Jesus In The Old Testament: Jesus In The Law Series

Jesus in the Old Testament - Jesus in the Law - November 11, 2018

Today we’re continuing part 2 of a 4-week series on Jesus in the Old Testament. Last week we looked at Jesus Christ in Creation, and today we’re looking at Jesus in the Law.

Put up your hand if you want the world to live in peace? For people to live in peace; to act with love and justice?

For people of good will, this is a common hope. That the world would know peace. That people wouldn’t need to live in fear.

That things like Hitler and Stalin and ISIS and Colombian drug Lords and corrupt politicians and corrupt police would be a thing of the past. Wouldn’t that be great?

That WOULD be great. But instead, if we take a sober look at the world, it seems like there’s something inside people that makes us not behave in the way of peace, but pretty much constantly wreak havoc and destruction.

We would like to think that the Hitlers of this world are buried in the 20th century, but we know that bigotry and hate and greed still exists in this century.

We’ve seen a resurgence of race-based hatred in the past few years, as recently as a week and a bit ago when a bigot stormed a synagogue in Pittsburg and killed 11? People, shouting: “All Jews must die!”

Anti-semites and racists of all kinds are out there, hoping and waiting for things like this to happen.

Evil takes all kinds of forms. And evil always thinks it’s right. And won’t be persuaded otherwise.

There’s something inside of humans that makes us say and do terrible things, wreaking havoc and destruction.

From the Bible's point of view, evil ruins things in at least two ways.

There's a direct effect of our evil like when someone steals from another person, they've done something wrong, they’ve created an injustice and therefore they owe something to make it right.

They have to pay it back and/or suffer personally for what they’ve done by going to jail or paying a fine. That’s one effect of evil.

But there's another indirect effect of evil. The person who has stolen has also damaged trust and ruined the environment of the relationship creating a lack of trust.

There's emotional damage. It's like vandalism and they need to make that right too, they need to pay a price for their actions.

You’ve felt this when there’s been a shooting in Regent Park, or on the Danforth this past summer, or the mass murder in North York last April when a guy used a rented van to kill 10 people and he marred the lives of dozens more.

By extension, thousands of people who knew or were related to the victims were negatively impacted.

The entire city ‘felt’ unsafe after these terrible events in our own backyard. Evil ruins the environment for everyone.

When evil completely runs amuck, unchecked, you get a Hitler or a Mao Tse Tung or a Pol Pot or ISIS who create chaos and war and death and suffering on a scale no person could wrap their mind around. (Pause)

And we might think, hey, why doesn’t God just fix everything. Why doesn’t He just destroy all the evil in the world? If He’s good, wouldn’t He do that?

Some believe that because God doesn’t destroy the evil in the world, that means He’s not good,

or He doesn’t exist. You hear that sometimes.

But if we get really honest with ourselves, if we think about it: the evil I see everywhere else, everywhere out there, that’s the same evil that’s in me. Inside of me.

We’ve all done wrong. And if you’re young and you can’t think of anything, wait for it. We’ve all contributed to the problem of evil and we keep doing it.

So this puts us in a bind if we want God to rid the world of evil, he’ll have to GET RID OF US. And that’s not a great solution.

If fact, the story of the flood in Genesis chapters 6-7 is the story of God ridding the world of evil by destroying the world through a massive flood, but allowing a small remnant – Noah’s family – to survive.

And then Noah, after the flood, built an altar and worshipped God. The text continues:

“The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood... “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”” ??Genesis? ?8:21-22???

This idea of destroying evil was tried, and failed. The solution didn’t work. Because the people continued to do evil. Kinda proves the point. But God would find another way.