Goodness & Evil (05/12/2002)

The Goodness of God in Contrast to Human Ideas of Good

We've talked about the goodness of God in recent days. We started out by quoting the Lord Jesus Christ when he said, There is none good but one, and that is God. God, therefore, is the definition of what good is.

Then we talked about the fact that God works all things together for good to those that love him and that are called according to his purpose, which, by the way, is the same crowd. And then we talked about a few things that are associated with God's goodness, such as his mercy, his grace, his patience, his faith, his justice.

I mean his truth and his justice and his faithfulness. And then we talked about the fact that God's goodness, or the definition of goodness, is not based upon any goodness that's found in man alone. Man can only have goodness when he receives the Lord Jesus Christ and has the Lord Jesus in his life, and then he has the goodness of Christ.

And then last week we talked about God's good will, his good and perfect will. Today I want to talk to you about two points. The fact that God's goodness stands in opposition to evil, and secondly, the fact that it is good to be in the presence of God.

Let's bow our heads for prayer. Father, we thank you so much for everyone that's here today, for each person who's been called out of this world, out of darkness, unto yourself, and the fact that you've made us thereby to be brothers and sisters for eternity.

You've given us your love, agape love for one another. You've given us the ability to have unity because of that love. And you've given us your word that we can share this morning. As bread is to the body, this word is to our spirits.

And so may your Holy Spirit teach us, may he be strong upon us today. We thank you for the music we've heard and the praising from our hearts to you, because we know that that came from you as well. You put it there in our hearts.

Now we ask you to teach us. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. The goodness of God stands in opposition to evil. That defies the modern definition of good, because today when a person says God is good, he means God is fluffy, and God is nice, and God is gentle and soft, and that he turns the other way no matter what sin we do, no matter what sin a nation does.

All of that, of course, is false, because as we study the Bible to see what the goodness of God is and see how God himself defines his own goodness, we find that everywhere where we see goodness as man would call it, we also see severity as man would call it.

I keep using that word because it's the word that the Bible uses. But it means that God will bring forth some things that we might consider to be evil. Not that he is evil, or that he could really bring forth evil, but that's how we perceive it sometimes, and certainly the world would perceive it that way.

They would never be able to understand that on September the 11th, God was behind the controls of that, because they would think that that would mean, therefore, God has to be evil. No, that means God is good, because his goodness includes severity, and justice, and righteousness, and purity, and holiness, and truth.

And man's goodness doesn't have any of that. Man truly is not good. Therefore, he cannot define what good is, because he tries to define it based upon his best efforts. God's goodness is entirely different.

God's Goodness Revealed in Psalm 143

Let's look at a few scriptures this morning that tell us and show us, without a doubt, that God's goodness stands in opposition to evil. Psalm 143, verse 3. Please follow along with me. Most of the time this morning, I'd like for you to be actually looking at these scriptures.

For the enemy hath persecuted my soul. Now, I want you to look at these from the viewpoint of the fact that we are the children of God. And God is, therefore, good to us as, I suppose we could use the human idea of a family, and the father being good to his family, which would also imply that he protects his family, which would also imply that he might do evil to an intruder into that family.

All of those things are seen here in God's goodness. And this begins with the fact that the enemy has persecuted my soul. And my soul belongs to God, because I am his. So each of you can identify with this, and make this personal to yourselves this morning.

There have been times when the enemy persecuted your soul. Now remember, our enemy is not flesh and blood. In the Old Testament it was, because it was given the picture, the spiritual truths, for us in the end days.

So our enemy is not flesh and blood. We battle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places. But that enemy does, in fact, persecute our souls.

He hath smitten my life down to the ground. Have you ever had a time when the enemy, through temptation of the flesh or the world, or thoughtsy places in your mind, get you to think ungodly things and unholy things, or even bring you to a place in your life where things seem so hard that you almost become like Job's wife, and you just say, well, Lord's not with me.

Can you get depressed? Can you get out of fellowship with him for a while? He's smitten your life down to the ground. He hath made me to dwell in darkness. Have you ever been depressed? There's a true time to be depressed.

If we lose a loved one to death and so forth, we ought to be sad. But any time that we're sad or depressed, without a real reason, we need to consider the source of that. Because that is, in fact, spiritual warfare on your mind and your heart.

And what is happening is the enemy is taking you down into darkness when you ought to be walking in light. We have so much to be thankful for, as we'll see throughout these scriptures. We are children of the God of the universe.

And he has known us from before time. He has known us from the foundation of the world. And in the Bible, where we see the word know, it carries with it the meaning and connotation of a loving knowledge.

Not all that different to what it means when it says,. And Adam knew his wife. It is an intimate, loving knowledge. He has had that for you before you were ever born, before this world was ever here, before the stars were flung out there by him.

I shouldn't say flung, he put them exactly where they go. Before there was an angel, before there was anything but God, there was love in his heart for you. He could see your face. He could see the members of your body.

He could see your fingerprint, the color of your hair. He could see your heart, your personality. He could see how you would love him someday. You were in his heart. So we ought not be dwelling in darkness, but sometimes we do.

And it's because of the enemy. The enemy has persecuted my soul and smitten my life down to the ground. He has made me to dwell in darkness as those that have been long dead. He makes us to go around like lost people sometimes.

Now they have a right to be depressed. They have a right to walk in darkness and be sad. Funny thing is, half the time they act happier than we do. We come to church and we have a praise time and a worship time and it scares some people if we get happy.

Not so much here, but in the country. Especially in Baptist churches, wouldn't you agree? I mean, we used to... Before there was ever a Pentecostal, the Pentecostal movement came out of the Baptists. You study your history, you'll see that.

There was a time when there was no such thing as a Pentecostal. All you had was shouting Baptists. Well, I think when the Pentecostals saw that the Baptists didn't want to shout and enjoy being with the Lord and in his presence, they just left.

And unfortunately when they left, they got under some false doctrine. Much of it brought about by women teachers and preachers. Amy Semple McPherson to be the main culprit that brought about this charismatic modern tongues movement and all of it.

All of it that has so much counterfeit mixed in with some truth. Just the way Satan does it. And so we come to the place as Baptists where we're afraid to be happy in the presence of the Lord because people will identify us with the charismatics.

And I would dare say this, just because we have a six-stringed instrument on the platform, probably somebody in this city or somewhere close has said, oh, they're going charismatic. Somebody in this room dares to raise their hand to the Lord, oh, they're going charismatic.

Well, we could just walk like the dead people walk, couldn't we? We could have church like the dead people would have church, couldn't we? Well, I saw a frightening thing in the newspaper. You know how the Palestinians have been in the Church of Nativity holding up there for many days and the Israelis knew they couldn't go in there and blow it up because Catholics would come in and destroy Israel, you know.

They got more money than Israel probably. But finally that thing came to an end and they got them all out of there and they had a photograph of the first two or three Roman Catholic priests who went in.

And I clipped it out. I'll scan it and email it to some of you. It'll put goosebumps on your arms.

They had on black robes and suits of armor.

These are the very ones that in the end times will begin the false one-world church. These kinds of people who masquerade as believers, people who really live in darkness, people who do not hold this book up as the authority.

They do not hold the living word, which is Jesus, or the written word up as the authority. Anytime there's any other authority, we have a problem. If man gets involved, we have a serious problem. The independent Baptists have a huge problem in that what many of our independent Baptist churches want to do is they want to set forth rules for men that they themselves can't live under.

Well, the Catholics have done that. The Methodists have done that. Each group tends to want to do. Church of Christ has done that. The independent Baptists have done that. Now, I don't know about the Southern Baptists.

They've kind of gone the other way. They have absolutely no rules and everything goes. But these, in the end times, there will be a one-world church and I believe it will be led by the Roman Catholic Church and she will bring under her the Protestant churches, the Methodists, the Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Lutherans.

They'll all be brought together into one world church. They'll be led by men who walk around in dark capes, the hood, where you can't see their faces, scary thoughts. So, what we've found in our churches is we've come to a place where we worship God in darkness like the world would.

Look at verse 4. Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me. My heart within me is desolate. Has the enemy ever brought you to that place where you are so entirely desolate that you just feel like you're in a dry and thirsty land?

Well, that's the enemy. But look what verse 5 says. I remember the days of old. What does that mean? Well, he can look back at the stories that he's heard of the parting of the Red Sea, the power of God, the deliverance of God's people, of how they go into the promised land and root out the enemy by God's hand and how where they found false religion, they were told to dispel it and destroy it.

And the power of God is remembered. He can also remember the power of God in his own life just months previously perhaps or even weeks previously. So he remembers the days of old. And he says, I meditate on thy works and I muse on the work of thy hands.

Tell you what you can do if you ever get down like this and you feel that you're in darkness like this. Why don't you stop and think about God himself? Think about how there is one who had no cause. There is one who is not made by another.

He simply has always existed. There is one who not only has always existed and created all things and we can look around at the things and know his presence, but he's given us the word of God. He has revealed himself to us through this word and this word only.

Any group of men who stand up and say, no, we're going to add rules to this, they've gone down the wrong direction. The word of God itself says that these people are pharisaical. He says that these people are whited sepulchers.

These men walk over. Are there sepulchers or graves that men walk over and don't realize there are dead men's bones underneath? They look good on the outside. The Bible even says that Satan's ministers appear as ministers of righteousness.

Anyone who takes anything other than God's word as their authority has been misled by this very enemy that we're discussing today. And that same enemy, if he can get you into false doctrine and the false rules that men have added to the word of God, that enemy can now bring you down to where your life is not light like it should be.

You don't have the freedom to walk with God like you could in Jesus Christ alone. If we add any works to try to build a stairway to heaven where we can do good things or religious things to merit God's favor, we've missed the whole point.

The whole point goes back before God made anything and certainly before you were born and could do any good works he already knew you in his heart. Ephesians chapter 1 proves it and hundreds of other verses.

That he knew you before the foundation of the world. He doesn't love you more because you go out and do good or religious things. He loves you because you're his. You're his child. It's a position that you have.

It's not something you can earn by working up to it. And you look at the religions in the world today. Every major religion, non-Christian religion, and every Christian sect other than those who just go by this book as God places faith in our hearts and God reveals himself to us through his son and he gives us salvation by what Jesus did on the cross only.

Only those can ever understand the joy of eternal life in him. Satan wants us, the enemy wants us to do like the lost people, the dead people. He wants us to be in darkness. He wants us to never be able to call God our father.

He wants people to think of him as someone who's not fair just as he came to Eve in the garden and said, oh God doesn't mind if you eat that fruit. Surely you wouldn't think that God would want to withhold knowledge from you.

He'd want you to be wise like he is. Wouldn't he? He began to shed doubt on the goodness of God. He meditates upon the works of God and he muses on the work of God's hands. All of the sudden he begins to come out of this depression.

I stretch forth my hands unto thee. My soul thirsteth after thee as a thirsty land. Hear me speedily, O Lord. My spirit faileth. Hide not thy face from me lest I be likened to them that go down into the pit.

Cause me to hear thy loving kindness in the morning. Do you understand that Jesus Christ when he came the Bible says he was the express image of the father. He said if you see me you've seen the father.

He was the only one who could reveal the father to us. Only by Jesus Christ and his death on the cross and his resurrection and his love for you and your heart could you have ever understood the loving kindness of God.

Let me say this. The independent Baptist cannot make you understand the loving kindness of God by putting a bunch of rules on you. Neither can the Catholics or the Methodists or anybody else. When man makes up the rules that he himself can't keep, he has strayed from God.

You will never see loving kindness in that. You will only see harshness. But when you look at Jesus when you look at Jesus only the only one who died for us the only one who had the power to come back from the grave therefore the only true one the only good one when you look at him you can hear of the loving kindness of God in the morning.

For indeed do I trust not in a system not in a church not in a building not in programs indeed do I trust a personal relationship with Jesus Christ himself. Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk.

You want to know where the good works and religious works should come from? I hate to even call them religious works that's what the world calls them. Let's just call it dedication to the Lord. Do you know where that should come from?

It should come from within. Not an outward set of rules but from within where the Lord dwells with our spirit inside our hearts. And when we understand the loving kindness of God because Jesus teaches it to us all of a sudden we fall before him and we love him because he first loved us.

And then and only then can we know the way wherein we should walk. That's the true good works. The true good works come from inside where the Lord fellowships with our spirit. And he loves us and we learn of his love and we love him back.

And our good works are nothing more than an outward illustration like giving a little flower to the mothers this morning. That's just a show of our love because you can't see on the inside. But as we do these things they demonstrate outwardly the love that's on the inside and anytime you do a genuine work for God that's what you've done.

And if it didn't come from a genuine love from the inside it is mere religion and God hates it and will not accept it. No man can please God with fleshly systems. But if it comes from the inside from your heart where Lord Jesus dwells in you and has revealed the love of God and the loving kindness of God in the morning then we can know how we should walk and what works we ought to do.

They are therefore a result of our salvation not the cause of it. Do you understand that with me today? You can't cause yourself to get saved by being religious or doing good things. There's no way in the world.

Brother Otis taught that so well this morning in Sunday school from the book of Romans. All that can happen to you is that when the Lord speaks your name and you hear it like Paul did on that road and you then respond by saying Lord what would you have me to do?

That's the beginning of your salvation life. Lord what would you have me to do? When he comes and he dwells inside your heart your temple becomes the temple, your body becomes the temple of the living God and when the Lord Jesus comes in your heart by the Holy Spirit His Spirit and begins to teach you of the love of God and the ways of God and the mind and heart of God and begins to reveal to you the character of God and you begin to focus on God himself then the good works come out as a result of that.

Old Testament and you both teach that this is God's way. That's why we call it the gospel. The good news. Don't you think it's good news that you don't have to get saved by being religious or doing good works?

You know why? Because how religious would we have to be? How good would we have to be? How many prayers would we have to say? Would it be enough or would we say one more? How many times would we have to be baptized?

How many times would we have to go to church? We could never do enough could we? The bad news would be if we had to get saved by religion or good works. The good news, the gospel is that Jesus accomplished the works on the cross.

When he said it is finished. Just before he died. That was after God turned his back on his son. That was after God reached backwards in time and forward into all of human history and took the sins of his own and placed them on Jesus' body and then he turned his back on him and Jesus paid the price of sin for all of God's children.

After that he said it is finished. You can't add any work to that ladies and gentlemen. And when we allow the enemy to come to us, we know these things are true but he comes to us and he begins to whisper in our mind and say well you know really though you're not really living for God and you're not right with God so you can't really pray so you just need to go out and do some good things.

We begin to believe that and you know what it does? It takes us further into darkness because we know we're not good. We know the things we do aren't enough. So then we have to come back and meditate on all thy works.

We have to meditate on the work that Jesus Christ accomplished for us in his life but especially in his death. As he paid the price of sin and God's justice was satisfied. And then when he died three days later God proved that his justice was satisfied and Jesus was the perfect lamb and that your sins and mine were destroyed in Christ when he was nailed to that cross.

God proved it when he raised him from the grave. And now we have the opportunity to live a resurrected life. And the resurrected life is a life that wants to please God. It's a life that wants to do things for God.

It's not something where you go out to do them to please God. It's that you please God because he's in you and you love him and you just want to be a pleasing child. And we meditate on God's work, on all thy works not on our own and that brings us out of darkness and it shows us that the light comes from him not from us.

So we muse upon the work of his hands. We hear of his loving kindness and then we understand the way in which we should walk and work and serve God. For I lift up my soul unto thee. Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies.

I flee unto thee to hide me. Isn't it interesting how this passage deals with the goodness of God but it continually comes back to his goodness hides us from the enemy because the enemy is after us. Teach me to do thy will.

Did you know that it is only by the goodness of God that we can even do his will? For thou art my God. And look at this phrase. Thy spirit is good. So he is not only the Holy Spirit, he is the good spirit.

Anything good in us at all comes forth as a fruit of this spirit. Anything bad that we do comes forth as a fruit of our flesh and our old man, that old flesh we live in has not yet been glorified, has not yet been fixed and it still pulls away from everything God wants to do and even away from what we ourselves the new man, the saved us wants to do.

But isn't it wonderful that the Bible says in verse 10 that thy spirit is good. The Holy Spirit of God that dwells in your body from the very day you receive Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior and you really mean it and you really give your life to him.

From that point his good spirit comes and dwells in your body and you have the potential to do good for the first time in your life. You couldn't possibly have done it before you got saved so you couldn't possibly have done it to get saved.

Only by God coming to you and drawing you to himself and saving your soul and placing his Holy Good Spirit within your life could you do a good work. And so therefore once again it is a result of this sovereign salvation of God on those who he knew before the foundation of the world.

There simply came a time in your lost life when he called out and you recognized you were his for the first time. It has nothing to do with church does it? Most of you weren't in church when that happened.

I was in my car driving to work one day when that happened to me between Waco and Lahan. I couldn't even tell you from a human viewpoint why it happened. But all of a sudden it was placed in my heart to pray and say Lord for the first time in my life I want you to be my boss to me being my boss.

That's the only way I knew to say it. I never read through the Bible. Didn't know the right words. But I placed my heart in his hands and he called me to do it and I said yes Lord. What do I do from here?

And my life has never been the same since that day and it had nothing to do with church. I didn't even go to church for three months because we were going to move back to Mahea and we didn't think it was smart to join a church in Waco we were going to move back to Mahea so didn't even see a church for three months.

Didn't even hear any preaching for three months after I got saved. I tell you what, once that good spirit of God came in my heart, you know what I wanted to do? I wanted to go to church for the first time.

I always hated church. I wanted to go to church. I wanted to read his words and understand it for the first time. Thy spirit is good. Lead me into the land of uprightness. Do you see that we cannot lead ourselves there?

And do you see that no man can lead us there? No set of rules. No hierarchies. No pastor can stand up and say now dress like me, walk like me. Here's the rules, go by these and you'll be happy. Doesn't work that way.

It says God must lead me into the land of uprightness. Now look at this, quicken me, oh Lord. Quicken me, that means give me a lively spirit. Give me life, abundant life. Why does he ask the Lord to do this?

For God's name's sake. All to the glory of God. You see this was not in the least a selfish prayer. He didn't say give me abundant life so I can be happy and joyous and dance all over the place and just bubble over.

Although that's what he wanted. But that's not the reason he said give it to me. He said give it to me for your sake. That you might be glorified through my life and through your work in my life and your touch on my life.

Quicken me, oh Lord, for thy name's sake. And the second reason he said, for thy righteousness sake. Do we understand, ladies and gentlemen, that if we walk in the flesh, even as saved people, that we, at least from the human viewpoint, do damage to the name of Jesus Christ.

Because everyone around you knows that you've claimed that you belong to him. And you've claimed that he is a good God. And you've claimed that he changed your life. And then you make one little slip and they all see it, don't they?

They'll be talking about it for counties around. Ah, that God's not very powerful. Either that or he's not really saved. You know what? That's why David prayed that God's good spirit would quicken him and give him the kind of life that Jesus would have.

Let me walk like Jesus would walk and treat people like Jesus would treat people. Treat people with the same kindness and patience and love and truth that Jesus would treat people for God's righteousness sake.

So that when the world looks at God's children, the world says God is a righteous God. Unfortunately, the state of affairs is in sad shape in that regard today. Because the world looks at the church today and disrespects her.

Because she is unclean. She is a slave to her work. Gone after the world. So have her ministry. Quicken me. Give me the life of the Holy Spirit. Give me the goodness of the Holy Spirit. For your name's sake and for your righteousness sake, bring my soul out of trouble that the people may know that you are a powerful God.

Mercy, Judgment, and the Hope of Deliverance

Listen to how it ends. This is where the world misses out on God. How many of you have ever heard the mercy of God defined as cutting off my enemies? Destroying and killing in a merciless way. Absolutely cutting to pieces my enemies.

That that would be seen as the mercy of God. Look what the psalmist says in verse 12. And of thy mercy in other words, by your mercy, in other words, because you are a merciful God cut off my enemies and destroy them all that afflict my soul.

For I you might as well have said I am thine. I am thy servant. You see God has his people. And then there's the world. All of us came out of that world, didn't we? We came out of that world and we were going after that world and there came a day when the Lord called our voice and we thought we heard something.

Maybe not in an audible voice, but we, our heart heard and he was wooing us and saying, receive me and I'll give you life. And at the same time the Holy Spirit was saying what do you have without him?

And your mind comes and says death, nothing, finality and end of nothing, no purpose, no good, no reason to be. And Jesus then says then come to me and I'll give you water of life. Your eyes are open for the first time and you can see.

Your ears are open for the first time and you can hear God's word. Your lame legs are made whole and you can walk and your filthy hands are made clean and you can serve God with good works because you have been saved.

Salvation of God is an incredible miracle. We have words of God to tell us how it works. We don't know all behind how it works. All we know is one time we were in darkness and a moment later we could see the light of his word.

Then we come to the place where we understand after we study the scriptures for years. Years! Many times Christians don't know this truth for years and sometimes they never know it because they may sit under bad teachers or no teachers for a while or whatever, but they don't come to realize that God knew them before the foundation of the world before it was defeated in chapter 1 in Romans chapter 8.

They never understand the truth that they were always God, they just didn't always know it. And that when God called them to himself and brought them and quickened them and gave them this life for the first time they could then know the way in which they should walk.

And they begin to learn as they study that there is an enemy and they recognize that their lost life before was totally empowered and they were total slaves to this enemy. And that when Jesus saved them and called them to himself, he redeemed them and bought them, paid the price and bought them out of a slave market of sin and freed them from the devil and there is no other Lord higher than the Lord Jesus Christ and he frees you from every lower Lord.

And you begin to understand that you do in fact have an enemy in this world and he hates you with cruel hatred. He has the ability to come and place a thought in your mind and see what you'll do with it.

Anytime you have a thought in your mind that is not edifying consider the source of it. It didn't come from God. James chapter 1 teaches that very clearly. It did not come from God so where did it come from?

Did you just think it up? You're God's child you're not one to think that way. Where did it come from? You have an enemy. And so the psalmist ends this way. God by your mercy the same mercy that saved me destroy the enemy that torments me.

The same mercy and love that nailed Jesus to the cross where he placed himself there. Allowed himself to be placed there and to die for us and to save us and to give us eternal life and fullness of life.

That same love the Bible says destroyed the enemy. Nailed him to the cross as well really. Put him to open shame. So isn't it peculiar to see that the mercy of God cuts off the enemy and destroys all of them that afflict God's people because we are his servants.

You see how the goodness of God is combined with severity. The world would call it evil in fact. The world would like to say God is an evil God because he strikes out and judges the sin of man. Only we as his children by the Holy Spirit and by this good word of God do we know what the goodness of God really means.

His mercy includes the fact that because of his mercy and love he strikes out in wrath at those who are not his. He strikes out in wrath at the enemy himself and that enemy shall in fact be chained in hell for a thousand years someday soon and it will not be his little kingdom.

He'll be chained just like the rest of the lost world and then he may rear his head for a day and then by the hand of God power will come from heaven and destroy the enemies of God and Satan will be placed in hell with all of his children forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever because of the mercy, the eternal mercy of God.

He loves you so much he's not going to let you be around him. God is good. Praise be to God that he called us out because if not then, thank goodness he will come upon us and fires to the world someday.

Let us be ready. We're his. We're equipped. Let us be ready. Let us be working for him. Let us be serving him in joy. The joy of the fact that we've come out of darkness and been placed in his glorious light.

We have no other reason to even think about why we shouldn't be joyful all the time other than that. Let us be watching every day for that other side of his mercy as it strikes out against us. We live in interesting days, don't we?

The most interesting of days we're seeing God's hand all around us. May the Lord use us as light witnesses if there be any others that lost sheep that need to come to him. May some of us in this room be the ones who give the gospel where they may hear it.

Hear the voice of the shepherd and come. And that last one is saved. Amen. Then we'll meet up Park Meadows Baptist Church and our visitors and everyone. We'll meet up at some little quadrant perhaps with the whole host and our instruments will be louder and our voices even us, when I say us I'm including those of you who are with me and can't sing even us will be able to sing.