The Fourfold Gospel Week 1 - Christ Our Savior revamped February 2026

  Several years back a couple came to our church, and like a lot of people asked about what the Alliance is. I explained to them a little history, a little bit of the theology, and a little bit about what our particular ministry was here in Quartzsite. At the end of this, about a ten minute explanation, the woman responded with, “All that sounds good, we thought you were some sort of cult.” At the time I was taken aback by what she said, but now I think it’s funny.

I can see why she might have thought that. The Alliance denomination isn’t widely known. It has no where near the high profile of a Baptist, Methodist, or Calvary Chapel. And in the community we’re simply known as the Alliance Church.

So when people see our church signs, or ads, I can see them thinking, what type of weird cultist place is the Alliance? Well, every few years, I like to share a little about what the Alliance is. And to me the best way to understand what the Alliance is, is to focus in on a core teaching that is seen through our denomination’s logo, and is a bedrock for why we do the things we do.

So if you have your Bibles, we’re going to start in the book of Romans chapter 5 starting in verse 6. As we open to Romans 5:6, you need to know that the Alliance is short hand for the Christian and Missionary Alliance. It was found in the late 1800s by people who had a desire to bring the Gospel to the unsaved. There were two arms of the group: The Christian Alliance, a network of congregations in the US, and the Missionary Alliance, a missions board that was supported by the network to send missionaries over seas. The central founder was A.B. Simpson, a Canadian Presbyterian who moved to the states for health reasons, then to New York for a pastoral position, which he stepped down from to pursue the calling of sending missionaries across the world. 

Over the course of his life, he saw within the pages of Scriptures, what he would later call the four-fold Gospel. Not that the Gospel was only four things, but, as he states, “… there are four messages in the gospel which sum up in a very complex way the blessings which Christ has to offer us and which it is especially important that Christians should emphasize today.”

It is the first part of this four fold message of the Gospel that we begin within in Romans 5:6-8, let’s read it together. “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

These words, “… while we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” are the words that pierce my life. I remember myself as a young man in distress; I remember my pain and hurt; I remember the moment I accepted Jesus as my Savior, and the radical impact it had on me. And I praise God that while I was a sinner, Christ died for me.

My eighth grade teacher told my mom that what she saw in my future was prison. But her prophecy did not come true. Because when the teachers, and judges, and everyone else looked at me and said, that boy is just going to be a dredge of society, Christ saw me and loved me. He died on the cross 2,000 years before I was a speck, and though I was a sinner after the fact, his death broke through history and saved me. 

I was not abandoned by God in my time of need. Though I broke everything from his law, to my parent’s hearts, “while I was a sinner, Christ died for me.” Not because of anything I did, but because of his deep love. I, an imperfect sinner, was loved by the perfect God who came to earth, died on a cross and resurrected for me. And I didn’t have to become good, I didn’t have to fix my life, I didn’t have to look, or act, or smell, or think a certain way, Christ died for me even in my sin. Even when I didn’t think, or act, or speak right. Christ died for a sinner like me. And in my powerlessness, the work of Jesus on the cross brought me salvation. And I moved from death to life in a flash.

This is the first of the four fold message that A.B. Simpson saw in the Scriptures: Jesus is our Savior. This is the first step in our understanding of God. Jesus saved us, not because we deserved it, but because of his deep love for us. God’s saving work through the cross, speaks to the depth of his love, and the extremes he is willing to go to show us that love. Jesus as Savior brings us from death to life. It brings us from rebellion into right relationship. And it brings us from eternal self-absorption to eternal selfless worship. 

A.B. Simpson gave 8 things that Jesus saves us from. First, Jesus saves us from the guilt of sin. Romans 8:1 states, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” So when the lies of the enemy tell us, “you messed up again you sinner,” we can exclaim, “Yes I messed up, but Jesus does not condemn me by his work on the cross!”

Second, Jesus saves us from the wrath of God. Romans 5:9 reads, “Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” God hates sin, and seeks to destroy it in every place it hides. But through Jesus’ work on the cross the wrath of God passes by, because sin has been and is being dealt with in our lives.

Third, Jesus saves us from the curse of the law. Galatians 3:13 says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’” Paul writes that through the law of Moses we recognize what sin is, and it’s by the law we are condemned to death because of our sin. But through Jesus’ work on the cross, the law’s judgment is broken because Jesus paid our penalty.

Fourth, Jesus saved us from our own evil conscience. First Peter 3:21 states, “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ ….” We try to justify our sinful acts and thereby pervert our conscience into agreeing with our lies, but through Jesus’ work on the cross we are now clear of the lies and deception we need to create to make ourselves feel good.

Fifth, Jesus saves us from our own evil heart. In the book of Jeremiah chapter 17, verse 9, it reads, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” God knows that our hearts are corrupt. Jesus even says that, “out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts (Mk. 7:21).” Through the work on the cross Jesus saves us from this corrupted heart.

Sixth, Jesus saves us from the fear of death. In First Corinthians 15:55-57 Paul stands defiantly and proclaims, “‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The fear of death should no longer constrain us, but rather we stand in front of it and proclaim Jesus’ work is greater than the grave.

The seventh thing that Jesus saves us from is Satan’s power. First John 3:8 states, “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” The works of the enemy do not control us who have accepted Jesus as our Savior. And so we can stand on the work of the cross and proclaim, “I am a servant of only one master, and his name is Jesus!”

The final thing Jesus saves us from is certainly not least. Jesus saves us from eternal death. Jesus states in John 5:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” When we accepted Jesus as Savior, we moved from the road that leads to a place of eternal death and decay, onto the road where everything is new for eternity.

I’ve experience all of it. I am free from the shackles that I placed on myself, because of my rebellion. But while I was a sinner, Christ died for me and set me free from all the things that God never intended for my life. But that’s not all.

A.B. Simpson brings out that we are not just saved from something, but also to something. Jesus saved us to be justified in God’s sight. Romans 5:1 reads, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” God sees us through the lens of Jesus, and when God looks upon us, all he sees is the perfect work of the Son.

Jesus also saves us to experience the favor and love of God. The Psalmist, in Psalm 5:11-12, wrote, “But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you. For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover him with favor as with a shield.” We who put our trust into Jesus can experience this love and favor because we gain Jesus’ righteousness.

Remember how Jesus saves us from a corrupted heart? Well, we are saved so that he may give us a new heart. God prophecies about this in Ezekiel 36:26, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” Our heart can beat as it was supposed to, with the fruits that will be produced in us through Jesus’ work.

Jesus’ work also saves us to experience God’s grace to live every day. Paul talks about this kind of grace in Second Corinthians 9:8, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” God’s grace is there so that we can do the work that he has saved us to be a part of. And that grace jumpstarts our new lives in Christ, and is leaned on every moment we live from that moment on.

Jesus’ work through the cross also brings us the help of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Paul talks about the giving of the Holy Spirit to us in Romans 5:5, “and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” We can live daily in the power of God, through the Holy Spirit who lives within us. If Jesus, being fully God, relied on the Spirit as he walked this earth, how much more should we?

Jesus’ work also brings us God’s working out of all things for our good, In Romans 8:28, Paul tells us, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Even when we mess up, God can take those mess ups and turn them for good as we seek him in his purposes.

Next, Jesus’ work on the cross also brings the opening for more blessings to flow to us. Paul recognizes this in his prayer for the Church at Ephesus in Ephesians 3:14-21, “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” We cannot even begin to understand the blessings God has for us through Jesus.

Finally, but not the least of these, we are saved to eternal life. The most beloved verse of the Bible, John 3:16 is memorized for a very important reason, for it states, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” And that life, begins at the moment we accept Jesus as our Savior and moves into eternity. 

None of these things we deserve, but because of God’s deep love for us, he gives them freely.

Jesus as Savior is one message, of what A.B.Simpson called the FourFold Gospel. This approach to understanding the Gospel spurs the work of the Alliance ahead. The gratitude we as believers have, because of the depth of love shown through the cross, that, “… while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

This sinner, who from an early age was in rebellion, was given up on by almost everyone he came into contact with, but Christ died for such as he, and now I serve at the command of Christ. Not to earn my salvation, but in adoration of the God who has done so much for me. 

Too often in our lives we take for granted the depth of the work God has done for us to bring us to salvation. But God wants us to remember and understand the depth of work Christ did on our behalf by his work on the cross. And in understanding it, to rejoice in it. 

  Jesus spoke this parable and questioned his disciples in Luke 7:41-43, “‘A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?’ 43 Simon answered, ‘The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.’ And he said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’”

I now seek to understand the depth of my debt, so that I might understand the depth of the forgiveness my Savior brought to me. 

 

This week, my challenge is simple, seek God’s understanding of the depth of your debt to the Savior. Make a list with the words, “while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me” at the top. Then, after writing all that Jesus saved you from, write at the bottom, “while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me” and praise him for his work.

Let us be a people that seeks to know the depth of love that our Savior has for us. It is seeking to understand this depth that we join together as a family of believers to be called the Alliance. Amen.

The Problem of Evil Series, Wk4, “God's Purpose and Answer in Evil”

  A man was living a great life. He had a large healthy family, and his health was doing well too. His assists were diversified and made him rich. And he was known by everyone as a good man. Then one day everything crumbled. He lost his family in a freak natural disaster. His assists were destroyed over night. Eventually his health was ravaged. When his friends showed up, they should have comforted him, but instead, they began to tell him it was all his fault. He had done something wrong in his life and now the bad was coming for him. He didn’t understand it, and he never did. His story ends without a real resolve as to why. Sure his health, and wealth came back. He even had more children, but he never had the answer as to why it happened in the first place. 

This is the summary of the book of Job. Job never found out the the purpose to the evil that befell him. But as the reader, we do. We know that God was making a point to Satan, and future generations. First, bad things happen even to those who follow God. This was a foreign concept in the Ancient Near East, as it is today, where we ask the question, why do bad things happen to good people? But there are things that God knows that we don’t as to why certain evils fall into our lives. Second, God is in control. Though we might think that evil has reign in this world, God is still working out his plans to bring about his end goals. In both, we should awe in God for he does everything for his good purposes, and that is a comforting thing.

 

The understanding that God does have purpose in evil, is what brings us back to our final week in our Answering the Problem of Evil series, where we’re going to look at God’s purpose in allowing evil, and his answer to it. But before we dive into his purpose and answer, we need to recap what we’ve talked about so far leading up to this week.

In our first week, we looked at the origin of evil. Since the Scriptures tells us that God is wholly good, and that he creates all things good, evil cannot begin with him. Instead, what we see is that evil comes out of the will of God’s creatures in rebellion against him. It is the choices of God’s creatures to seek their own desires outside of God, that produces evil. 

In our second week, we looked at the affects of evil in the natural world. Here we discussed a link between the image bearers of God who are given dominion over the physical creation and the rebellion of those image bearers against God. Through a spiritual connection that we have with the physical creation, by way of our dominion position, we are the primary source to the chaos that is occurring in the world today. There is also a secondary source of evil in the creation, which are those spiritual beings who are also in rebellion against God. Finally, in the same week we talked about how God uses natural calamities to bring just judgment down upon evil.

Then last week, we asked the question about the amount of evil in the world. Why is there so much? The answer being that God is actually restraining the amount of evil there is. There could be more, and yet, God is working to mitigate evil for a time. However, there will be a day when he allows evil to run rampant for a time, and then, we will see what real untethered evil looks like. But we’re not there yet.

With these three aspects of the problem of evil addressed, we can now ask our first question of the day, what is God’s purpose in allowing evil? This is a general understanding of why, and doesn’t address every specific reason, because those specific reasons are for God’s counsel alone, and may or may not ever be revealed to us.

At the beginning of series we wrested just a bit with the concept of what it meant to be an image bearer of God. One of the things we must understand that when God creates anything it is automatically less than himself. It is deficient, or lacking, in some way compared to himself. Not deficient in the sense that it is created somehow imperfect, but rather it cannot carry all of the divine aspects of God. God does not create mini-gods. There are not other all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present beings. There are not eternal and self-sufficient gods out there. When God creates, he creates with eternity in mind for his creatures, but they are not eternal as God is. They have a beginning, he does not. They have reason and are able to know things, but they are not all-knowing. They can do amazing feats, but they are not all-powerful. So they are deficient in the totality of divinity. Yet they can participate, in limited ways, in God’s divine nature.

We see these to concepts in places like Isaiah 43:10, “Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.”

And in what Peter writes in Second Peter 1:3-4, “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.”

One aspect of this participation is knowledge. God’s divine attribute of knowledge is that he is omniscient, or all-knowing. God does not need to open a book to know something. He does not need to be taught, or instructed in any way. God has the divine knowledge of all things. However, his creatures do not. They are limited to only know what they themselves are instructed in. 

One of the aspects of the choice in the Garden of Eden, is the choice to pursue knowledge from God, or to pursue knowledge outside of God. God’s knowledge expounds his goodness, whereas seeking knowledge outside of his good already begins in evil. The clue as to the central issue that God is trying to teach us is found in the very name of the tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The concept of good and evil doesn’t make sense to a creature who is made in total goodness, as Adam and Eve were. But to God, who knows all things, he fully knows the concept of good and evil. He knows what the effects of evil are without ever needing to act in evil, or to experience and understand it. 

However, for the creature of God, they can only learn by two options: either they learn through obedience, which is trust in what another says, or they learn through experience with the effects happening to them and those around them.

We can see this in things such as addictions. I have never been addicted to alcohol or drugs, because I obeyed those who told me about the effects of the addiction. Yet there are countless people that learned the hard way, through experiencing their effects. In the garden’s choice we see these two ways of learning presented to the creatures. They could learn through obedience, or they could learn through experience. They chose experience, and do to that choice, we all are learning what evil is by way of experience.

But the next question must be, what then is the point? Why does God want us to understand good and evil? Last week we briefly talked about a greater world to come. As Revelation 21:3-4 told us, a world where, “… the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

In this greater world, evil has no place, because there will be no rebellion against God. This is because the will of God’s creatures will be willing laid before him. He will have a people that, in a small way, know what he knows: that his goodness is what we should seek through trustful obedience, and that evil should be turned away from. 

In the opening to the book of Isaiah, the first time God speaks through the prophet is to address the wickedness of the southern kingdom of Judah. The Lord says this beginning in Isaiah 1:16, “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause. Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. (Is. 1:16-20)”

The Lord is seeking those who will turn from evil and to his goodness. Those who are in eternity have sought the goodness of God in obedience to him. So the overarching purpose of God in evil, is to allow his creatures to understand the horridness of it, and to seek only his goodness.

But what is his answer to dealing with evil? There are three parts to this. The first is this, God’s fix for evil has always been through the cross. First Peter 1:17-21 states, “And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.”

The cross is God’s answer to the plight that we are in. Through the cross the punishment for evil is placed on the shoulders of God himself. Though the trespass was our fault, God placed the punishment upon himself as a display of his goodness. At the cross of Christ, the justice and love of God collide. Justice in dealing with evil, and love that would not hold us to an eternal accountability, but make the way for salvation.

The second answer to the problem of evil is the Church. Paul writes in Ephesians 3:4-12, "When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.”

The Church is to proclaim God’s fix which is in Christ Jesus. God answers evil by saying, I’ve dealt with it on the cross. The Church’s role is then to proclaim it to all people of all nations. This is why the proclamation of the Gospel is important for every Christian believers to participate in. By word and deed we are the trumpeters of God’s answer to evil. That though we were the cause of all the evil around us, God himself heaped the punishment onto himself, that we may turn from evil and to his goodness.

And because our Lord suffered for others, those who put there trust in him may suffer to prove that God’s word is true. That though we suffer here, we trust there is a greater world ahead.

God’s final answer to the problem of evil is this from Revelation 20:7-15, “And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

There will be a day when God will bring about his final judgment on all evil. Neither image bearers nor spiritual beings will be safe from the final judgment of God. And the judgment isn’t whether we accepted Jesus or not, Jesus’ sacrifice is what broke evil, and through him we can receive eternal life. But make no mistake, it is our own desire to turn away from God and to evil that brings judgment upon us. God has given us a away out of the judgment, but if we are unrepentant of evil, then all that’s left in us is a heart which only desires it. But that evil must be dealt with, and at the end he will. God’s final answer to evil, is the lake of fire.

This is why Pauls states this in Second Corinthians 6:1-13, "Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, ‘In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.’ Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. We put no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything. We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also.”

The call of the Church to the world is to repent and turn to Jesus before we move into eternity, because on that day there will be no more repenting, and our eternity will be sealed.

In the coming weeks we’re going to zero in on these last three aspects as we talk about Christ our Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King, but for now, we need to end on this: Church, our Savior broke the power of evil on the cross, we are now to live in his victory. We are to proclaim it with our words and deeds, until the day he returns or takes us to himself, because there is an eternity where there will be no more turning either to God’s goodness or away from it. For the decision we make in this life reverberates with eternal consequences. 

So my challenge for you is this, is to seek the Lord for one person in your life that needs to hear the Goodness of the Gospel which broke evil’s hold on humanity. I want to challenge you to steep yourself in prayer for them and seek the Lord to give you the words and the moment to share with them the Gospel. That they may hear it and that seeds may be planted. Then give them over to the Lord who will bring the flowering of faith.

Let us be a people, not scared of the question of evil, because we have and know the answer, it is the Lord Jesus himself. Amen.

The Problem of Evil Series, Wk3, “Why So Much Evil?”

  William A. Rowe is a twentieth century philosopher who wrote in an 1979 article about an example of what he believed to be unnecessary suffering. Rowe’s example is this, “Suppose in some distant forest lightning strikes a dead tree, resulting in a forest fire. In the fire a fawn is trapped, horribly burned, and lies in terrible agony for several days before death relieves its suffering.” Rowe writes this as an example of an abhorrent evil. The idea here is that there is evil that has no purpose and yet happens, he then states that therefore God is either not in control or not fully good. 

Rowe’s example of the fawn brings us back to our sermon series on the problem of evil. In the last two weeks we have covered our role in the problem. In the first week we looked at the origin of evil. Evil does not begin with God, because God creates all things good. However, God gives us the divine gift of will in which we can choose his goodness or reject it. By rejecting the goodness of God, even in a small way we commit evil. Because any movement away from God is categorizes as moving away from good and therefore must be evil. So the origin of evil is our desire to do our own will and not the will of God.

In week two we looked at the affects of the will choosing evil. God crated his image bearers to have dominion over the physical creation. Due to this, there is a spiritual connection between us and the physical creation. When Adam sinned the very nature of the world was thrown into bondage and now is in chaos. Just as sin affects relationships between God and his image bearers, it also affects image bearers and the world they inhabit. Due to this bondage, all matter of natural disasters and diseases happen, even the seemingly unnecessary suffering of the fawn. The image bearers of God are the primary source of evil in the natural world. But there is a secondary source, which are the spiritual beings who are in rebellion against God. They have an affect as well as they battle both God and his creatures. Finally, though God does cause some natural disasters, he always does so as the just Judge; carrying out divine punishment on those who choose evil.

After tackling both the origin of evil and its affects in the natural world, the next question many people ask is what about the amount of evil? This can be asked in various ways as, why does God allow bad things to happen to good people, or why does God allow children to be hurt? Or in the more philosophical way, why did God create this world and not another world with less or no evil? 

Let’s begin in reverse, why did God create a world where evil even exist? Philosophers wrestle with the idea of the Best of Possible Worlds Theory. Scholars Marilyn and Robert Adams write, “Taking his inspiration from Leibniz, Pike proposes the Best of All Possible Worlds as such a comprehensive good. By ‘possible world’ is meant a complex state of affairs, whether a completely determinate, maximal consistent state of affairs, or an aggregate of finite or created things together with their whole history. What is important for present purposes is that the least variation in world history constitutes a different possible world. According to Leibniz, what God does in creating is to actualize a possible world.”

The concept here is simple when you take out the philosophical jargon. In the mind of God are all possible worlds that could be created, the world we now live in is the best world that God could actualize or create. Think about it like this, if you’ve ever watched the current Marvel universe movies there are many other universes out there. This is called the multiverse and is actually a real naturalistic scientific hypothesis. 

In the multiverse theory, there’s a universe out there where everything is exactly the same except you wore black socks instead of white socks. However, there is also a universe where black socks wore you. Due to the infinite amount of choices humans can make, there is an infinite amount of universes to match them. The difference between the multiverse and the best of possible worlds idea, is that the possible worlds are only in God’s mind, for he knows all the possibilities but only creates one of them, the best one. And since we’re here and able to discuss it, this one must be the best world that God could create. 

So the question becomes, could God have created a better world with less evil? Here we run into a problem, what do we mean by less evil? Do we mean that there are no natural disasters, but allow for murder? Do we take out all natural disasters and murders, but allow for broken bones? Do we take out all those things and the broken bones, but allow for scrapes? Or do we take out all forms of suffering even down to eczema and balding? A world where only bad people get hurt but not the good ones? A world where, adults may get hurt, but children don’t?

The issue of the best possible world is not one of evil but one of the degree of evil that we’re okay with. There is always a lesser evil that could happen. Because if we had the lesser evil, we would not know there was a greater evil, that lesser evil would be the greatest evil, and therefore we could say that there is still more evil than there needs to be. 

In reverse, there is also a better good. We could have a sunny day, but then there’s the heat, so it could improve with a slight cool breeze. But that could also be better with a day off. That could also be better with that day off sitting on a beach. 

The modern philosopher, country singer Brad Paisley writes of a group of guys sitting around a campfire and one says, “Man, it don’t get any better than this…,” to which another responds, “Boys, I hate to disagree,” and then proceeds to sing, “If Bill Dance and Hank Parker floated by in a boat/And volunteered to be our fishin' guides/And Richard Petty pulled up in the old '43 car/And asked us if we wanted a ride.” In other words, it could always get better. So the best of possible worlds, could always have less evil, or more good. The reality is, we would never be satisfied with more good or less evil, because there would always be more to have either way.

Except I believe there is a better world. A world that is to come, where we’re told in Revelation 21:3-4, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’”

So why doesn’t God actualize that world now? That world which has no evil and has maximum good, because the people will be next to the infinite God who is infinitely good. Again, the issue has its root in the will of the image bears. God has created the best world in which image bearers can experience in a finite way, what he understands in the infinite. God understands all things without the need of experience, because he is all-knowing. Anything God creates does not have that level of knowledge, they must live into a world where experience can happen. It’s through experience that creatures gain knowledge. This experience comes by way of choosing God and his goodness or not and turning to evil. In this way we can learn what it means to desire God or to reject him. Through experience in this world, God can then bring us into a world without evil because we understand what it means to resent it and follow him.

We see a glimmer of this learning when Paul writes of the angels, “so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. (Eph. 3:10)”

Even if my argument is true, the question still remains, why this amount of evil. To this I would respond that we do not fully grasp the work that God is doing right now to restrain the evil of our world. 

Paul writes in Second Thessalonians 2:1-7, “Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.”

God is currently restraining evil. Imagine if God wasn’t restraining the hearts tended towards evil, what kind of devastation would occur. We see the mass destruction that we can cause on each other. The further we move as a people away from biblical teaching, the more wicked our world becomes. Love diminishes and hate multiples. And the brutality we show to each other increases. Yet it always seems to be getting worse, and we’re surprised by it. The reality is, we can’t imagine the brutality that could be, we just experience the brutality there is. But it could be worse, and the book of Revelation reveals much of that as it unfolds God’s removal of his restraint on evil. 

Jesus speaks of that day, when evil will no longer be restrained, “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short. (Matt. 24:21-22)”

Until that day comes it is Christ’s Church who stands as a beckoning light in the world which points to the Light of the World, Jesus. This is why it is the Church who is to stand against injustices, against corruption, against perversions, and all other types of evils as it also stands for compassion, mercy, and grace. We as believers are to be seeking God in holy lives, proclaiming his transformational goodness through our words and deeds. There should be a distinction of Christ’s people from the world around them. 

But too often there isn’t. Too often we fail and fall, and the world sees no difference. This is why we must be more truthful of our struggles. Not denying our failures but boasting in Jesus who overcomes them. Because there will be a day, when this world will experience an untethered evil and then a judgment of the evil. God will then answer the problem of evil with a finality to end the discussion. But more on that next week.

For now, my challenge to you is this, are you seeking to live a holy God honoring life? If you have trusted in Jesus as Savior, does your life bring the goodness of God to others? Are you compassionate, and merciful? Do you stand against injustices wherever they are? Because we can be compassionate to those who we like and love, but God calls us to a greater compassion, to those who we don’t love or like. God calls us to not only seek justice for those we agree with, but also for those we don’t. The goodness of God calls us into his life, he is not merely an additive to our own. Seek God to open your eyes to the areas where he wants to work.

Let us not be good only to those from whom we will receive good, but also to the one who would reject us. Only when evil is confronted with God’s goodness, can we see the affects of Jesus’ victory in our lives. Amen.