From the editor

When people gather for worship on a Saturday night or Sunday morning, they bring with them their questions. The questions vary, but it's a safe bet to think someone has been thinking long and hard about why there is evil in the world. More specifically, they wonder why there is an unspeakable evil in the person who lives across the street, is just on the other side of their cubicle, is capturing the headlines of the nightly news. What is God doing about them? What is God going to do about them? Those are tough questions that deserve honest answers. That's why we're happy to feature this sermon from Kevin Miller. He makes a number of solid decisions that ought to inspire us in our own preaching on this delicate issue. Chief among them are two: he chooses to preach from a parable, using the power of story to speak into our story, and he doesn't ignore the now-and-not-yet element that is present in issues of good, evil, and judgment, courageously wading into the waters of eschatology.    

Introduction

One Saturday Karen and I drove to a car dealership to buy a used Camry for my daughter, Anne, to get back and forth to college. Our salesman was a young guy named Patrick. The showroom was jumping with customers that day, so after he got us started with the paperwork, he asked to leave and help some other people with another sale. To help us with our paperwork would be a guy named Todd. Patrick whispered, "Todd is the only person here I can trust."

I looked around, and there were 12 or so salespeople on the floor. Apparently, 11 of these 12 would, without any thought or compunction, list that sale as theirs. They would steal Patrick's sale, and steal the commission that should have been his.

The fact is, as many of you know painfully well, some of the people around you at work cannot be trusted. In fact, they are dangerous. If they haven't hurt you already, they certainly could.

Or maybe the dangerous people in your life aren't at work, where you only have to watch your back 40 hours a week. No, your dangerous person is in your family. If you've seen the movie Waitress, the husband character, Earl, is the kind of person I'm talking about: a person who loses his temper, who's jealous, controlling, and fully capable of hitting you.

Or, depending on where you live, the dangerous people may be in your neighborhood. Ben Kwashi is the Anglican bishop of Jos, an area of Nigeria on the front lines of conflict with Islamic groups. In 2001, Islamic mobs burned and wiped out 60 church buildings and killed many Christians.

In March 2006, a gang of men came late one night looking for Ben to kill him. He was away traveling, so they took his wife, Gloria, and beat her and abused her. In July 2007, a gang of at least five men came back, armed with guns and knives. They tied up the two security guards and battered through the doors of the house. They went upstairs and marched Ben downstairs and outside. They said, "We're going to kill you." But for some reason, they changed their minds and took him back inside. They stole his laptop, mobile phones, and money. Then they beat up his teenage son Rinji, until people heard and came to help.

How do we handle dangerous people?

A very painful reality of life is that we share this planet with some people who are malicious, cruel, and vile. In short, they're evil. So we have to answer the question, "How do we handle dangerous people?" This question is especially difficult for Christians, because if you believe, as I do, that there's an all-powerful and loving God, you have to wonder, Why does God even let people this evil continue to exist? Why doesn't he just get rid of them?

I want to talk honestly about these questions: Why are there evil and dangerous people in the world? Why doesn't God just get rid of them? And how are we supposed to handle them?

Jesus once told a short farming story that seems so simple. But in this little story he gives some surprising answers to these questions. I want to show you how the approach Jesus gives, which seems so counter-intuitive, turns out to be the only sensible way to deal with evil and dangerous people.

Here's how the story goes:

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away. When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew. (Matthew 13:24–26, NLT)

When Jesus talks about weeds here, he's not talking about some harmless little dandelion. He's talking about a type of rye grass that has poisonous seeds. It may look like wheat, but it won't feed your family. In fact, it will make them sick. If it gets mixed in with the wheat, that flour will be ruined.

The farmer's workers went to him and said, "Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds! Where did they come from?"

"An enemy has done this!" the farmer exclaimed.

"Should we pull out the weeds?" they asked.

"No," he replied, "you'll uproot the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles, and burn them, and to put the wheat in the barn."
(Matthew 13:27-0)

Do you understand Jesus' story? If not, don't feel bad, because neither did his closest followers. They walked by fields of wheat every day, and they still had to ask him what it meant.

So here's how Jesus explains the story:

Then, leaving the crowds outside, Jesus went into the house. His disciples said, "Please explain to us the story of the weeds in the field."

Jesus replied, "The Son of Man is the farmer who plants the good seed. The field is the world, and the good seed represents the people of the Kingdom. The weeds are the people who belong to the evil one. The enemy who planted the weeds among the wheat is the devil. The harvest is the end of the world, and the harvesters are the angels.

"Just as the weeds are sorted out and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the world. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will remove from his Kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. And the angels will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father's Kingdom. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand!" (Matthew 13:36–43)

This story has two big points that we need to address.

At the end of time, Jesus will remove from this world everything that causes sin and all who do evil.

The words here for "everything that causes sin" and "all who do evil" don't refer to people who drive 63 in a 55-mph zone. In the story, there is an enemy to God, the Devil, who sneaks in, who creates evil people who are "children of the evil one." These are literally "Satan's seed." People who cause others to sin, who cause scandal. The person who turned on your son to drugs. The person at work who's saying stuff about you that isn't true, because she doesn't like you or she wants to protect her turf or she wants to get in good with the boss, and now you're in danger of losing your job. The person who's been hitting on your spouse. We're talking about people whose life is all about doing whatever they want, and if it hurts and ruins other people, who cares?

Why will Jesus remove them? Because Jesus hates the suffering they cause, and he's going to stop it. He wants justice to be done and people to be protected and the innocent and righteous to live in safety and joy. As Jesus explains, "the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father's Kingdom."

But let's not sugarcoat this. For that to happen, "The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will remove from his Kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. And the angels will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

That's where this main point Jesus is making gets troubling to a lot of people. They say, "Wait. Wait. Wait. This is just the kind of rhetoric that drives me nuts about religion. You have all this talk about 'the good people' and 'the evil people' and the evil people being thrown into the fiery furnace. Isn't asking people to believe in doctrines like that just going to cause them to be more violent?"

Actually, no. You'd think so, but it's just the opposite. There's a professor at Yale named Miroslav Volf who's from Croatia. If you remember news broadcasts from the early 1990s, life in Croatia then was unthinkable. Serbs would come and literally kill your children and burn down your house. Volf says that if you don't believe in a God who brings justice, who punishes evildoers, then when someone comes into your home and kills your children and burns down your house, what are you going to do? You're going to go do that and more to those Serbs.

But let's say you believe that there is a God who will punish and remove the evil. Then you don't have to do it. You don't have to take matters into your hands. You don't have to retaliate and take revenge and kill them. Believing in a God who brings justice and removes evil people may sound like a terrible doctrine. It sounds like it would lead to more violence. But it actually leads to less violence. In fact, it's the only doctrine that can restrain violence, and it's the one Jesus taught.

But whether you like this big point #1 and find it comforting, or you dislike this point and find it disturbing, the clear teaching of Jesus is that "at the end of the world, I'm going to remove everything that causes sin and people who do evil, so that the righteous can shine in their Father's kingdom." Jesus is saying: I'm creating a better world, a world in which people don't steal your sale, in which they don't abuse you, in which they don't break into your house and beat up your teenage son.

Since Jesus is going to remove all evil people at the end of time, he doesn't want us to do it now.

We want to get rid of dangerous and evil people right now. The sooner the better. But Jesus wants us to know that he will get rid of them later. In verses 27-0, Jesus is telling his followers: If you follow me, you're often going to be surrounded by evil people—where you live, where you work, in your family, even in your church. You're going to want to kill them or eliminate them all, but it's not your job, it's my job. And it's not going to happen now. It's going to happen later.

But we say, "God, are you kidding me? Why don't you just get rid of them now? Or let us do it?" Here's why. The farmer in the story says to the workers, "If you try to tear out the weeds, you'll tear out the wheat."

What does Jesus mean by this? There are two possibilities. First, the weeds and wheat look a lot alike. Until they're full-grown, it's hard to tell the difference between the two. So you might make a mistake. You might think you're pulling up a weed when really you're pulling up wheat.

The reason Jesus doesn't ask us to get rid of evil people is that we wouldn't do a very good job of it. We keep thinking someone is a weed. We write them off. We look down on them. God's saying, "Give that person some time, and you might be surprised. That person might just turn around."

Let's say you get the job of uprooting some people and leaving others. It's your job to figure out, "Is this person a weed or wheat?" The first person's case you're assigned to goes like this: In his teens, he began living with someone. He got her pregnant. After living with that person for 15 years, he dumped her and got engaged to someone else—only because doing that would advance his career. But it was a long engagement—two years—so while he was engaged, he began living with a third woman, who was not his fiancée. Meanwhile, during all this time, he gave up going to church and joined a crazy cult. Then he got bored with that and became a skeptic.

Weed or wheat? Should he stay or should he go? Looks like a weed, but if you tear him out, you tear out the future St. Augustine, one of the most famous and important Christians in history. So one reason we don't get the job of tearing out weeds right now is that we might make a mistake. Weeds and wheat can look an awful lot alike.

A second reason it's not time to uproot the weeds is that they grow so closely to the wheat. Their roots are so closely intertwined that if you pull up a weed, you might pull up the wheat right next to it. Meaning, in our world, the lives of evil people and good people are so connected, so intertwined, that if you get rid of an evil person, you can actually hurt the good people around that person.

Five years ago, our country decided to get rid of Saddam Hussein, the brutal tyrant of Iraq, who had used chemical weapons to gas his own Kurdish citizens. So we went in and uprooted this noxious weed. In the process, more than 4,000 Americans and at least 85,000 Iraqi people have died. Whether you think it's good or bad that we uprooted Saddam Hussein—and I'm not debating the foreign policy here—you have to admit, it pulled up an awful lot of wheat.

So big point #2 that Jesus makes is this: Since I am going to remove all evil people at the end of the world, I don't want you to do it now. And that's where something in us goes crazy. We think, "That is so Pollyanna! While we're waiting around for God to bring justice, some crazed evil person like Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot or Osama Bin Laden will kill off all the good people. There will be nobody good left. Are we supposed to just let that go?"

No. That's why God gives authorities. The Bible makes clear that governing authorities have been given a job by God. Part of the role of a police force, a CEO, a governor, a senator, an army officer, or even a senior pastor is to create law and order. As the Bible says, a person in authority is "God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer" (Romans 13:4). So God has given us authorities to punish evil people and to try to restrain them from doing more.

Authorities should either discipline evil people, arrest them, expel them, or confine them to jail if necessary. Jesus' parable is not denying that. It's just saying that no matter how much we have all these governing authorities in place, there are still going to be evil people, they are still going to be poisonous, and if you live in God's kingdom you need to get used to the idea that God is not going to get rid of them all right now. He'll do that later.

Take for example how Christians have responded to the issue of abortion. A few have decided to take matters into their own hands and gun down the abortion doctor. This parable of Jesus would suggest, No, no no. Go ahead and picket the abortion clinic. Try to change the law. But don't shoot the abortion doctor.

Let's say you believe this. You believe that at the end of time, Jesus will remove from this world everything that causes sin and all who do evil. But for now, for the sake of not hurting the good people, God is letting the evil and good people continue on. What do you do with that? How will it help you to live this week?

Four ways to respond to suffering at the hands of evil people

1. Expect to suffer. It's comforting to know that God will bring full justice later. But since God's allowing evil people to continue on for now, you can expect to suffer some. It's no surprise that dangerous people cause you and me to suffer. A big chunk of the Bible talks about this. Probably 30 percent of the psalms go like this: Help, God! I'm surrounded by these wicked, crazy people who are slandering me.

Don't take suffering as a sign that you're doing anything wrong. It's not because you're a sinner. It's not because God has abandoned you. It's because in this life, wheat is always surrounded by weeds.

2. Pray to be protected and delivered from evil. Jesus prayed for our protection: "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one." He taught his followers to pray for deliverance: "Our Father, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

3. Do not take revenge. In the Bible's view, the real danger is not that dangerous people will hurt you. God can give you the power to forgive. God can take the evil done against you and work it for your ultimate good. No, the real danger is that you'll take revenge and become a crazed, angry, and vindictive person. The real danger is what can happen to you when you start thinking, I don't deserve to be treated like this, I don't have to put up with this, or I have to fight fire with fire. No, no, no. The Bible says revenge is not your job. Proverbs 20:22 says, "Do not say, 'I'll pay you back for this wrong!' Wait for the Lord, and he will deliver you."

In fact, with God's help, you can even move from I'm gonna get back at them so bad to I'm gonna find a way to treat them well. Listen to this from the Bible:

Don't be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21).

Do not repay anyone evil for evil (Romans 12:17).

Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head" (Romans 12:19–20).

Do you really believe that God will settle the score for those huge, specific wrongs that were done to you? If you do, you will be freed from the poisonous need to get revenge. You can move on and live your life. God will take care of it.

4. Thank God that he's made a way for weeds to become wheat. Let's not kid ourselves. Even we good people have quite a bit of evil running through us. If Jesus let us do what we wanted and we could immediately get rid of all the evil people in this world, not only would it get rid of the people who are 90 percent evil, but also the people who are 9 percent evil. Are we so good that we are ready for that?

If we have any self-awareness at all, we'll quiet down in a hurry. But thank God, he created a way that my weedy self could be changed into wheat. It's called grace, and it comes to you and to me when we place our faith in Jesus Christ, when we know that our only hope of true inner goodness comes from him.

We should all thank God for amazing grace, that he made a way through Jesus, so that when Jesus comes in all his power and forever removes from this world everything that causes sin and all who do evil, he doesn't have to remove me.

For the outline of this sermon, click here.

For your reflection:

Personal growth: How has this sermon fed your own soul?

Skill growth: What did this sermon teach you about how to preach?

Exegesis and exposition: Highlight the paragraphs in this sermon that helped you better understand Scripture. How does the sermon model ways you could provide helpful biblical exposition for your hearers?

Theological Ideas: What biblical principles in this sermon would you like to develop in a sermon? How would you adapt these ideas to reflect your own understanding of Scripture, the Christian life, and the unique message that God is putting on your heart?

Outline: How would you improve on this outline by changing the wording, or by adding or subtracting points?

Application: What is the main application of this sermon? What is the main application of the message you sense God wants you to bring to your hearers?

Illustrations: Which illustrations in this sermon would relate well with your hearers? Which cannot be used with your hearers, but they suggest illustrations that could work with your hearers?

Credit: Do you plan to use the content of this sermon to a degree that obligates you to give credit? If so, when and how will you do it? (For help on what may require credit, see "Plagiarism, Schmagiarism" and "Stolen Goods: Tempted to Plagiarize".

Kevin Miller is pastor of Church of the Savior in Wheaton, Illinois,