morning, but we will be doing it on successive Sunday mornings. I really do mean that.

Now after that stern and somber note, and having welcomed you, let's all stand, shall we, and let's sing before the Lord the words of the prayer our Savior taught us. Then Sue leads us in another hymn, so continue standing. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Everything in order, nothing that signifies pain, no suffering, no disease, no struggle for existence, no disharmony at all, no sin, no death. Analyze the condition.

Again, I am being so deadly accurate and honest and sincere when I tell you that as you understand the first couple of chapters of the book of Genesis, if you're a doctor, you'll be a better doctor. If you're a teacher, you'll be a better teacher. If you're engaging in one-to-one counseling, you'll be a better counselor.

You'll be a better husband. You'll be a better wife. This is society as it should have been throughout the whole of history.

This is society at its best. What's it like? Well, man is at one with his environment. There's no ecological problem.

There's no pollution of the beaches. There's no oil that stops the seagulls from being able to fly and to fish. There's ecological harmony.

There's no problem between man and woman. They understand each other. There's sociological accord.

There is no difficulty for Adam in coming to terms with himself. He's at one with himself. There's no psychological problem.

And most wonderful of all in this world of bliss, God comes down and is comfortable. Now, if you were to invert that and analyze society today from a biblical perspective, if our men and women who are producing their manifestos were guided by the word of the Lord, this is what they would come to understand in terms of the problems in our society. They're fourfold.

They're four alienations. Man is not at one with his environment, so you have the problem of ecology. Man is not at one with his brother, so you have the problem of sociology.

Man is not at one with himself, so you have the problem of psychology. Man is not at one with God, so you have the problem of theology. And those four alienations, you begin to see them emerge in the third chapter because things have gone terribly wrong.

And the gospel, when it's worked through practically, pragmatically, restores those alienations. And it makes man more concerned. And woman, of course, I use the word man generically.

Man more concerned about his universe. He has a concern. He is a tenant of planet Earth, and he wants to conserve it to the best degree that he can.

So when evangelicalism cops out of its duties, its responsibilities as citizens in this world, then it betrays a lack of understanding of Genesis 1 and 2. So the gospel sets a man at right with himself. Though he recognizes his wretchedness, he also recognizes that God in Christ has saved him, and he can cope and go through life as a sinner saved by grace. A man reconciled by the gospel loves his fellow, so the sociological problem has gone.

A man through the gospel is at one with the Lord. So that man, that woman, becomes rejuvenated with a different perspective on life. They taste again something of the goodness of Eden, but that was just a digression.

I was really trying to work out the difference between the third chapter and what follows, and the first two chapters, and illustrate in passing that the damage in the third chapter and onwards is remedied by the gospel to some degree. How did we get into the mess in which we find ourselves today? The fact of the matter is that when you get to this third chapter, something ugly comes onto the scene. It's not the ugliness of the serpent as such, it's the ugliness of what the serpent prefigures, of what the serpent is motivated by.

How do you understand the fact of evil in our world? It's one of the greatest philosophical and theological problems. Listen to Martyn Lloyd-Jones preaching way back in the fifties on this. What is the origin of the devil and the principalities and powers, the spirits of wickedness in the heavenly places, the world rulers of the darkness of this world? Let me remind you this is a problem that has engaged the minds and the thoughts of men throughout the running centuries.

There was a view held for a long time in the ancient world that evil came from a God who was virtually equal to the Lord God Almighty in power and in strength. They said there was a good God and there was an evil God whom they called a demiurge. They believed that this good God and this evil God, they were obviously opposed to one another and there would be a conflict and eventually goodness would triumph hopefully over evil.

But that's not what the Bible says. Martyn Lloyd-Jones goes on to say the prevailing view today, however, is that there is no such thing as evil at all. That what has been called evil is really just the absence of good or the absence of perfection.

This is a view that arises inevitably out of the theory or supposition of evolution. The Bible tells you that in the beginning is God, alone, fulfilled and God creates. And one of the difficulties that you find in the authorized version of the Old Testament, it's accurate but it's difficult, is that it says of God I create evil.

And the fact of the matter is that if you postulate the existence of the devil and you ask the question where does the devil come from, where does evil come from, you have with hesitation, perhaps in your voice, but conviction in your soul to say that the capacity for evil is allowed by God. More of that in a moment or so. Moving into the third chapter of this book of Genesis, along comes this snake.

I have already referred to the fact that when you talk about this snake and the vileness of this particular incident, you are confronted with someone who is being motivated by the devil. And here is this story, ridiculed by many, of a snake talking. But it's not just an anecdote of a talking snake.

Rather, the Bible gives us this incident and it builds theologically upon it in the New Testament and indicates that as you read it, you have to read it with a marked degree of literalism. Here is something that actually happened. So the Apostle Paul, writing in Romans 5 in chapter 12 and in 2 Corinthians 11 and 3 and 1 Timothy 2 and verse 14, when dealing with the problem of temptation and sin, he brings you back to this incident, the serpent.

And when John, writing in the book of Revelation, makes reference to the entry of sin into the world, he talks about that ancient dragon, the serpent. If God can cause an ass to speak, is it impossible to believe that a serpent could also have spoken on one occasion? Are you quite sure that the vocal organs you have are not in some way replicated by the animal world? My cats can't talk, but they've got a fair way of getting their opinion across. There is a rudimentary language amongst chimpanzees according to zoologists that the thought of this animal speaking, being possessed by evil, falls into the line of credibility when you think of evil possessing human beings.

And Jesus, in the first occasion of his preaching in Capernaum, finds a demonized man endeavoring to interrupt him. Here is an animal, beautiful, more subtle, more clever than any of the other animals, to the extent that when Jesus comes on earth, he will talk about being as wise as a serpent and as harmless as a dove. Here this animal slides across the scene and engages Eve in conversation in the garden of bliss, the garden of paradise.

So it's not so much the serpent that compels our attention, but who is behind the serpent? What is this evil principle? Now, when you read Genesis chapter 1 and then you get through to Genesis chapter 3, you come to the conclusion, if you think it through, that on top of the creative work of God in terms of the universe and the world and life as you and I now know it, there was also other successive acts of creation. The Bible will tell you that in the beginning, God not only creates the heavens and the earth, but Paul, writing to the Colossians, speaks of God bringing into being principalities and powers, angels, archangels, seraphim, cherubim, a whole host of beings that are not contained in time and space as you and I are. And our beloved Lord, when he's teaching, makes reference to this, and he speaks of one of whom you get further information in the Old Testament, whose name is Lucifer, or Satan, or the accuser of the brethren, or the devil.

So many names that were given to him. And this is the one of whom you read in Genesis 3 in terms of the power, the force, the authority, the compelling dynamic behind the snake. Jesus refers to Lucifer being cast out of heaven.

The Revelation makes reference to the expulsion of the dragon being hurled from heaven to earth. The apostle Paul talks about the prince of the powers of this world. And here in Isaiah chapter 14, you get reference to someone who is more than just an historical figure.

It's actually descriptive of a king. But it's more than just a delineation of the king of Babylon. Here is a description of an evil potentate.

How have you fallen from heaven? Isaiah chapter 14 and verse 12. O morning star, sun of the dawn, you have been cast down to the earth. You who once laid low the nations.

You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven. I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will set enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain.

I will ascend above the tops of the clouds. I will make myself like the most high. But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit.

It's more than a man that Isaiah has in mind here. Yes, he starts off criticizing the king of Babylon. But he's given greater insight.

He sees not only a rebellion on this world. He sees the rebellion that there has been in heaven itself. And you find exactly the same type of reference in the prophecy of Ezekiel.

And the chapter, the 28th chapter. And the 11th verse. You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.

You were in Eden. The garden of God. To whom is the reference made? Not God himself? One of God's created beings.

The most wonderful of the creation that is other worldly. Lucifer himself. Expelled from heaven.

For what reason? He wanted to make himself as God. When the apostle Paul is writing to Timothy, he speaks of an elder. And he says to Timothy, don't appoint a man who is a novice.

Don't appoint anyone who might be tempted into position simply because it is a position of power. And Paul, who I acknowledge the literal nature of Genesis 1-3, indeed the whole book, refers to the one who at the beginning endeavored to mimic and take the power of God. So what the Bible is telling us quite clearly, as you put all the references together, that when you come across this incident of this snake hissing away with a voice that is recognized by Eve, it is the presence of none other than the disgraced Lucifer.

The devil. The evil one. Who is doing his best to turn the paradise of God into an abyss.

Who is doing his best to bring in these alienations that he himself feels against God and God against him. Thus the expulsion. And here is the beginning of that plot which will continue down the whole course of human history.

Of the power of evil. Like some spray, some aerosol spray that has been released at the beginning of time, permeating the whole of the corridors and affecting every civilization, every man, every woman. Stupid, you say? Then how do you explain man? I bring you back to the psychological problem.

How do you explain 100,000 refugees and we don't know where they are in Zaire? How do you explain the assassination of Christian people in the Sudan? How do you explain the immorality of the 20th century in terms of the butchery of man towards man? Man is a genius, he can walk on the moon. But man is a fool. He creates weapons that do damage to his fellow.

Man transgresses the very laws of God, pollutes the environment in which he finds himself, who is responsible for the ecological problem. Can you lay that at the feet of the animals? Not at all. It's man.

So how do you understand this man? Reject Genesis chapter 3 and tell me, what is your diagnosis? Give me something that academically makes sense, that I can come to grips with psychologically. When I read in poetic, although enshrining history, this idea of man, of woman being deluded by Lucifer, it at least gives perspective to the human tragedy. One can understand that behind man there is the force of a terrible evil and that man most desperately needs the grace of God to intervene, to bring him back from the vileness of the snake, from the venom of the evil one which has shot its ugly fangs into our first parents and has been passed on in terms of a virus down the generations.

You begin to understand about Genesis 3 when you recognize that in the heavenlies there was a war and that Lucifer was expelled and that on earth he took up his residence. So the beloved, compassionate John says in 1 John 5 verse 14, the whole world lieth in the hands of the evil one. So you see, I argue that encapsulated into the first few verses of Genesis chapter 3 is the explanation of the tragedy of man in subsequent centuries.

He moves from paradise and he goes expelled east of Eden to live and he lives as best he can but sometimes he does most stupid things and were it not for the grace of God still operative in some degree, man would have destroyed himself. But he is a long throw from what he was and the world is a long distance from what it used to be in the early days when it fell fresh from the hands of God. The goodness of God, it's there in Genesis 2 and over into Genesis 3, the first verse, the vileness of the snake, evil comes in, evil will wax worse and worse.

Some of you may have seen the salutary program put out on, I think it was ITV on Thursday night. It was a program that engaged itself in trying to tell you to drive less fast than most of us do at times. And in the documentary they brought three very reasonable people who were good drivers and felt that they always drove safely and they took them down the M25 and onto the M1 and by a computer they checked their speeds and then they took them to a test center and there was another driver driving the car they were sitting alongside and they drove the car just at the speed that they had been driving at on the M25 and on the M1 and they built a polystyrene wall and from the computer they stopped the car with the same braking power as they had allowed themselves in the way these original drivers had been progressing down the road.

And each one of them went straight through the polystyrene wall and the point was the majority of us drive more quickly than we ought to do. And it went on in the program to show how in Sweden they sometimes cope with the fast, reckless driver and the police have got a car, it's almost a sort of James Bond version of a car and when it gets close to the offending car in front of it then out propels a piece of metal and there's a hook on it and the metal actually penetrates the boot and the fender of the car in front so the car can no longer continue because it's under the control of the police and then if they want to be even more difficult, this is the police they can release a gas that gradually enters into the offending car and it renders the driver uncomfortable, if not unconscious. What happened at Eden? The devil, Lucifer, comes alongside Eve and he has her, he penetrates her and the gas of the venom of sin is released into her and ultimately to Adam and to the rest of our world.

It is right that the police should penetrate and apprehend dangerous driving but the tragedy here is someone being apprehended by the power of evil and the force of evil being released into them and into their descendants. So you find here, beginning to be fleshed out, the story of the vileness of the snake the vileness of evil as the serpent engages Eve in conversation and questions the authority of God, did God really say? And then eventually denies the express word of the Lord which leads me on finally to bring to your attention from this verse and its context the point that I have identified as the foolishness of sin. You see, sin is always foolishness.

All sin is irrational. Reckless driving is irrational. It puts your life in danger, it puts the lives of other people in danger.

The Bible, when it makes reference to men rejecting the word of God in Romans in chapter 1, says that men in their foolishness, they became assholes. They turned the word of God into the word that they wanted. They manufactured their own religion.

They rejected God and enthroned themselves. The psalmist in Psalm 14 and verse 1 will tell you that the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. You see, it made no sense at all for Lucifer to lead a rebellion against God in an eon gone by in the celestial realm.

There's no way that you can outwit God. But the devil is a fool. That's not to say he's not cunning.

That's not to say he's not crafty. That's not to say you shouldn't respect him for his diabolical potential. But he is a fool.

And Eve is a fool. And Adam is a fool. And we're all fools.

In some senses, we're all fools. Sin is a foolish thing in which to engage. Read the book of Proverbs.

It will tell you again and again and again and again about the fool. And sometimes you'll identify yourself because we have all done foolishly. As for sin, it has a guile.

You see, here is the devil, and he's showing you his malevolence in these first verses of chapter 3. He takes what is good. What is good? Well, the animal was good. Serpent.

This was part of God's creation. Maybe it was different then. Maybe the serpent actually could stand tall.

But this was one of the grace gifts of God, the serpent, to Eve. And Eve was one of the grace gifts of God to Adam. And the devil, in his guile, he takes these grace gifts.

Nothing wrong with the animal. Nothing intrinsically wrong with Eve. But in the way that he uses and influences them, in his guile, in his strategy, he brings the world down.

John Calvin says he insinuates himself at the point at which he sees us to be the least fortified. So he gets to Adam through Eve, and he gets to Eve through the animal that he has created. Nothing wrong with the animal.

Essentially nothing wrong with Eve. But the devil, in his guile, uses and abuses God's creation. And his goal? What is his goal? Well, what was God's goal in bringing the world into being? Moreover, what was God's goal in bringing men and women into being? Well, in the 26th verse of the first chapter, you find it defined, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and so on and so forth.

Why does God make man to be in his image? And that was something that Lucifer never was. Here is something with a greater potentiality than Lucifer ever had. You see, when you look at yourself, you're looking at a phenomenon.

You really are. The potential that is there is almost unlimited. And it is the image of God that Satan wants to deface so that in some way he can be cloud and besmirch the glory of God.

That is the goal. That is always the goal of sin, to efface the image of God in you. The Lord Jesus is a meek and gentle Christ, so when he uses words which are stern and somber, you hang on to what he has to say.

And he speaks about the devil being a murderer from the beginning. He recognizes the whole ploy of the evil one was to blight the work of his father. And you get a rerun of Eden as Jesus commences his ministry or just before in the garden, in the wilderness of temptation.

But Jesus is able to put the devil to flight over against the folly of our first parents. Jesus will retain the imago Dei intact. The foolishness of sin, its guile, its goal, and its gall.

You get to the end of the third chapter, and what do you find? Well, man is out on his ear. Verse 24, After he God drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. It seems as though the devil is successful.

He's a sailed man. He knew that the ruin of man would wreak the most dreadful confusion that there has been in the whole of eternity. And so he set his sights on the serpent and Eve and Adam.

But his goal was God to kick him in the teeth, to blight his word. And 2,000 years will have to elapse. As man lives the wrong side of Eden, he will know sweat, he will know tears, he will know toil, he will know bereavement.

He will know slavery. The human story is a dreadful story in many, many areas. The barbarity of this Syrian empire, what the Babylonians did to one another, you read the minor prophets, read the first few chapters of Amos, and there it's all set out.

And when you go to the modern 20th century, you find exactly the same run, because man never learns. Man is always man. He may be more sophisticated, he may have more technology, but basically he is man with those fourfold alienations.

And then one day, born in Bethlehem's manger, comes a man who will be stronger than Adam, son of God, son of man. And the blessed Christ, knowing what is on his shoulders, what is the nature of his responsibility, to undo the damage of Eden, he makes reference to the one who did so much harm, and he speaks of him in the 12th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.

If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? And if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your people drive them out? But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or again, how can anyone enter a strongman's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strongman? Then he can rob his house.

And when our first parents were thrust out of the garden of Eden, there is a prophetic glimpse of what will happen, that God will intervene. And though this serpent, this demonized serpent, has brought around so much havoc, nonetheless this will be put right, as from the seed of a woman will come someone who will bruise the head of the serpent. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers.

He will crush your head and you will strike his heel. And if you're going to kill a snake, you hit the head. And when our beloved Lord comes, he knows the striking of Satan time and time again.

But on the cross, he despoils principalities and powers. All the venom of the snake is shot at Jesus, absorbed into his system, and he becomes sin for us. And in the very act of becoming sin, he binds the strongman.

He binds Lucifer. And he releases into this world a power of recreation so that a man can be brought psychologically into a frame where he can understand himself. He can be rightly related to his environment.

He can be rightly related to his fellow. But more importantly, he can be rightly related to God. The alienations are through.

And what our Lord achieved on the cross and through his mighty resurrection, he will bring to a final consummation when he comes in great power and glory, not to take us back to Eden, but to take us beyond Eden, to a rejuvenated heaven and earth, to a rejuvenated universe, when there shall be no more barrier between those created principalities and powers and ourselves, where God himself shall be amongst us in great glory, where heaven shall come down on earth, and for eons we shall be in the presence, the unending presence of our God. This is the gospel. And this is the reason why we need to constantly go back to the beginnings and discover there something of the wonder of what God has done to invert the tragedy caused by man.

Let's start to sing gently about our Lord Jesus and about his cross and his death and the atoning way in which our sins have been dealt with. 3-8-5, Jesus the name, high over all, in hell or earth or sky, where you've been sitting for quite some time. So let's stand for these verses.

We'll start from the third verse to the sixth verse. Then sit down. Then one of my young friends is going to come and sing a song that continues on this theme.

And we bring to you bread and wine as we listen to the song being sung. 3-8-5, Jesus the prisoner's fetters breaks. Verse 3. Verse 3. Do sit down and look again at those third and fourth verses.

You see, the theology of the verses, as Wesley understood it, fits in with the teaching of Scripture. It's Jesus who bruises Satan's head. What the world needs in its manifestos is the grace of the gospel of Christ which alone can bring back these reunions in terms of the brokenness, the alienation, so that the world might taste and see the riches of His grace.

We've got an election coming, and you will vote. If you're a Christian, you should vote. And you will vote as best as you can with the options that are there.

You will vote spiritually. You'll vote thoughtfully. But you will vote knowing that the best of agendas crumbles into foolishness compared with God's agenda.

And you'll vote with a prayer that the British Parliament might itself recognize the riches of God's grace in the gospel, all that the world might taste and see, the riches of His grace. Well, let's hear about Jesus as we receive bread and wine. Retain the cups and only take if you are a committed Christian, please.

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds In a believer's ear It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds And drives away his fear It makes the wounded spiritual And calms their troubled breast Tis manner to the hungry soul And to the weary rest And to the weary rest Dear name of all, On which I build My shield and hiding place My never-failing treasury Filled with boundless stores of grace Jesus, my shepherd, brother, friend My prophet, priest, and king My Lord, my life, my way, my end Accept the praise I bring Accept the praise I bring Weak is the effort of my heart And cold my warmest thought But when I see thee as thou art I'll praise thee as I ought Till then I would thy love proclaim With every fleeting breath And may the music of thy name Refresh my soul in death Refresh my soul in death