11 A mythical Satan, through the work of a conniving serpent, may gain the allegiance of man for a period, but ultimately he must give way to the magnetic redemptive power of a humble servant on an uplifted cross. Good Friday may occupy the throne for a day, but eventually it must give way to the triumphant music of the trumpets of Easter. Evil is ultimately doomed by the powerful, inexorable forces of good. 10 Each of these religions realized that in the midst of the upward thrust of goodness there is the downward pull of evil.Ĭhristianity is clear, however, in affirming that in the long struggle between good and evil, good eventually emerges as the victor. Hinduism called it a conflict between illusion and reality Zoroastrianism looked upon it as a conflict between the god of light and the god of darkness Platonism called it a conflict between spirit and matter traditional Judaism and Christianity called it a conflict between God and Satan. All the great religions have recognized this tension. There seems to be a tension at the very core of the universe. So in a sense, the whole of life is the history of a struggle between good and evil. We have seen evil in all of its tragic dimensions. 8 We have seen it clothed in the garments of calamitous wars which left battlefields drenched with blood, filled nations with widows and orphans, and sent men home physically handicapped and psychologically wrecked. We have seen it in imperialistic nations trampling over other nations with the iron feet of oppression. 7 We have seen it in high places where men are willing to sacrifice truth on the altars of their self-interest. We have seen evil in tragic lust and inordinate selfishness. We need only look out into the wide arena of everyday life. Jesus said in substance concerning the choking weeds: “I do not attempt to explain their orgin, but they are the work of an enemy.” 6 Jesus realized that the force of evil was as real as the force of good.īut we need not stop with the Bible's glaring examples to establish the reality of evil.
Whether sown by Satan or by man's misuse of his own freedom, the tares were poinsonous and deadly evil. They were real weeds disrupting the orderly growth of stately wheat. 5 They were not illusions or errors of the mortal mind. In the parable of the tares Jesus made it clear that the tares were tares. While he never sought to give a theological explanation for the origin of evil, he never explained it away. Jesus was not unmindful of the reality of evil. 3 The Bible is crystal clear in its perception of evil. At the center of the New Testament, it sees it in a misguided mob hanging the world's most precious character on a cross between two thieves. 2 Through the warnings of the prophets, it sees evil in callous injustices and ugly hypocrisy. Symbolically, it pictures it in the conniving work of a serpent which comes to inject a discord into the harmonious symphony of life in a garden. The Bible affirms the reality of evil in unmistakable terms. Evil is with us as a stark, grim, and colossal reality.
We may debate over the origin of evil, but only the person victimized with a superficial optimism will debate over its reality. It projects its nagging, prehensile tentacles into every level of human existence. There is hardly anything more obvious than the fact that evil is present in the universe. Text: “And Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore. Board of Education decision, affirming that “the Red Sea was opened and the forces of justice marched through to the other side.” King concludes, “There is a Red Sea in history that ultimately comes to carry the forces of goodness to victory, and that same Red Sea closes in to bring doom and destruction to the forces of evil.” 1 In a sentence deleted from the published version, King announces his faith in a just universe: “A mythical Satan, through the work of a conniving serpent, may gain the allegiance of man for a period, but ultimately he must give way to the magnetic redemptive power of a humble servant on an uplifted cross.” Retelling the tale of the Jewish exodus from Egypt and the death of the Egyptian army that symbolized “the death of inhuman oppression and unjust exploitation,” he draws a parallel with the U.S. King finds inspiration in ideas presented in Phillips Brook's “The Egyptians Dead Upon the Seashore” for this semon, a version of which he delivered at Dexter in 1955.
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