KEY TEXT
Genesis 47:7-9 (RSV)
V7- Then Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and set him before Pharaoh.
V8- And Pharaoh said to Jacob, “How many are the days of the years of your life?”
V9- And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my sojourning are a hundred and thirty years; few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their sojourning.
If we were to be asked to describe our lives, how would our reply be?
When Pharaoh enquired about the age of Jacob, he replied that he was 130 years old and he added:- “few and evil have the days of the years of my life been.”
That is the most honest and realistic description of life – Life here on earth is few (short) and evil.
Please remember that Jacob was one of the patriarchs of the Bible. He was certainly a covenanted person, called by God to birth the chosen nation of God. Yet, Jacob wasn’t spared of evil in his short life span.
As Christians, we are a covenanted race too. We are called and destined by God to be a great people and yet we have to be honest with ourselves today –that despite our call and election by God, we too are not spared from evil in our lives. We will notice that our Christian life is peppered with good and evil days.
If all our days as Christians are good, then we would be very complacent and see no need of God.
If all our days as Christians are evil, then we would become discouraged and despair of life itself.
As it is, God knows how and when to apportion us the good and evil days equally. We must not subscribe to the theology that as Christians we are to be spared from evil days.
The good news for us as believers of Christ is – that even if we are not spared from evil days, our God knows how to redeem our evil days to serve His divine purpose.
But the problem with many of us here is we are seeing and experiencing more evil days than good in our lives. And worse is the evil in our lives never seems to end. This is not God’s will and today God wants us to wake up to arrest the root problem of the PREVALENCE of evil in our lives.
This morning, I would like to share a sobering message on WHY EVIL STILL PREVAILS IN OUR LIFE?
I believe once we know the root cause of this prevalence of evil in our lives, we will know what to repent of and subsequently to let the blessings of God flow in our lives once again.
(I) DEFINITION OF ‘EVIL’
According to the dictionary, the word “evil” means:-
• Harm, mischief, misfortune
• Suffering, disasters
• The forces in nature that gives rise to wickedness and sin.
(II) FABLE – THE FARMER AND THE VIPER
Aesop tells a fable of a farmer who finds a viper freezing in the snow. Taking pity on it, he picks it up and places within his coat. The viper, revived by the warmth, bites his rescuer, who dies realizing that it is his own fault.
The viper bit his benefactor to teach the lesson not to expect a reward from the wicked.
Why evil still prevails in our lives?
It is because many of us are compassionate towards sin and evil, connotated by the “viper”. We pick up sin and evil; nurse and nurture it in our bosom till it becomes revived to bite us back fatally.
(III) WHY EVIL STILL PREVAILS IN OUR LIVES?
When you keep a viper in your bosom, it will turn around and BITE U one day.
Today I want to use the acronym of the words BITE U to identify the 5 reasons why evil still prevails in our lives.
(1) BROKEN VOWS
(2) INGRATITUDE
(3) TOUCHING SACRED THINGS
(4) EXPLICIT DISOBEDIENCE
(5) UNCONTROLLED TONGUE
(1) BROKEN VOWS
2 Samuel 21:1-9;14 (RSV)- Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord said, “There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.” So the king called the Gibeonites. Now the Gibenonites were not of the people of Israel but of the remnant of the Amorites; although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had sought to slay them in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah. And David said to the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? And how shall I make expiation, that you may bless the heritage of the LORD?” The Gibeonites said to him, “It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel.” And he said, “What do you say that I shall do for you?” They said to the king, “The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us, so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel, let seven of his sons be given to us, so that we may hang them up before the LORD at Gibeon on the mountain of the LORD.” And the king said, “I will give them.” But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Saul’s son Jonathan, because of the oath of the LORD which was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. The king took the two of sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah who she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Merab the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel the son of Barzillai, the Meholathite; and he gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites and they hanged them on the mountain before the LORD, and the seven of them perished together. They were put to death in the first days of harvest, at the beginning of barley harvest. …..And after that God heeded supplications for the land.
The prevalence of the evil here was FAMINE FOR THREE YEARS, YEAR AFTER YEAR.
This famine was most likely the result from a lack of rain which caused a crop failure. Since the people assumed a tie between God and the weather, they concluded that the bad weather must be punishment for some sin. They were right to connect sin and punishment, a truth that many modern Christians have forgotten. As the people turned to David for a reason for the famine, David turned to God through an oracle, a method of discerning God’s will by a series of questions that could be answered yes or no. They needed a spiritual reason for what was happening.
God’s answer was that the famine had been caused because of Saul’s slaughter of the Gibeonites (verse 1). The Scriptures do not record the incident nor give insight into Saul’s motives. We do know of a covenant or a vow that Joshua made with the Gibeonites which allowed them to coexist with Israel (Joshua 9). God’s fixing of the blame cleared both the Israelites and David of being the cause for the famine.
The point of the story is that COVENANTS, VOWS AND PROMISES that are made are to be kept. The breaking of a COVENANT OR VOW, however, was the cause of this natural disaster. While there may have been a primitive understanding of the world in the Old Testament times, there was a very high value placed on keeping promises, a virtue that needs to be recovered today.
The Gibeonites were “a remnant of the Amorites” (verse 2). Although they were not of the children of Israel, they were allowed to live by the covenant made with Joshua. Because of what Saul had done to them, David allowed them to define what it would take to make things right, to prescribe the nature of the retribution (verse 3).
They wouldn’t settle for money but asked for the lives of Saul’s sons. While David would not give them Mephibosheth because of his promise to Jonathan, he did turn over two of Saul’s sons and five of his grandsons to the Gibeonites. They were probably ritually executed and their bodies were left exposed and unburied. And after this restitution, the Bible tells us that God heeded supplications for the land.
In this passage, we are reminded of the importance of COVENANTS. Throughout Old and New Testament history, God dealt with men covenantally. When God spared Noah and his family, He made a covenant with them and gave the RAINBOW as a sign of that covenant (Genesis 9:1-17). God later made a covenant with Abraham, with its accompanying sign, CIRCUMCISION (Genesis 121:1-3; 17:1-22). Then God made a covenant with Israel through Moses, and its sign was the SABBATH (Exodus 19-20). God made a covenant with David to build him an ETERNAL HOUSE (2 Samuel 7:12-17). Then of course, there is the New Covenant inaugurated by our Lord Jesus Christ through the SHEDDING OF HIS BLOOD (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25). GOD HAS NOT DEALT WITH MEN CAPRICIOUSLY; HE HAS ALWAYS DEALT WITH US IN ACCORDANCE WITH A COVENANT.
David’s dealing with the Gibeonites, at its roots, is a matter of KEEPING COVENANTS. Israel had made a covenant with the Gibeonites. Even though this covenant was 400 years old, it was still to be honored. Saul broke that covenant by trying to rid the land of them. No matter how good his intentions might have been, the covenant must be kept. The breaking of that covenant had SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES. It cost Saul and his sons their lives. It brought a FAMINE on the land of Israel. There were other covenants involved as well. David’s covenant with Jonathan had to be honored, so Mephibosheth was not handed over to the Gibeonites.
God deals with men in terms of covenants. Time does not weaken these covenants. Covenants are to be kept. Even when men do not take their covenants seriously, God does. He expects us to keep our covenants and promises.
Psalms 15:4- In whose eyes a reprobate is despised, but who honors those who fear the LORD; He swears to his own hurt and does not change.
Even when a covenant is entered into foolishly, as the Israelites were taken in by the Gibeonites, God expects us to keep our covenants. How many times we have witnessed the marriage ceremony where a man and a woman enter into the covenant of marriage. Then a few years later, one partner (or both) decides the marriage hasn’t been all they hoped it would be. They feel the person they married isn’t really the person they thought he or she was. So they feel free to leave the marriage and go on to another. If God expected the Israelites to keep their covenant with the Gibeonites, even though they were deceived by them, and even though 400 years had gone by, how do you think God feels about the breaking of the covenant of marriage? We are not left in doubt.
Thank God He is a covenant keeper. Throughout Israel’s history, His chosen people stiffened their necks and disobeyed the One who saved them from slavery in Egypt. How easy it would have been for God to wash His hands of this rebellious people. But God kept His covenant. He kept it by bringing adversity on His people when they sinned (such as famine which on Israel in David’s time), but He also provided a Savior, who perfectly kept the Mosaic Covenant and fulfilled the Abrahamic and Davidic Covenants. He inaugurated the New Covenant, by which sinful men are saved through faith in Jesus Christ and His blood, which was shed to make an atonement for the sins of men.
Our text foreshadows the gospel in so many ways. Not only does it remind us that God relates to men by means of His covenants, but it speaks to us particularly of the New Covenant. Saul’s sins had to be atoned for or God’s blessings could not be enjoyed. Saul’s sin brought adversity in the form of a famine. Money could not atone for this sin, but only the shedding of blood. It was the shedding of this blood which brought about atonement and appeased both God and the Gibeonites.
Application: Are you going through a financial famine that has been running for more than 3 years now? Don’t ignore this prevailing famine. Check to see if you have broken any promise or vow or pledge to God or to men. Then by all means, even at your own personal disadvantage, pay up your vows. Make good your vows.
(2) INGRATITUDE
Proverbs 17:13 (RSV) – If a man returns evil for good, evil will not depart from his house.
The prevailing evil for ingratitude is HOUSEHOLD TROUBLES.
It is sin to repay evil for evil for vengeance belongs to God (Rom 12:17). But it is even worse to repay evil for good, for that shows a BRUTISH AND DEVILISH HEART.
The consequences for such vile conduct are certain – God will severely judge you with PERPETUAL TROUBLE IN YOUR FAMILY OR HOUSEHOLDS.
There are 2 lessons here. First, you should consider all those that have treated you well in your life. Have you honored them? Have you kindly rewarded their goodness? Second, you should consider those that have despised your goodness. Do not contemplate personal vengeance. GOD WILL GRIND THEM FOR YOU AND THE LORD GRINDS BEST.
E.g. # 1 – Noah and Ham – Noah, a godly father, saved his son Ham and his wife from the Flood by his personal righteousness (Genesis 6:8-10; 7:1). But when Ham sinned against his father, his family tree was perpetually cursed (Genesis 9:18-27).
E.g. # 2 – David and Saul – David killed Goliath for timid Saul and served him well (1 Samuel 17:50-53). But Saul was jealous of this godly man and tried to kill him, so God destroyed Saul’s family and gave the ruling power to the tribe of Judah (1 Samuel 19:1; 25:28-31). Much of his reign was ruined by the envy that consumed his soul and left him hopeless in the end.
E.g. # 3 – David and Nabal – David kindly protected Nabal’s sheep and shepherds (1 Samuel 25:4-17). When Nabal rejected an honorable request from David, God let him suffer for ten days before killing him and giving his beautiful widow to David (1 Sam 25:36-42). Consider your benefactors.
E.g. # 4 – Joash and the son of Jehoiada (2 Chronicles 24:1-3) – Jehoiada, the priest, was the one who really guided and led Joash during the early part of his reign. But then Joash’s spiritual zeal lasted only as long as Jehoiada’s lifetime for after the priest died, Joash degenerated into a vicious circle of wrongdoing. When Zechariah the son of Jehoiada was sent by God to rebuke him, Joash through the instigation of wrong counselors, stoned him to death. And the 2 Chronicles 24:22 records, “Thus Joash the king did not remember the kindness of Jehoiada, Zechariah’s father, had shown him, but killed his son. And when he was dying, he said, “May the Lord see and avenge.” God vindicated the prayer of Zechariah by sending foreign invasion and domestic coup to Joash. The king who “killed Zechariah was himself killed” by his very own servants in his household. Do not forget the goodness, the counsel and the guidance your pastors have given you. Be grateful and be kind to them and their offsprings.
E.g. # 4 – Jesus and Judas – The Lord Jesus befriended and honored Judas Iscariot as one of His twelve apostles. But Judas chose to betray Jesus for a few pieces of silver, so the blessed and holy God dashed his bowels and blood across the potter’s field (Acts 1:18-19).
E.g. # 5- Jesus and the Jews – Jesus Christ was Israel’s Messiah. He preached truth and healed all that came to Him for 3 years. But the Jews wickedly crucified him, so God brought Roman armies in 70 AD to demolish their nation (Matt 21:44; 22:7). The Lord grinds best.
Is the warning too harsh? To return good for good is human; to return good for evil is the way of Jesus; to return evil for good is DEMONIC.
Yes, to repay evil for good is profanely selfish; it is beastly and despicable; it reveals a heart black with ungratefulness; it deserves severe judgment. And that judgment will comes in the form of PERPETUAL TROUBLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND HOUSEHOLD.
Application: Do you reward evil for good to those who have treated you kindly and well? Every time someone does something good for you, there is a debt created for your kindness in return. Do you pay your debts of care and kindness? Have you rewarded your parents, love, time, effort and expense they invested in you while you were demanding food, dirtying yourself, and then giving them teenage nightmares? When was the last time you took your parents out to eat? Wrote them and thanked them for being great parents? Bought them a gift? Spent a little time in some way? Have you matched your spouse in affection and companionship? Have you honored your employer for hiring you? Have you compensated your pastor for teaching you the truth? Do you reward good neighbors for making life pleasant? Do you thank your children for taking time to visit you?
Teenagers! One of the vilest criminals in the world is a child who disrespects and rebels against his parents. After all they have done for you, how can you possibly mistreat them in the slightest way?
Ingratitude invites perpetual troubles in our household. Let’s learn to be grateful to those who have been good to us.
(3) TOUCHING SACRED THINGS
2 Kings 17:24-29; 33 (RSV)-And the king of Assyria brought people from the Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel; and they took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its cities. And at the beginning of their dwelling there, they did NOT FEAR THE LORD therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which killed some of them. So the king of Assyria was told, “The nations which you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the god of the land; therefore he has sent lions among them, and because they do not know the law of the god of the land. Then the king of Assyria commanded, “Send there one of the priests whom you carried away thence; and let him go and dwell there, and teach them the law of the god of the land.” So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear the Lord. But every nation still made gods of its own, and put them in the shrines of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities in which they dwelt…….So they feared the LORD but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away.
The evil here is LIONS.
Here in 2 Kings 17, Israel (namely the Northern Kingdom) was already conquered and exiled to Assyria. Assyrian policy was to remove the native population to quench rebellion. But control of an empty region had little attraction and no capacity to enrich the conquering nation. So the Assyrians repopulated the area with people from other conquered areas: Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim. They were not temporary residents: They took over Samaria and lived in its towns.
The movement of these people groups probably occurred over a prolonged period but the result was a mixed population that did not worship the LORD. God was not a local deity, as the pagan gods were, but he had a special commitment to the Promised Land. So he sent LIONS among them and they killed some of the people. The new residents of the lands had a distorted, polytheistic understanding of theology but they recognized that the God of Israel was making a claim on the land. So they sent a message to the king of Assyria, asking for instruction in the worship of the one true God, “The people you deported and resettled in the towns of Samaria do not know what the god of Israel requires and as such they touched the sacred thing – THE FEAR OF GOD.”
The king of Assyria responded by sending one of the deported priest to teach the people what the god of land of Israel required. He was almost certainly a devotee of the corrupt Jeroboam worship, indicated by his taking up residence at Bethel. So when he taught them how to worship the Lord, it was a DISTORTED INSTRUCTION. Their response was to add the Lord to the list of gods being worshipped in the land. Each group had its own gods and local shrines. The names of the various gods are largely unknown outside this passage but the purpose of the list is not to identify the gods so much as to display the SPIRITUAL CONFUSION that filled the land. The land had moved even further away from the exclusive worship of God. Polytheism characterized the land.
Such worship was not true worship. God would not accept or tolerate SYNCRETISM.
Syncretism is attempted reconciliation or union of different religions or opposing practices.
Illustration: The Cost of Compromise – A nationally televised memorial service held in a large church featured representatives of various faiths memorializing a girl who had been murdered and attempting to provide comfort. Over and over we were told how her death was bringing us together. But at what cost? There was no comfort of the Scriptures or of Christian hope. In fact, the concept of an “infinite something” presented by at least one participant bore no resemblance to the God of Scripture. Were we celebrating unity or obscuring truth and misleading people?
Once spiritual compromise begins, it continues to grow until we lose our identity by assimilation or we lose our freedom by DIVINE JUDGMENT. This is especially true when we are tempted to compromise our exclusive loyalty to God. Whatever King Jeroboam of Israel intended by his golden calves, they corrupted the nation’s worship. A corrupt view of God and a corrupted practice of worship led to corrupt and corrupting practices that finally called down the JUDGMENT OF GOD [in this case of our text, the judgment came in the form of lions attacking the people].
God does not accept such kind of mixture of worship and reverence. God wants exclusive worship of Him.
Today, many churches have thrown out the teaching on the fear of God in place of the grace of God.
Please note that the fear of God that I am talking about here is NOT a slavish fear of God. Rather it is a reverential respect for who God is.
Today, tragically, many churches are mixing the world with the sacred things of God without any reverential fear of God.
Matthew 7:6 (Msg) – Don’t be flip with the sacred. Banter and silliness give no honor to God. Don’t reduce holy mysteries to slogans. In trying to be relevant, you’re only being cute and inviting sacrilege. (Blasphemy, disrespect and irreverence).
Illustration: Syncretism Then and Now – A bishop in a major denomination recently presided over a Eucharist in which female priests in a procession invoked African and ancient Egyptian deities. Christians in interfaith meetings are told that they can pray using the name of God, but they must not invoke the name of Jesus. A pastor in a mainline denomination compares those who believe that Jesus is the only way of salvation to terrorists: “This is the same kind of absolutism that the September 11 terrorists expressed; claiming that their way is the one, the true and the only way. This kind of absolutism leads to disrespect, and disrespect leads to intolerance, and intolerance leads to discrimination, and in extreme cases as we have seen with terrorists, it can lead to violence.” Apparently the extremism of his own words and their incitement to hatred of biblical Christians is morally acceptable. Another liberal churchman boasts of reaching out to people of other faiths without trying to convert them: “We’re all children of Abraham and worship the same God.” Our culture has embraced a pervasive tolerance and pluralism that rules all final truth claims as arrogant, inappropriate and even oppressive. But the demand of the living God for exclusive loyalty and the claims of our Lord Jesus Christ to be the only way to the Father have not evaporated. Certainly, there is a place in our society for interfaith respect and the recognition of diversity. Followers of Christ have a responsibility to honor their Lord not only by the integrity of the message they proclaim but also by the integrity of their obedience to the lifestyle he commanded and displayed. But we also need to be clear in our mind that the spiritual confusion in our society bears a resemblance to conditions in Samaria in the 7th century BC. Syncretism has taken a third-millennium form. Its message not only imperils people by holding out a false promise of ‘salvation’ but it also demeans the glory and majesty of God.
Application: Indeed there are many churches, in order to make the church relevant to the 21st century and to sinners, have tried to act cute by being flippant with the sacred. Literally we have reduced holy mysteries to slogans. Churches today addresses God so disrespectfully like papa god, papa Jesus and we can’t even give God the minimum respect by calling Him Lord or Adonai. Preachers nowadays have very casual dress code at pulpit. Holy Communion are served to any Tom, Dick and Harry without any requirement to search our hearts to get right with God, much less to be saved first. Water baptism has been conducted casually just to have our names registered legally as official members of the church and not because we have a genuine conversion. Many churches are mixing secular songs with Christians songs, of which we were guilty of in the past. Are we mixing Halloween, All Soul’s days, Dinagyang as part of our youth activities? Oh! May God forgive us for this syncretism! No wonder many of lives are attacked by the lions.
Lions is a picture of the devil as the devourer in 1 Peter 5:8- Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking some one to devour.
When we touch the sacred thing like the fear of God, lions will be released upon our lives to devour all good things thereof.
Another thing that will release the devourer upon our lives is when we touch the sacred or devoted things like TITHES.
Malachi 3:10-12- Bring the full tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house; and thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of host, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing. I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil; and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the LORD of hosts. Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the LORD of hosts.
Here again, when we touch the sacred or the devoted thing of God like TITHES (10% of our produce or earning), God will not rebuke the devourer of our lives. He will not open the windows of heaven for us and pour down for us an overflowing blessing. The devourer will be released instead to destroy the fruits of our labor. Our hard earned salaries will be devoured by unnecessary bills like medical, house repairs, car repairs.
Is your life devoured and attacked by the “lions” constantly?
Are you touching the sacred things like the fear of the Lord and the tithes?
(4) EXPLICIT DISOBEDIENCE
Leviticus 26:14-17 (RSV)- But if you will not hearken to me, and will not do all these commandments, if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, I will do this to you: I will appoint over you sudden terror, consumption and fever that waste the eyes and cause life to pine away. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. I will set my face against you and you shall be smitten before you enemies; those who hate you shall rule over you and you shall flee when none pursues you.
The evil here are all sorts of CURSES in progressive intensity, affecting us in all areas of our lives.
Explicit commands and ordinances of God are given in great detail in the book of Leviticus. The commands involve:-
• The types of offerings to be given to the Lord
• The different feasts of the Lord to be celebrated
• The distinction between clean and unclean animals
• The purification rites for woman and childbirth
• The cleansing of infected persons and houses
• The prohibition of certain sexual relations
• The dietary laws.
When we read the book of Leviticus, we should be thankful that we are living now in the dispensation of grace where all the rituals are done away with. Nonetheless we cannot absolve ourselves because some of the explicit precepts or commandments of the Lord are still remaining even in the New Testament like:-
• Water baptism (Acts 2:38)
• Holy Communion (1 Cor 11:23-26)
• Holy Matrimony – learning how to take a wife in holiness and honor (1 Thess 4:4)
• Marital fidelity (1 Cor 6:9)
• Husbands to love their wives and wives to submit to their husband (Ephesians 5:21-25)
• Sexual and moral purity (1 Thess 4:3)
• Prohibition to be unequally yoked (1 Cor 6:14-15)
• Love God and Love others (Mark 12:29-31)
• Remember the poor (Galatians 2:10)
• Abstinence from food offered to demons; no partaking of blood or strangled animals.(1 Cor 10:20-21; Acts 15:29)
• Clarity in your gender role and function and mannerism. (Romans 1:26-27)
• General assembly of believers.(Hebrews 10:25)
These are some of the commandments given explicitly by God in the New Testaments. The list given above is not exhaustive though.
And if God commands us clearly, we are to obey it explicitly.
Willful disobedience to all these explicit commands of God will usher into our lives various forms of curses in intensifying degree.
1st degree of curses (Leviticus 26:16-17)
V14-15- But if you will not hearken to me and will not do all these commandments, if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will do all my commandments, but break my covenant…..
• sudden terror
• consumption
• fever that waste the eyes
• life pining away
• sowing of your seeds vain
• enemies eating your seed
• God setting his face against us
• Smitten before our enemies
• Those who hate us shall rule over us
• Flee when no one pursues us
2nd degree of curses (v18-20)
V18-And if IN SPITE of this you will not hearken to me……
• sevenfold chastisement from God
• broken pride and broken power
• heaven becoming like iron
• earth becoming like brass
• vain strength
• no increase in land
• barrenness in the land
3rd degree of curses (v21-22)
V21- “Then if you walk contrary to me, and will not hearken to me……..
• sevenfold plagues upon our lives
• wild beasts let loose upon our lives to rob us of our children and destroy our cattle
• few in numbers
• desolate in our ways
4th degree of curses (v23-26)
V23-24- “And if by this discipline you are not turned to me, but walk contrary to me……..
• God walking contrary to you
• sevenfold smiting by God for our sins
• sword upon us
• pestilence among us
• delivered into the hands of our enemies
• scarcity of basic food
• hunger
5th degree of curses (v27-33)
V27-“And if in spite of this you will not hearken to me, but walk contrary to me…..
• eating your own children
• destruction of high places
• cutting down of our incense altar = cutting down of our prayer life
• the soul of God will abhor us
• cities laid waste
• sanctuaries will be desolate
• no acceptance of our worship by God
• enemies will be astonished by our desolation
• scattered
Why evil prevails in your life?
Explicit disobedience.
Way out and hope for those who have explicitly disobeyed God – Leviticus 26:40 -42- But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery which they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity; then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.
(5) UNCONTROLLED TONGUE
1 Peter 3:10-12 (RSV)- For “He that would love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking guile [deceit]; let him turn away evil and do right; let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.
The evil that prevails here is A BAD LIFE AND EVIL DAYS.
If we are to love life and see good days, then life must be built on the right standard. Or we could say the right authority.
The one who wants to love life and see good days, must refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking guile. Peter’s quotation is taken from Psalms 34:9 which says that we have to refrain our tongue from evil and our lips from speaking guile.
To refrain means to stop, to cease all together.
You must cease your tongue from evil.
The word “evil” means not just evil deed but the underlying immorality of an evil disposition, a morally bad disposition. You are not to return evil that someone gives you by the evil of a morally bad disposition. You are not to do that. That is why David is Psalms 141:3 said, “Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth, keep watch over the door of my lips.” It is a very practical prayer. We are to make sure that our tongues are under control because that is what God says in His word and Peter quotes it just to remind us that we have to live by the right authority. We have to live by the right standard. If you want to love life and see good days, then obey God. Have the right attitude, the right response and the right reaction to God’s authority.
Peter also commands us to refrain our tongue from guile or deceit. The word “deceit” means to lie. We are to avoid lying.
If we let our tongue lose uncontrollably to speak what it wants to speak, then instead of a good life and good days, we will then be experiencing the reverse.
Let’s face this fact – many of our lives are made bitter and bad and our days become evil due to uncontrolled tongue. Either we are uncontrollably speaking evil and guile about others and it boomerangs on us or others are uncontrollably speaking evil and guile about us and make our life so bad and days so evil.
Control and refrain our tongue from evil and guile, then a good life and good days will follow.
CONCLUSION
Is evil prevailing in your life in the form of:
• Famine
• Perpetual household troubles
• A lion – the devourer of our lives
• Curses of intensifying degree
• Bad life and evil days
Could it be due to a viper that you have been nurturing and nursing in your bosom? Could that viper be:-
1) Broken vows
2) Ingratitude
3) Touching the sacred
4) Explicit disobedience
5) Uncontrolled tongue?
No wonder evil is biting you back.
Identify the cause of the prevailing evil.
Get rid of the viper and you will rid yourself of the evil bite.
God wants to give you respite from evil days.
END
PREACHED AT ETAB 1ST SV ENG ON 8 MAR 2015
