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Peggy Joyce Ruth, aka "the Psalm 91 Lady" is author of a variety of Psalm 91 book titles with over six million copies in print. She taught a weekly Adult Bible Study for more than 35 years in her church in Central Texas as she shared how to make God’s Word your final authority. Known for her easy-to-understand style of communicating the Word of God and warm storytelling, Peggy Joyce's heart is that her books and teachings will bring you into the same freedom from fear she experienced and help you put God's Word to work in your life.
Have you ever questioned or have you ever wondered, does god send evil? Have you ever wondered that? If not, have you wondered, well, does he allow it? Does it happen in his permissive will? Or sometimes we get to thinking, well, does he just give Satan permission to send the evil on us to teach us something?
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Now, probably those thoughts have gone through your mind at least sometime in your lifetime. Now, these are questions that we have to get settled in our mind or we're never going to go on with god. We're going to find out that we'll be tripped up at every turn if we don't get this settled inside of our heart. Now, I truly believe that this Bible study is going to settle that question in your minds. Now, we're going to look at part one this morning.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:I won't have time to finish it. So, we'll finish it Wednesday night. Do part two, Wednesday night. But this is a message that god gave me that absolutely burns on the inside of my heart because it's so important for us to get our thinking straightened out in this area. Now, back in the book of Jeremiah, god prophesied that he was going to reveal himself.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:He was going to reveal his true nature under the new covenant. He never said that he was going to reveal his nature under the old covenant. He promised to reveal it under the new covenant. Now, I want you to turn to Hebrews chapter eight. Now, the writer of Hebrews quotes that Old Testament prophecy out of the book of Jeremiah and it had been written hundreds and hundreds of years before and then the writer of Hebrews it in the book in the New Testament.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Okay, in Hebrews chapter eight starting with verse six, it says, but now Jesus has obtained a more excellent ministry by as much as he, Jesus, is also the mediator of this better covenant which has been enacted on better promises. So, we have a new and better covenant under the new covenant. For if that first covenant, if the Old Testament, in other words, had been thoughtless, there would have been no occasion sought for a a second covenant. For finding thought with them, god said, behold, the days are coming, says the lord. When I am going to affect a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah and it's not going to be like the covenant which I made with my fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:For they didn't continue in my covenant but I didn't care for them, says the lord, for this is the covenant that I'm going to make with the house of Israel. So, he was prophesying back in the Old Testament about the new covenant that was going to come and so he said, after those days, saith the lord, I'm going to put my law in their minds and I'm going to write my law on their hearts. In other words, it's no longer going to be just a written law. It's going to be written inside of our hearts and he said, I will be their god then under that new covenant and they will be my people and they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen and everyone his brother saying, know the lord. Now, circle that word no because that means just be acquainted with.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:He said, they're not going to just say, you need to be acquainted with with the lord. You need to have knowledge of god. He said, this new covenant, all shall know me. That's a different word no and that word no means all will experience me, all will discern me clearly, all will gaze at me with wide open eyes as though gazing at something remarkable. That's what that word no means and so he says, under the new covenant, that's how they're going to be able to know me and he said, it will be from the least to the greatest.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:That means the little children who have Jesus in their heart are going to know him, experience him, him, and gaze at him as though gazing at something remarkable and that's what we do. That's what were we doing this morning. We were gazing at god as though gazing at something remarkable because he is. So, god made it very clear through this prophecy that the people under the old covenant wouldn't know his character. He made it very clear.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:He said, they're going to have head knowledge about me but they're not going to know me that intimately as a whole. Now, several years ago, the head of the theology department at made this statement. He said, under the old covenant, the Hebrew mind only knew one power. Therefore, he said, they credited god with everything that was supernatural. In other words, if it was super good, god got the credit.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:If it was supernaturally bad, god the author correct. Well, god didn't change personalities from the old to the New Testament. He said, I, the lord god, change not. So, why then does the old and the New Testament seem to contradict each other in their in its description of god? Well, right here in this prophecy, god said very clearly that they were not going to have a total understanding of him under the old covenant.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Beginning, it was a progressive revelation of god. God revealed a little more and a little more of his character. Through the years, man came to know just a little bit more about god and a little bit more about god as time went on but he promised there in the Old Testament, in this prophecy through Isaiah, I'm going to reveal my true character under this new and better covenant. Then, he said, all are going to be able to discern me clearly. They're going to totally understand me and he did.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Okay, how did god choose then to reveal himself, reveal his true character under the new covenant? That he did it through his son. He sent his son and he said, this is my beloved son, hear him. So, Jesus came to give us the truth about god and that's why Jesus said, I am the father are one. That's why he said in John 14 verse seven, if you see me, you've already seen the father.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:See, god was revealing his character through Jesus. Now, I want you to turn on back to Hebrews chapter one. He gives us a little bit more knowledge. Hebrews chapter one verse one, god in the Old Testament spoke long ago to the fathers by the prophets and through many portions and in in many ways but he said, in these days now, god has spoken to us. How?
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Through his son. Now, look on down in verse three. For Jesus is the radiance of the father's glory and Jesus is the exact representation of the father's nature. Okay, no wonder Jesus said, if you've seen me, you've seen the father. He's the exact replica of the father and that's why we can know exactly what god's like.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:We can know exactly what god would do. We can know what god does and what's not coming from god because we know what Jesus is like. All you have to do is look through gospels and see what Jesus did. Okay, look in John chapter one verse 17. We're going to find that there's scriptures all through the New Testament that tell us beyond the shadow of a doubt that Jesus came to explain the father.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Makes it very very clear. And so in John chapter one verse 17, John said the law or the Old Testament was given through Moses but he said, truth, grace, and truth are realized through Jesus Christ. So, in other words, the Old Testament is not necessarily going to give us the the total truth about god. He said, that's realized through Jesus. In verse 18, no man has seen god at any time.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:The only begotten god who is in the bosom of the father but Jesus has explained him. Okay, the truth is revealed in Jesus. Now, the Old Testament paints a pretty bad picture of god in places. You read through the Old Testament, it shows god being given credit for sending the evil and sending the calamity and goodness, we read some of those scriptures and it almost, you know, makes us have a shiver go up our spine but in John one hundred seventeen and eighteen, it says that the truth was finally realized through Jesus. See, they didn't have a total understanding of the character of god in the Old Testament but Jesus came to explain the father.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:He is the explanation of the father. That's exactly what it's saying there in verse 18 and Jesus who is the total truth about god tells us in John 10 verse 10 that it's the thief, not god, but it's the thief who comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy. It's the thief that comes to bring calamity and evil and and all the the destruction that tries to come against us. Now, the Old Testament didn't have that total revelation. When Jesus first revealed this in the gospels, when he first began teaching this, it was a total revolutionary thought.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:See, Satan had never before been explained and exposed until the new covenant. God had just been given credit in the Old Testament simply because the truth had not yet been revealed in Jesus. Now, Satan was hidden throughout the Old Testament. You don't find many times in the Old Testament where it talks about the enemy. Victory over him had not yet come and their only protection under the old covenant was in keeping the law.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Now, we find all through the teachings of Jesus that he would continually encourage his disciples to distinguish between what was coming from Satan and what was coming from god. In fact, over in Hebrews, it tells us that it's by practice that we learn to discern what's coming from evil and what's coming from good. Now, Jesus taught how to discern and he even gave us that formula there in John 10 verse 10 and you can literally take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle and on one side, you can put steal, kill, and destroy. On the other side, you can put life and life abundantly and you can categorize everything that comes. Is it coming to steal from you?
Peggy Joyce Ruth:The thoughts that come your mind. You can categorize. The things that come against you. Everything that happens, categorize it. Jesus said, does it steal, kill, and destroy?
Peggy Joyce Ruth:It's the thief. Is it bringing life and life abundantly? It's coming from god. Now, just that scripture alone could settle any question that our mind could ever come up with concerning where evil comes from. We could take that one question and we could go home because god said, look at the life of Jesus.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:He says, we're the same and when you look at the life of Jesus, Jesus never sent evil on anyone, only good. Now, later, you can look at James one thirteen because of lack of time, I'm just going to give you some of the references but James one thirteen tells us, let no man say when he's being tempted, I'm being tempted by god because he said, god cannot be tempted by evil. Therefore, he is not going to tempt anybody with evil. When you go on down in that chapter, James 117 says, every good and every perfect gift comes from above and he says, there's no variation in that. In other words, he doesn't send a good gift one time and then the next time send a bad gift.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:He doesn't send blessings one time and then a curse on us the next time. Only good and perfect gifts come from the father but still a question that continually crops up. I've had so many people say, okay, I'm convinced by the scriptures that god is not the one sending the evil. That's obvious from the scriptures but he must be the one allowing it. It must be in his permissive will.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Listen, you can look at the Bible from cover to cover and you're never going to find where god had a permissive will. You won't find that in the word of god. God doesn't have a permissive will. Things that happen are either in god's will or they are outside of god's will. There's not an in between and you say, well, if something happens to me or something comes, god is bound to have allowed it or couldn't have happened.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:No, that's not true. God gave man a free will and he gave us a choice. He gave man authority over this Earth. Therefore, there are a lot of things that are happening on this Earth that are outside of god's will. You can look around and you can see some things that you know are not the will of god that are going out and that's why he tells us in the lord's prayer to pray, thy will, oh lord, that's being done in heaven.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Let it be done on this Earth. So, there's some things going on this Earth that are not god's will. He's given us authority and he says, pray that my will that's being done in heaven will be done on this Earth. Now, god's perfect will is being done in heaven. But just like I said, there's some things that are happening on this Earth that are outside his will and it's not that god permits it.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:It's because man has permitted it. See, man has been given a free will and has been given authority. Now, I want want you to follow very carefully with me today because I really don't want us to ever be confused again or even tempted to think that god is the one allowing the evil to come and you say, okay, but what about those times when something bad happens and so much good comes out of it that surely that must have been in god's will because after all, my whole family got saved because of this tragedy. All these wonderful things happened because of it. Even if god didn't send it, maybe he just used Satan to bring that evil because of all of the good that could come out of it and if you'll be honest with yourself, you may have had some of those thoughts go through your mind at times.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Listen, don't allow yourself to even begin to think that way or you'll find yourself being tripped up. The enemy will come in and deceive. These things that come that are evil are never in god's will ever. Genesis 50 verse 20 lets us know that there are times that god will take though what was meant for evil and he will turn and he will use it to bring good because he's a god of mercy. So, that's the kind of god that we serve.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:You know, there could be evil things that come and god in his love and mercy will take those evil things and he'll turn em around and he'll weave em. That word means weave that he'll weave it together to bring good but the evil, the sickness, the calamity that was not in god's will and Jesus very plainly tells us that it was the enemy. It was coming from the enemy and we can know that god's not going to use Satan to do his dirty work for him because his kingdom would be a house divided if he used the enemy to work for him. It would be a house divided and Jesus said, that house couldn't stand. Okay, where then does evil come from?
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Okay, I want you to stay with me and I'm going to give you some puzzle pieces and they're all going to fit together before we're through. You don't live in this world very long until you find out in a hurry that it's governed by natural laws. Some physical laws and these laws are just as sure as the sun coming up in the morning. If I held the ball up and I turned loose of that ball from the oldest to the youngest, we would all have faith that that ball was going to hit the floor. None of us would expect that ball to leave my hand and bounce off the ceiling.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Why is that? Because we know natural laws. We've experienced the natural laws long enough that we know that they work. In fact, we've never seen the natural laws fail. You know, we think through very carefully what was going to happen before we would purposely step off the roof of this building because we're convinced that the law of gravity works.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Well, little by little, we're beginning to learn that there are some spiritual laws and they're just as sure, they're just as reliable, and they're just as certain as the physical laws and we're we're beginning to learn about these spiritual laws. See, every word that we speak forth in faith, every action that we take, even the thoughts that we dwell on, even our attitudes, the attitudes that we learn to live with. These are setting spiritual laws into motion. Okay, what are the spiritual laws? Well, every spiritual law is summed up in the one law that stated in Galatians six verse seven.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:I want you to turn there because I want you to mark it. That one law stated there is the summarization of all the spiritual laws. And it's called the law of sowing and reaping. Now, in Galatians six verse seven, it says, don't be deceived. God is not mocked for whatever a man sows, that will he reap.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Okay, why do you think that Paul started out by saying, don't be deceived. He saying, don't be fooled. Don't be deceived. This works every time just as sure as the law of gravity works and god's wanting us to begin to operate this spiritual law to our advantage. Now, you say, well, how does it work?
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Well, it's the law that governs the increase in the physical realm as well as the increase in the spiritual realm. See, the law of sowing and reaping is a natural law but it's also a spiritual law. Let me give you an example. In the natural, if a farmer planted one kernel of corn, he doesn't harvest back one kernel of corn. He harvest back a whole stalk of corn from that one seed with ears and ears of corn and each ear has hundreds of kernels.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Now, that's the law working in the natural realm. That's the law of sowing and reaping in the physical. From one seed comes many seeds of the same kind. Okay, the same law governs the spiritual realm. Anything that we give out, continue.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Anything that that we plant, It's multiplied back to us in the harvest. It's not just added back. It's not just returned. It's multiplied back. Now, it's really easy to explain this in the financial realm but it works in every single area but let's say that you have $100 and you tithe your $10 You give your tithe.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Well, in the natural, we think, okay, I've got $90 left on which to live but that's not so. See, that $10 is literal seed that was sown in the spiritual realm. It's just as literal as a kernel of corn was to the farmer and when that $10 goes out as spiritual seed, it doesn't yield back $10 That $10 kernel of corn is multiplied back. See, it's a it's a spiritual law and that's why when someone's having financial difficulties, god's answer in the word of god to their need is to give. It is to put that law into effect.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Now, seed to be sown before it can bring a harvest. The farmer doesn't sit back and and wait for a crop to come. He plants his seed first. Now, the Bible's full of scriptures that demonstrate the law of sowing and reaping. Proverbs twelve fourteen tells us that the deeds of a man's hands will return.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Luke six thirty eight says, give and it'll be given back, pressed down, shaken together. Ecclesiastes tells us, cast your bread out on the water and it won't be long until it'll come back on every wave. Proverbs tells us that when we give of our first fruit, then, what we find will happen is that our barns will be full. Now, we're well versed on the fact that financial blessings and other blessings come that way but today, I'm wanting us to see how man has taken this law, the law of sowing and reaping through the years and has operated it in the negative and maybe not even realizing that it's happened that way but what's happened, it has set up some bad things in the spiritual realm and god got credit for that but it was man's negative seed that did it. Whatever is given out is a seed and it will be multiplied back.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:It may be love that's being given out. It could be bitterness. It could be kindness. It could be criticism. Whatever it is that's being given out.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Now, you may not see that seed multiplied back overnight or even in a week or a month. Sometimes, people don't even see their seed come back in their lifetime or their children's lifetime but it will come at some point in time. The harvest will return. What Whatever a person sows in time, it's going to be reaped. Now, most people have had a lot of teaching on the power of the spoken word.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:The spoken word is nothing more than the law of sowing and reaping in effect. See, every word spoken in faith is a seed. Our actions, our attitudes, the thoughts that we've learned to live with and dwell on. Those are seeds. Therefore, whatever it is that we're saying, whatever we're doing, whatever we're continually thinking on is the only thing that can come back.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:What do you think on? Think about it. You know, what are you doing? What are you saying? The who plants corn is going to get corn back.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:He's not going to get beans because it's a spiritual law. Okay, now that puts a little fear into some people because they think, oh my goodness, I have already sown some really bad seeds. This law is in effect in the negative. What am I going to do? Well, if you've already sown some bad seed, you need a crop failure and so, what we have to do is we have to pray for the blood of Jesus to cleanse and forgive.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:We have to come into true repentance like took place here. Well, I thought you said that that spiritual law works every single time. Bad seeds put out, bring in a bad crop. Well, it does work every single time but it can be superseded by higher law. See, gravity never fails but it can be superseded by the law of aerodynamics and that's why a plane can fly.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:If there's bad that have been sown, then it may be just words that contradict the word of god. It could be gossip. It could be bitterness. Okay, that's where we need to truly repent and go the other direction. We need to plead the blood.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:See, the law of sowing and reaping can only be superseded by the law of forgiveness in Christ Jesus. That's a higher law. So, take care of the past and then move on. This is a new day. Now, Jesus had a way of stating things so simply.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:If you'll notice, he stated the law of sowing and reaping in Matthew seven verse 12. Now, we call it the golden rule but he said, do unto others exactly what you would have them to do unto you. Well, the reason he said that is because it was a spiritual law. He knew that whatever you did for other people is what you were going to receive back. What is it that you want?
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Give it. Whatever it is you want. Now, there are literally hundreds of scriptures that state this spiritual law different ways but it's all the same law. It's the law of sowing and reaping and everything in the spiritual realm is governed by this law. Now, the law of sowing and reaping actually even affects how other people deal with us.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:See, if we're critical, we're going to find that eventually, we're going to be criticized. If we judge, we're going to be judged. If we are always finding fault with other people. See, we're sowing it and that's what we're going to receive. People are going to start finding fault with us.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:If we betray other people's confidences, we're going to find that the time is going to come that people won't keep our confidences because it's a law in effect. It's a spiritual law. Now, god set this law up for us to lift people up and encourage them and extend kindnesses and do good for other people and he knew that as we did that, then in so doing, it was going to turn back on us. See, he intended for good things to be put out so that good things would return. He never intended for this law to be operated in the negative and you maybe thinking, well, I know oh so and so and he's generous and kind and well, I tell you what, he's he never seems to get ahead.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:He's always in lack. Doesn't seem to work for him. Well, let me you an example. The farmer who sows corn has some weed seeds and there's some thorns and thistles. There's some seeds there that try to choke out the crop and that farmer knows he's going to have to keep the weeds under so that they don't interfere with the harvest.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Well, by the same token, along with the good seeds that we've sown, sometimes, we've sown some bad seeds too. Maybe out of a lack of knowledge and some of those bad seeds have come up. Sometimes, there's curses of poverty. Sometimes, there's fear of failure, there's insecurities, there's other seeds that we've put out. So, god's wanting us to plant what we want to harvest and quit planting that which we don't want and he's wanting us to see to it that those seeds that are going at the bad seeds that we stop the weeds and you say, well, what does this have to do with the character of god?
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Well, not only does the law of sowing and reaping affect what comes back to us but it also affects our attitude about god. It affects how we see god and that's why some people see god as a loving father and that's true and other people see god as just waiting for a chance to step on them to teach them a lesson. See, what we do, how we think, all the the things that we've been taught, all those things affect our circumstances and they affect our mental image about god. Now, later, you can look up Psalm 18 verse 25 but it says, oh lord, with the kindhearted, you show yourself kind. In other words, he's saying the kind hearted are going to see the lord as a kind god.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:The blameless, he goes on to say, will see you as a blameless god. The pure are going to see you as pure and then it goes on to say and the perverted will see you as twisted. Now, god's not twisted but the perverted will see him that way and that's exactly why we have misconceptions about god's character. People who try to create god in their mental image, in their way of thinking, in their own preconceived ideas from things that they've been taught that didn't line up with the word of god. Instead of allowing god to transform us into his way of thinking and transform our mind to the word of god.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Many times, we've just gone by old traditional ideas. One man that we knew personally made this statement. He said, every man, married man on the face of god's green earth looks at other women and lusts after them and he believed that. He believed that every man did that. Well, do you know why he believed that?
Peggy Joyce Ruth:He believed that because he was operating in a spirit of lust and therefore, he saw every man that way. That's how he saw them because he was looking at every man through his own eyes and we do the same thing with god. We see god through our mind at times instead of looking at the character of Jesus to find out what god's like. Now, when we finally understand the principle of sowing and reaping, then, the character of god will never be misunderstood again and will never again see him as the one that's either sending or permitting the evil. Now, the one major foundational fact that we have to understand to be able to understand god's character is that god set these laws, spiritual and physical laws into motion to bring about good, period.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:That's why he put him into being. He said, every single law into motion to bring about good not evil. See, god is light and in him, there is no darkness at all. Calamity, sickness, disease, poverty, destruction, all those things are coming out of darkness. See, even in the Old Testament, when man talked about god destroying or or god sending calamity, that was coming from a limited knowledge about god.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Just like god had said in this prophecy here in Jeremiah, he had said, they don't understand me. They don't discern me clearly in the Old Testament. Now, god revealed himself progressively a little at a time throughout the Old Testament until the final and the complete revelation in Christ Jesus. When said, this is my son in whom I'm well pleased. Now, hear him but see because it was a progressive revelation like we said earlier, the Hebrew mind only knew one power.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:So, if it was supernaturally good or evil, god got credit for it but god showed us through Jesus that he's not the one sending the evil. See, god is light and there is no evil in his light to send. Now, all of god's laws were set in motion to bring good, not to bring evil. Now, some of you might be thinking, well, does that mean that if so and so is really sick or if so, this person died in a car wreck, does that mean that they reaped some bad seeds and that was just their seeds that they were reaping back? Okay, hear me very carefully because this is going to set somebody free.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:It's true that all bad results come from bad seeds that were sown but the seeds are the sin that open the door to the tragedy might not necessarily have been planted by the one that reaped the harvest. That is so important for you to hear. In other words, the sin that comes, the tragedy that came as a result of the sin, that sin might not necessarily have been planted by the one who reaped the harvest. Now, mark this down and write it down so you can remember it. Evil is always going to come through one of three avenues.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:It's either going to become as a result of personal sin or it's going to come as a result of ancestral sin or it's going to come as a result of sin in the world. It's not coming from god. It'll come from one of those three areas. One of them at the time. Number one, evil or bad consequences can come as a result of our own personal sin.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Anytime that we personally operate the spiritual laws and the negative and it's really easy to see that one. For example, a man or a woman who lives a sexually immoral life will eventually reap evil. It may be a broken home. It may be illegitimate children. It may be venereal diseases.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:It may be heartache, guilt. You know, it could be loss of credibility but there will be evil that comes. Okay, that's one way that evil comes directly from our own sin. Number two, evil consequences can be handed down through our bloodline from an ancestor. Maybe it was an ancestor who kept sin sinning in a certain area and it set up an iniquity curse.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:See, a curse is simply the reverse of how god intended it to be. God intended the blessings to be handed down through the bloodline but when man began to operate the law in the negative, when man began to sin, it brought on a curse. Now, let me give you an example how of how god intended it to be. The head of one of the wealthiest families in our nation planted some seeds of financial prosperity years ago. In other words, he was a big giver and his grandchildren and his great grandchildren are reaping some financial harvest from great grandfather's seeds that he planted.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Now, some of those grandchildren have not turned a hand to be prosperous. They haven't planted any seeds on their own and yet they are prosperous because of the seeds from that ancestor that was handed down. Well, that's the way god intended it to work. Not just in the area of prosperity but he intended it to work that way in every area and he tells us in Proverbs, a good man is to hand down a good inheritance to his children and his children's children. That spiritual inheritance as well as physical inheritance but when a spiritual law is operated in the negative, then, that sin brings death or bad results or a bad harvest but god's not up there saying, well, old John Doe, oh, you know, he took my good law and he messed it up.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:So, I'm going to send bad things on his kids. God's not doing that. That law was set in motion always to bring good but when someone be it the person themselves or be it an ancestor, when they operated in the negative, then, the harvest is out of his hands because he gave us a free will and it's the law in effect. It's the law of sowing and reaping and that's why curses need to be broken and that's why Paul says, don't be deceived because he was saying, this this is not what's coming from god. He said, don't be deceived.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Whatever the man sows is what he's going to reap or the woman and it's going to be reaped somewhere down the line. It maybe not be by that person but it'll be children or grandchildren. So, the person who is experiencing evil consequences now, it doesn't necessarily have to be the one who did the sinning but the door was opened by sin somewhere at some time and that's why the Old Testament tells us that many times, the sins of the parents are handed down to the third and fourth generation. Okay, that's a curse. Alright, we said the first avenue through which evil can come is as a result of our personal sins.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:The number two avenue through which evil consequences come is through ancestral sins, the ancestral curse. Okay, the number three area, evil can come as a result of sin in this world. For example, the child who was kidnapped and molested by a total stranger. That's an example of evil coming as a result of just sin being in this world and you say, well, that's not fair. God is unjust to allow that kind of thing to happen.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:Listen, god didn't allow that to happen. I'm going to repeat this again but you're never going to find in the word of god where god has a permissive will. That's a man made doctrine. Evil is a result of some person's disobedience. It is not a result of god's allowance but the good news is that god in his mercy and god in his goodness.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:In addition to working all things together for good, even if something bad comes, according to Romans eight twenty eight, it says that he works all things together to bring good but in addition to that, when you study through the word of god, you find that god has made a way of escape from all three of these avenues of bad harvest. That's the good news. Now, I wish we had time to go into that. Wednesday night, I'm going to finish this for part two. I'm going to give you the avenues of escape.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:We have avenues of of escape from the evil that maybe we've sown, the sin that we've sown. We have an avenue escape from the sin that's been sown by the ancestors. We have an avenue of escape from the sin that has just been sown in this world and god is wanting us to find out what these avenues of escape are so that we don't have to just stand here and take whatever comes. Whatever the enemy happens to send but the main thing that I want to put across today is that bad things don't come from god. He doesn't send it or allow it no matter how much good comes out of it and he's wanting us to quit blaming him, look at the life of Jesus, and find out how we are supposed to learn how to take our authority.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:See, Jesus never put anything bad on anyone and he is the perfect picture of our father. That's right. Father, I thank you with all my heart, lord, that the truth is in the word and the truth is in Christ Jesus and when we know that truth, when we apply that truth and appropriate that truth, it does set us free. Father, thank you for that. Lord, I thank you that you are not the one sending evil.
Peggy Joyce Ruth:I thank you that you are not the one that is even allowing the evil. I thank you that you've given us truth about the law of sowing and reaping and father, I thank you that you love us enough that not only will you take what was meant for evil and turn and use it for good and take those things that were intended for bad and em together for good but father, even in addition to that, even before that, father, you give us avenues of escape from the the sin that's in the world, from the harvest that's the bad harvest that's coming into the world. Father, thank you for that. We give you praise and honor and glory for that. In Jesus name, amen.