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“The Wickedness Meter”

Allen Dvorak
09/08/24 - Sun AM

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But once again, good morning.

If you're visiting with us this morning, we are very grateful for your presence.

We hope that you feel comfortable among us and that you are being encouraged and instructed in the things that we do.

We're grateful for your presence here and certainly want to welcome you to come back as you have opportunity.

You're always welcome here.

It has been almost a full month since the last time I preached in this pulpit, Debbie and I were gone through three weeks in Africa and last week I was given grace by the elders who didn't make me preach the day after I came back from a long trip.

And so uh as is sometimes the case with people who need to be retrained frequently.

I'm not totally sure how all this works.

I think I'm supposed to speak until about 12 and then we have our bible class after that.

Is that right, Steve?

Yes, Steve said, yes.

Uh don't trust the I want to direct your attention to John the ninth chapter.

John chapter nine is a fascinating chapter.

It is the story of a man who was born blind and has been blind all his life and Jesus heals him.

The conversation that develops between this man and the Pharisees who don't want to acknowledge that Jesus has performed a miracle is fascinating, but that's not really our uh our uh focus this morning.

I really wanna talk just about the very beginning of the chapter.

The text says in John chapter nine verse one, as he passed by Jesus, did, he saw a man blind from birth?

And his disciples asked him, rabbi who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind.

Jesus response was it was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

What an interesting question.

Here's a guy who's blind from birth and what the disciples ask is who sinned?

Somebody must have sinned because it appears obvious that the disciples equated personal suffering of the kind that this man had experienced all his life to be due to personal sin.

Somebody's sin.

If he's suffering, somebody must have sinned.

It's an interesting comment or question I should say when they ask who sent this man?

Since he was congenitally blind, he would have had to have sinned while he was still in his mother's womb.

You may find that rather astonishing that anybody would even ask that question.

But there were some rabbis who reason from Genesis 2522 where Esau and Jacob are in the womb of their mother and they're tussling with each other and they argued that that was evidence that sometimes people sin before they were even born.

I don't think the Bible is teaching that, but that's where they came uh from.

Uh That's where that idea came from.

But Jesus denies both alternatives.

It wasn't this man, it wasn't his parents.

Jesus doesn't talk specifically about that question of suffering and sin but merely notes that this was an opportunity instead for the works of God to be seen.

Well, that's the first story that I wanted you to think about the question who sin asked by the disciples.

But there's another story that I would also like for you to consider.

It's in all three of the synoptic gospels.

In mark the 10th chapter, it is the story of a young man we're told in other passages that he's a rich ruler and he comes running to Jesus and he kneels before Jesus and then he asks the question, uh good master, what must I do in order to inherit eternal life?

Now, there's a lot could be said about that from the standpoint of salvation and grace.

But of course, as we work through the story, we find that this is a man of good moral character.

He'd been keeping the commandments of the old law all his life, he tells Jesus in response to that uh instruction.

But when Jesus instructs him to sell all that he has and distribute to the poor and then come follow Jesus.

He becomes very sad, extremely sorrowful.

The text says, and the reason was he had a lot of stuff.

Luke says he was extremely wealthy and Jesus is telling him to give it all away.

And so he goes away and Jesus then remarks to the disciples about how difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God.

And that astonishes the disciples.

Look at Mark chapter 216, verse 211 through 210.

It's on the screen.

The disciples were amazed at his words, but Jesus said to them Children, how difficult it is to enter the Kingdom of God.

It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.

And they were exceedingly astonished, it says and said to him, then who can be saved?

And that question suggests that in their view, the rich were probably the most likely to be in the favor of God and be saved.

And if the rich can only be saved with difficulty, then what about the rest of us?

What about those who are farther down on the social ladder?

You may not think these two stories are particularly related, but they actually are.

And the connection between the two of them is that both of them illustrate a misconception of the disciples coming from two different directions.

But the same misconception in the first story, blindness must be the result of sin.

So suffering is the result of personal sin.

In the second story, physical wealth must be the evidence of God's favor.

You know, if the rich can't be saved, then what's gonna happen to the rest of us?

In both cases, here's the connection, the disciples judged the spiritual condition of an individual by the wrong standard.

And that's what I want to talk to you about this morning.

I want to talk to you about how it is that sometimes people judge spiritual condition by the wrong standard.

We're talking about the disciples of Jesus in these two stories.

But I want to suggest to you that that is a common misconception today that you can actually say something about somebody's spiritual condition based on their general physical circumstances in this world.

You know, that wasn't a new view in the first century.

If you were to go back to the Old Testament and open your Bible to the Book of Job, you'd find out that there were three friends of job who came and they had exactly the same misconception.

If you're not familiar with the Book of Job or the story of Job, let me rehearse just very quickly.

A few facts that will help you put some of the things that we're going to read and say in context in the very beginning of the Book of Job, the Sons of God are gathered and income Satan.

And the Bible says in chapter one of job and in verse one, that job was blameless and upright one who feared God and turned away from evil.

And in verse eight, God asks Satan, have you considered my servant job?

And look at the praise that job receives from God, have you considered my servant job?

That there is none like him on the earth?

Can you imagine if God would say that about you or about me?

There's nobody like Zach.

And Olivia says, yeah, I know.

But if, if God said, there's nobody like Zach, nobody on the earth like him, that's pretty high praise.

And that's what he says about Joe.

Well, Satan says, well, the reason that He serves you is that you protect Him, you built this edge around him.

You've given him great wealth, take away his wealth and He'll curse you to your face and God permits Satan then to afflict job from the standpoint of taking away his possessions, even his Children die in the ensuing persecution by Satan.

But in chapter two, that's chapter one, in chapter two, there's another conversation between God and Satan and God notes to Satan, you know, you, you did all this to job and he didn't react the way you said he would.

And Satan's response is, yeah, he didn't have any skin in the game.

You touch him personally and then it'll become real to him.

I'm paraphrasing that's not even the new living translation.

And so God says, all right, you can touch job but you can't take his life.

And in chapter two, we find out that job is afflicted with some terrible sickness.

He is miserable.

And you, as you read through the book, you'll understand that uh it is a very serious condition.

Well, job has lost virtually everything.

He is now suffering personally physically.

But help is on the way because three of his friends come as the text says to comfort him and to show sympathy for him.

Tell you what if you've got friends like Faz Bilad and Zohar, you don't need any enemies because when they come and they begin talking to Joe first, they just sit with him for seven days.

Nobody says anything.

Then job engages in a soliloquy and bemoans, the fact that he was born, that he was born alive, that he didn't die at birth.

And then the friends start in and in order to appreciate what they say to him, you need to understand how they are thinking and they're thinking just like the disciples of Jesus did much later in history.

They encourage job to repent of his sins.

And when he doesn't confess any sins, they eventually will begin to assign sins to him to accuse him of things that they had no idea were true or not.

The thinking of the friends went something like this.

Human suffering is always and that's a key word.

Here, human suffering is always the result of personal sin.

And the suffering is also in proportion to the sin, the seriousness of the sin.

So if somebody's sinning a lot, then they're going to suffer a lot.

And so the friends made that direct connection between personal sin and personal suffering.

And here's their friend job sitting on the ash heap suffering greatly horribly.

And so the only conclusion that makes sense to them is that job must be guilty of some terrible sins.

And so they start in on him and they start telling him you need to repent.

If you'll just repent, God will turn and he'll bless you.

I'm convinced that job also shared that perspective.

I think that's why in this book, he is so confounded, so confused because he knows that he has not sinned in any way that would have brought on this kind of suffering.

I mean, who suffered like job and yet he's suffering.

If he didn't hold the same view as the friends, then I don't think that would have been the same consternation through the book that you read.

In the words of job.

I could tell you what the friends thought i in greater detail, but I'm just gonna let you hear it from their own lips.

So let's just quickly look at a handful of quotations from these friends of job in the book.

There are three cycles of speeches, each of the friends speaks and then job responds and they all speak in the same order.

We'll use the same order in our, in our slides.

And uh the third cycle then job engages in some speeches and so on.

So let's begin with Elis.

Elis says, remember who that was innocent, ever perished or where were the upright cut off?

As I have seen those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.

Hili says innocent people don't suffer when people suffer.

It's because they sin.

He makes that connection.

And Bild dad follows suit.

Bild dad says, can papyrus grow where there's no marsh can reeds flourish where there is no water while yet in flower and not cut down they wither before any other plant.

Such are the paths of all who forget God, the hope of the Godless shall perish.

There's the refrain, sinners are gonna suffer.

Sinners are gonna suffer.

They always suffer because of their sins.

Zohar is the third friend to speak.

And he says to job.

If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away and let not injustice.

Dwell in your tents surely, then you will lift up your face without blemish, you'll be secure and will not fear that uh that and I think I've got uh part of a sentence missing there.

I apologize.

Dropping down to verse 212.

He says, but the eyes of the wicked will fail all way of escape will be lost to them.

And their hope is to breathe their last so so far says the same thing, the wicked are going to suffer.

They always suffer because of their sin.

Well, let's go back to Zoar, excuse me, faz.

And he says in chapter 212, verse 216 the wicked man writhes in pain all his days through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.

So the wicked man, all he does is just suffer because of his sins.

Bild dad says, indeed the light of the wicked is put out and the flame of his fire does not shine.

My understanding is that in Israelite homes, there was always a lamp that was kept burning.

And the idea of that lamp being put out meant calamity, catastrophe for that family or for that individual.

And Bilad says the wicked, his light gets put out and soar finishes up by saying, do you not know this from of old since man was placed on earth?

That the exulting of the wicked is short and the joy of the godless.

But for a moment though his height mount up to the heavens and his head reached to the clouds.

He will perish forever like his own dung.

Those who have seen him will say, where is he?

And so they just keep repeating this refrain.

The reason you're suffering job is because you're a sinner and you must have sinned terribly.

Now at some point, a little bit later on, uh certainly by the third cycle of speeches.

They begin to acknowledge that sometimes the wicked prosper for a while.

But they'll keep saying, but it's all gonna be swept away.

But I love the speech of Job in chapter 16 in chapter 224.

Job tells his friends what I have seen doesn't fit your template.

It doesn't fit your argument in Job.

Chapter 224 verses seven through 216.

And I've gotten so excited.

I haven't gotten to my text yet.

So let me go to Job chapter 21 and verse seven and Job says, this is what I have seen.

He says, why do the wicked live reach old age and go mighty in power.

Their offspring are established in their presence and their descendants before their eyes, their houses are safe from fear and no rod of God is upon them.

Their bull breeds without faith, their cow calves and does not miscarry.

They send out their little boys like a flock and their Children dance.

They sing to the tambourine and the lyre and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.

They spend their days in prosperity and in peace, they go down to shield or the grave.

They say to God, depart from us.

We do not desire the knowledge of your ways.

What is the Almighty that we should serve Him?

And what profit do we get if we pray to him?

So we're talking about wicked people here.

They, they don't want to have anything to do with God and job says, but you know what?

They seem to live pretty good lives.

Everything seems to be going along swimmingly for them.

Drop down to verse 17.

How often is it?

He's talking to Bild dad.

Now how often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out?

That their calamity comes upon them that God distributes pains in his anger.

The friends were saying that the wicked always suffer and jobs saying really, it doesn't seem that way.

Drop down to verse 27.

And the same chapter job says, behold, I know your thoughts and your schemes to wrong me.

For you say, where is the house of the prince?

Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?

In other words, they're saying the wicked really don't prosper and job responds.

Have you not asked those who travel the roads and do you not accept their testimony that the evil man is spared in the day of calamity that he is rescued in the day of wrath?

Who declares to his face and who repays him for what he has done when he's carried to the grave, watch is kept over his tomb.

The clouds of the valley are sweet to him.

All mankind follows after him and those who go before him are innumerable.

How then will you comfort me with empty nothings, there's nothing left of your answers but falsehood.

And so job says, I'm looking around at society and your argument, your theology doesn't work because sometimes the wicked seem to prosper.

They don't suffer in, uh the same amount is their sins.

Now, job's gonna say some pretty rash things in the course of his discussion with the friends, partly because he assumed it was God who had uh caused his suffering.

And of course, he doesn't understand what exactly happened in chapters.

One and two.

We're privy to that conversation.

Job was not well, like job.

We need to realize that we can't judge our spiritual condition or judge the spiritual spiritual condition of others on the basis of their circumstances in life.

Job's suffering was not the result of his personal sin.

We understand that because we're privy to the conversation that chapters one and two, the scriptures provide us with a number of other examples of people who suffer but not as a result of their own sin, but as a result of the sins of others.

For instance, you may recall the story of Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba.

David committed adultery with Uriah's wife Bathsheba.

And when she conceives a child, she's pregnant.

Now, he calls Uriah back from the battle where the army is out uh fighting against the Ammonites and hoping that Uriah will sleep with his wife and Uriah will think that the child that will subsequently be born is his own child.

Well, Uriah doesn't do that.

And so David plots his death with Joe Uriah was sacrificed and battled through the plotting of David and Joab, his death was not the result of his personal sin.

God didn't strike him down because Uriah was some terrible character.

He died because of the iniquity of David, the king who had taken his wife.

You're perhaps also familiar with the story of Naboth.

There's King Ahab and he wants nba's vineyard but Naboth won't sell and Naboth is within his right not to sell.

Jezebel says, don't you worry, I'll take care of this.

And so she sets in motion a plot where the men of the city of Jezreel, where Naboth live, they plot against Naboth and he is stoned and incidentally so were his sons.

The vineyard is free.

Now, Ahab is told Naboth suffered and died at the hands of wicked men.

His suffering was not the result of his personal sin.

That's in First Kings chapter 21.

Moving to the New Testament, the apostle Paul suffered greatly, not due to his personal sin, but in fact, because of his preaching of the gospel, he talks about that in Second Corinthians, the 11th chapter verse 23 to 16.

As he recounts all the things that he has suffered as a result of his apostleship.

His preaching of the gospel.

Paul suffered not because of his personal sin but because of the opposition of wicked men to the preaching of the gospel.

The ultimate example of course is Jesus.

Uh I found it interesting John, I think went through several passages that I went through as I was looking at this, I'm going to cite first Peter two verses 21 through 23.

But that passage says he was innocent.

And the passage in First Peter three talks about him being the just who died for the unjust cited also by John Jesus is the ultimate example of one who suffered, not because of his own sin.

He was tempted in all points like as we yet without sin, he was for 12 says, but he was killed by wicked men.

I asked that the story of the rich man and Lazarus be read from Luke 16 because it is another illustration of the fact that you can't look at somebody's circumstances in this life and know what they're going to be or where they're going to be in the next life beyond the grave.

We have this story of the rich man who seems to be blessed by God.

He has wealth.

He eats well.

He has apparently a nice place to live and there's poor Lazarus.

He's a beggar, he's sick, the dogs are licking his sores and they both die well, if you were to look at that story without knowing the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say, who would you have guessed might be the righteous man that would be comforted by God or given God's favor in eternity.

You might guess the rich man after all he'd been blessed by God, at least ostensibly before he died.

And yet it's contrary, isn't it?

Everything's changed?

Now, the rich man finds himself in torment whereas poor Lazarus is being comforted in the company of Abraham.

I wanna make three quick observations about sin and suffering.

And the first observation is that suffering or illness can in fact be the direct consequence of a specific sin.

Now, what I've been saying is that the disciples and the friends of job believe that suffering was always the result of personal sin.

And that's the problem because you can't make that connection that definitively.

But we also do need to acknowledge that sometimes suffering is the result of specific sin.

Give you a couple of examples, individuals who use recreational drugs, whether you're talking, talking about cocaine or meth or fentaNYL, sometimes they destroy their lives, sometimes they lose their lives.

Certainly they suffer as a result of sinful choices.

They become slaves to a substance, drunkenness.

As a result of alcohol use often brings suffering to the one who's drunken and incidentally also to others who might happen across this person's path.

Sometimes suffering or illness is the direct consequence of a specific sin.

But we can't say that it always is.

And that's what the friends were saying.

That's what the disciples apparently believed.

The second observation is that it is an error to conclude that all suffering is the result, direct result of personal sin.

I'm suffering.

Someone says God must be punishing me.

How do you know that?

Because it's not always the case.

We've given several examples of people who suffered at the hands of others, not because of their own sins, but because of the sins of others.

We live in an interconnected world.

And by that, I simply mean that what I do affects other people and what they do affects me.

We don't live on an island by ourselves, unaffected by what anybody else does.

And we need to recognize that sometimes suffering, even sometimes illness is the result of the actions of others, including their sins.

In Ecclesiastes.

The ninth chapter verse 11, the writer said again, I saw that under the sun, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches, to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge.

But time and chance happened to them all.

We might expect that certain people are going to uh succeed but time and chance things we don't control, sometimes they turn things around and sometimes we suffer as a result.

And the third observation I want to make and, and I think this is very significant is that as, as Christians, we really need to expect to suffer sometimes not because of our sins, but because we did what was right, Jesus would say in Matthew, the fifth chapter verses 10 through 12, at the conclusion of the beatitudes there.

He says, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake.

For theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

People who are doing the right things, sometimes they suffer not because of personal sin, but in fact, because of the very opposite.

Blessed are you, Jesus continued when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account, rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The Apostle Paul would make the observation in second Timothy three and verse 12, indeed, all who desire to live a Godly life in Christ.

Jesus will be persecuted will be persecuted.

If we're not being persecuted, it may be that we're not really living a Godly life.

And I'm not suggesting that Paul is saying that we're going to be persecuted constantly.

But I am saying that if we live the life that God wants us to live, if we live a Godly life, there will be storms in our lives, there'll be persecution.

We talked about that about a month or so ago in first Peter, the fourth chapter in verse 16, Peter said, yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.

Peter suggests that we are going to sometimes suffer as Christians for doing what is right.

And so we need to understand that we can't judge our spiritual condition, faithful, unfaithful by whether things are going along well, or whether we're being persecuted because sometimes Christians are persecuted for doing what's right and sometimes wicked people get along just fine and they seem to prosper.

If one's physical circumstances are not the correct metric or standard, what is the right standard?

Well, it's simple.

I love the gospel of John from the standpoint that John writes in a very simple way.

It's not complicated and, and uh uh all full of phrases like Paul's writing.

And so John sometimes just says it so clearly.

He says in first John 37 little Children, let no one deceive you.

Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous.

You want to know who's righteous.

Don't look at the bank account.

Don't look at whether they've got a big house, don't look at whether physically they seem to be prospering.

How are they living?

That's the metric in John, the seventh chapter verse 24 Jesus said, do not judge by appearances but judge with right judgment, I believe verse 24 is actually in a different context than what we're talking about.

But the principle is that we don't judge things just by appearance, but that we need to use the right kind of judgment.

That's the point I'm making about our lives about our spiritual condition.

We don't judge by outward appearances.

We need to use the right standard.

I think it's easy to fall into the air the error of using life's circumstances to judge spiritual status.

I've known Christians who, if something bad happened, bad happened to them, something that they really didn't want, something that they saw as a, as an obstacle or a barrier.

Immediately they begin to think God's punishing me.

And what I want you to see this morning is that, that's not necessarily true.

Now, it could be, God has disciplined sinners.

But the way to figure that out is to take a look into the perfect law of liberty and see whether or not we're living the way we should be living.

Not just whether something bad's happening to me or whether something good's happening to me.

The fact of the matter is there are others who believe that if they're doing well physically and financially, then they must be in God's favor.

The disciples thought that that's why they said who then can be saved.

When Jesus said, it's very hard for difficult for rich people to get into heaven and they thought, but surely those are the people that would get in.

First, Jesus was making the observation that's not necessarily true.

I don't think being rich is a sin, but having wealth is not a sign of divine favor.

And that's a truth that I think we need to embrace in our society and our culture.

Every time I go to Africa, I'm reminded of the tremendous blessings and privileges that we have.

And I don't think it's by accident.

I think there's something going on that, that have promoted this kind of life a better life.

But the fact of the matter is it's easy for us to begin to think that because things are going along well and we're blessed so much that we must be in God's favor and that's not the standard.

So how can we appraise our spiritual condition?

Are we walking with God?

Are we living to glorify God and all that?

We do?

One's general circumstances can be deceiving.

We can be sailing through life, enjoying lots of physical advantages and yet be in grave spiritual danger.

In the story of Luke 16, I would suspect that the rich man was very satisfied with his life.

Everything was good.

He ate well, he was clothed well, he lived well and he died a spiritual pauper.

What is your relationship to the Lord?

Are you separated from him by your sins?

That's what the Bible says is the consequence of sin that it separates us from.

God destroys a relationship that we could have or are you part of God's spiritual family?

Because the truth of the matter is that if you feel that you're separated from God because of your sins, you haven't been forgiven of your sins, God has provided the way that you can have that relationship back, that you can become a part of his spiritual family, part of his church.

That group of people called out of the world to live a different life, to become new people.

And if you need to do that this morning, then we certainly want to invite you to take advantage of that.

If you're not a Christian, you need to obey the gospel.

And the Bible is very clear about what that involves.

You can see it on the chart.

But if you're a Christian and you've been kind of feeling like everything's going pretty well, but you haven't been walking the way you should in terms of the way we live, then you need to make some changes.

Don't use the wrong standard to judge your spiritual condition.

Look into God's law.

How are you walking?

Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, not just those who claim, not just those who feel good about themselves, the proof is in the pudding.

I can't believe.

I just said that that's such a trite idiom.

But what it says is get to the real matter, get to the real test.

And if you find yourself wanting this morning, then we want to encourage you to do something about it.

We encourage you to do it now as we stand and sing to invite you.