Calvary Road Baptist Church

“THE GREATEST EVIL”

Job 36.21

 

When the angel spoke to Joseph in a dream about the Virgin Mary, he said, “Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.”[1]

If a study was conducted to observe what most people claiming to be Christians felt about the matter, I am convinced they would say that the Lord Jesus Christ’s primary mission was to deliver His people from afflictions, to deliver His people from discomforts, or to deliver His people from feeling bad, rather than saving His people from their sins. This is revealed by the choices people make. What choices do you make? Do you choose to avoid sins or do you choose to avoid afflictions? When faced with alternatives, which do you opt for? Will you choose greater back pain at church or lesser back pain in a recliner in front of the television set on Sunday? When it comes to seeking the forgiveness of your sins, do you choose to engage in a hobby on Sunday afternoon or do you choose to prepare your heart to seek the LORD? When it comes to faithfully giving tithes and offerings, which do you opt for? Does God get His tithes and offerings before the rent is paid or after, before the phone bill is paid or after, before the car payment is mailed or after? If there is not enough money to cover everything, who is odd man out, AT&T or God?

Turn in your Bible to Job 36.21. While you are turning to that verse, allow me to make a couple of statements: First, we know that Job was terribly afflicted by Satan, and that it was God’s idea. Second, we know that his suffering was great because of his afflictions. Third, we know that Job was not afflicted because he had sinned, but that he did sin because he was afflicted. Fourth, we know that although Job’s friends said some things to him that were definitely wrong, some of the things they said to Job are profitable for us. The verse before us records a statement made by a man named Elihu. Read it along with me while I read it aloud: “Take heed, regard not iniquity: for this hast thou chosen rather than affliction.” Elihu is accusing Job of choosing iniquity, or sin, over affliction. Keep that in mind as you close your Bible. Here is where Elihu was on target, though he was off the mark on many things. He knew that affliction is to be preferred to sin. He accused Job of the terrible wrong of choosing to commit sin rather than suffering affliction.

We know the angel told Joseph that Jesus would save His people from their sins, but there is a great disparity, a terrible difference of opinion, between what the angel meant by the word sins and what lost people think about sins. My friends, the greatest affliction is to be preferred to the least sin. Why so? Because of what a sin is. Do you know what a sin is? If you are a little child, perhaps you can get away with the definition of sin being disobeying God. Sin is disobeying God, though that definition does not carry the weight, does not properly convey the impact, of what sin really is in all its implications and ramifications.

First John 3.4 informs us “sin is the transgression of the law.” This is a better definition of sin. However, most of the time this definition does not sufficiently inform us about sin because our understanding of God and His law is meager. The mere mention of God should arrest one’s attention, and it would if a person had an informed understanding of God. The same thing goes for God’s law.  If you had stood at the foot of Mount Sinai to see the lightning flashes amidst the smoke that covered the peak, and heard and felt the claps of thunder, you would have a very different concept of God than you presently do. As well, sin as the transgression of the Law that was given to Moses on that mountain would definitely arrest your attention.

Because your experiences are different from the Jews who stood in front of the mountain, come at this subject from another direction with me. Understand sin as not only the transgression of the law, but also as the greatest evil. Have you ever thought of sin as not just evil, but as the greatest evil? Yet, sin is the greatest evil. Any sin is the greatest evil. Every sin is the greatest evil. How so? Is not the greatest evil that which deprives you of the greatest good? Whatever deprives you of the greatest good must be the greatest evil, because it is an evil that has deprived you of the greatest good. Therefore, defining sin as the greatest evil, because it deprives you of the greatest good, is a perfectly valid and an entirely accurate definition of sin. Such a definition is consistent with God’s Word in every respect.

With that definition of sin planted firmly in your thinking, let me bring an extremely simple message from God’s Word this evening to convince you that you need Jesus as your Savior. Three considerations:

 

First, THE GREATEST GOOD IS GOD

 

If you are not convinced that God is the greatest good, then you are seriously misinformed about Him and have severe misapprehensions about His goodness:

Consider His glorious attributes. An attribute is that which makes someone who and what he actually is. When it comes to God’s attributes, because He is terrible in majesty and incomprehensibly glorious to the nth degree, God is the greatest good because each of His attributes considered separately, as well as all of His attributes considered together, shows Him to be glorious. Consider His attributes in terms of them being communicable or incommunicable. Incommunicable attributes are those that are God’s and no one else’s, such as omnipotence, being all powerful, such as omniscience, being all knowing, and such as omnipresence, being everywhere present. No one but God possesses these attributes. However, other attributes originate in God and are communicated to His creatures in a gracious way. Such attributes as love, long-suffering, goodness, kindness, joy and peace are attributes that God possesses, but which God can extend to the character of His creatures. His attributes can also be considered in terms of them being moral attributes or not. God’s bigness is not a moral attribute. His immutability, that since He is perfect he cannot change, is not a moral attribute. Neither is His power, His knowledge, or His vast presence everywhere in creation and beyond. However, His holiness, His righteousness, His love, and His mercy are definitely moral qualities. Do these attributes of God, and I have mentioned only a few of them, show Him to be not only good, but to be the greatest good?

Consider, next, His wondrous blessings. We know that God’s blessings are all undeserved, meaning that they are gracious bestowals. Thus, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”[2] Notice that James refers to the blessings God bestows upon His creatures as gifts that are good and perfect, with the emphasis on them being gifts. God does not have to give them to us. He has no obligation to give us what He has given to us all. Supreme among all the things God gives to His creatures is the blessing of Himself. What could possibly be more beneficial, more important, and more fulfilling than God’s gift of Himself to someone? Yet, in Christ, we are partakers of the divine nature, Second Peter 1.4. Does that not show God to not only be good, but to be the greatest good?

Third, consider His grand purpose. We understand that God did not have to create this universe, or to create us. He was perfectly happy and content in the throne room of heaven enjoying the communion of the three Persons of the Godhead. However, we are now caught up in the outworking of God’s great and grand purpose, and we exist to fulfill our individual roles in His great overarching purpose. The Apostle Paul refers to God’s purpose in Romans 8.28, where he writes, “to them who are the called according to his purpose,” and Ephesians 1.11, where he writes about “the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” I submit to you that God Himself is the greatest good. Because of His glorious attributes, there exists no being or cause that is more good than God. Because of His wondrous blessings, there is no being or cause that is more good than God. And because of His grand purpose, which must be a good purpose because it is His purpose, and there can be no being or cause that seeks to fulfill a greater purpose. The greatest good is God.

 

Next, THE DEPRIVATION OF GOD

 

Have you ever pondered and meditated on the result of being completely and utterly deprived of God?

What would existence be like for a being to be robbed of all the benefits of God’s attributes? Recognizing that there would be no existence at all but for God, since by Christ all things were both created and do continue to consist, Colossians 1.16-17. Because we have been created in God’s image and after His likeness, we benefit from His attributes in ways we cannot possibly completely figure out. The sun shines on the unjust as well as the just at present. However, what if that changed? What if the sun no longer shined on you? What if the oxygen in the air no longer satisfied your longing for breath? What if there was no longer water to quench your thirst?

Have you ever given thought to being denied the pleasure of God’s blessings? In the United States, we still enjoy the aftereffects of the First and Second Great Awakenings. We are the most generous people on earth to charities, because of the graciousness of the gospel’s influence on our culture and ethic. What if all that was gone? What if your appetite was unsatisfied? What if you were denied any sense of community and you were all alone? Ever given any thought to being surrounded by vicious takers instead of kind givers, brutal betrayers instead of tender and loyal friends?

Of course, the most obvious deprivation of God results in suffering His inestimable and eternal wrath. In Revelation 22.15, it is described as without. In Jude 7, it is the vengeance of eternal fire. In Jude 13, it is described as the blackness of darkness for ever. In Revelation 21.8, it is the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. In three places in Matthew, our Lord describes it as outer darkness.[3] We know it to be an eternity of weeping, an eternity of thirst, an eternity of pain from the gnashing of teeth and the torment of the flames, an eternity of darkness, an eternity of falling, an eternity of loneliness, an eternity without the blessings that are typically taken for granted, because it will be an eternity entirely separated from God. Be mindful of this, my unsaved friend. At present, no matter how opposed to the plan and purpose of God you presently are, you are not entirely separated from the blessings of God. You are still warmed by His sunshine and enjoy the refreshment of His air. You live in and enjoy a culture greatly affected by His impact on people’s lives in days gone by. Therefore, you are not entirely separated from God’s graces, not completely disassociated from His benefits, not utterly deprived of His many gifts. Not yet, anyway. However, that day will come. You will finally be judged. You will then be cast out. As bad as hellfire for more than a thousand years will be to the lost, the lake of fire that follows the Great White Throne judgment will be far, far worse and of infinitely longer duration, for it will be completely without God and all traces of His benefits and blessings.

 

Finally, THE GREATEST EVIL

 

The greatest evil is that, whatever it happens to be, which deprives you of the greatest good. Since God is the greatest good, sin is the greatest evil, any sin. It was a single taste of a forbidden fruit that cost Adam his God and plunged our entire race into the darkness of depravity, where men kill their brothers and women murder their babies. So, what is the greatest evil?

Transgression, of any kind or degree, is the greatest evil. Transgression is doing something that is forbidden, stepping over a line, crossing a barrier. To lie, cheat, steal, or mistreat another in any way is a transgression. However, do not think the greatest evil is restricted to those transgressions that seem to us the most serious. The greatest evil is that which deprives you of the greatest good, and any transgression falls short of the glory of God.

Omission, of any kind or degree, is the greatest evil. Omission is not doing something you should have done, something that loving your brother as yourself would have prompted you to do for him. Please do not think that the greatest evil is restricted to that omission which seems to us to be profound and of great personal sacrifice. Perhaps a life could have been saved by a kind word or a gentle smile that was selfishly withheld. Such is wrong, is wickedness, and deprives you of the greatest good, for it deprives you of God.

Inclination, which is attitude or nature, is the greatest evil. Do not so deceive yourself that you are persuaded that the greatest evil is sinful deeds or omissions alone, for that is not the case. At the root of all evil deeds is an evil nature. At the bottom of all the verbs of sinning is the noun of sin. Sin gives rise to sins. Just as dogs do not become dogs by barking, but bark because they are dogs and their barks are illustrations and examples of their nature, so it is with sinning. Men commit sins because it is man’s nature to commit sins, because man’s nature is sinful, an attitude and an inclination against God, away from God, and contrary to God.

 

Therefore, having established that God is the greatest good, and that sin is the greatest evil because it deprives you of the greatest good, allow me to summarize your personal problem. Your personal problem is that you have been deprived of God by your sin. While it is true that you presently enjoy some of the benefits and blessings that come from God, you have nothing to do with God directly, on a personal level.

Someday you will pass into eternity and you will then lose even the secondary benefits and blessings of God that you enjoy at present. Someday the sun will not shine on you, because God will have segregated by then the saved from the lost. Neither will you enjoy comfort nor will consolation of any kind, for you have been completely deprived of the greatest good, which is God. This will not happen to you only because of the sins you have committed, the bad things you have done or the good things you have not done, but also because of your sin, your nature. You see, the problem is not only what you do or do not do, but also what you are. This is the greatest evil because it deprives you of the greatest good, which is God.

What you need to remedy this greatest evil is beyond your capacity, beyond your ability, beyond your imagination. What is needed is not atonement, for that is only a covering for sins in the Old Testament, and then for only a year. What you need is remission, which is cleansing, to wash your sins and your sin as far as the east is from the west, so that God will remember your sins and iniquities no more. What is needed is Christ’s blood. Only the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ can remedy the greatest evil that deprives you of the greatest good, for the blood of Christ reconciles the sinner to God.

You need Jesus, for no one else will do. You need Jesus, for it is only His blood that washes away sin.



[1] Matthew 1.20-21

[2] James 1.17

[3] Matthew 8.12; 22.13; 25.30



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Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church