Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-06-05
AN OLD QUESTION.
WHY Docs God Permit Satan and
Sin to Exist?
nr. ralmage's Answers to Question,
which Has Bothered Many Minds
Since Job-God's Long-Sufrering
Patience and Great Mercy.

since . AOLSSSulcTInX
Patience and Great Mercy.
rhe subject discussed by DIR. Talmage in
recent sermon was: "Nhy does God per-
NIT Satan and sin TO exist when, with one
blow, He might annihilate them?" The
text was Job xxi, Z: "Wherefore do the
wicked live:" Following is the sermon:
JOB.
Poor Job! with tusks, with stings, with
horns, with hoofs-all the misfortunes of
life came on him at once. Bankruptcy, be-
reavement, standardization, eruptive dis
ease so irritating hat he had to reinforce
his ten finger-nails by a piece of earthen-
ware to scratch himself withal. His wife
took the diagnosis of his complaints and
prescribed for him profanity. She thought
he would feel better if between the par
oxysms of pain and grief he would swear
%alittle. For each boil q plaster of obiur-
CATION. Probably no man was ever more
tempted to take this bad advice than was
Job, when ut last his three exasperating
friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, came
to comfort him, saying in substance: "You
old sinner, this serves you right. All this
is because you'll are a hypocrite. What a
SlnuU SOL wv oSNA itS CuuSUlSEu YOU LOT
your wickedness." The disigured invalid
lifts his swollen eye-lids and puts down
the, piece of broken saucer with which he
had been rubbing his arms and tells his
garrulous group of friends that it is often
the wicked who have the best health and
the most prosperity, and in this connection
hurls the question which every man and
woman that ever existed has at some con-
%iuncture. of events asked: "Why do the
wicked live::"
They build up fortunes that o~vershadow
the earth and confound all the life-insur-
ancc tables on the subject of longevity,
somclof them dying o~ctogenarians, or, per-
laps, nonogenarians, or possibly cente-
Marians-Ahab i'll the palace, and Naboth
i'll the cabin; unclean Herod on the throne,
and Paul, the c~onsecrated, twisting ropes
for tent-making: Manassah, the worst of
all the Kings of Juda, lived the longest.
While the general rule is that the wicked
do not live out half their days, there are
instances where they live to q great age in
p~ayadises of beauty and luxury, with a
whole college of physicians expanding its
skill in the attempt for further prolonga-
ton, and then have a funeral with casket
uihtli VI SuiACL u tul d IIOs
cession with all tho finest e%quipage
Of the city flashing and %jingling
into line, taking the poor angle-worm
OF the Gust out of it's hole in the ground
with a pomp that might make the
passing spirit from some other world
think that the Archangel Michael was
dead. Goup among the great residences
of cur cities and read the door-plates, and
seehow many of them hold the names of
men mighty for commercial or social iniq-
uity. Vampires of the nineteenth century!
Gorgons of the ages! Every wheel of their
carriage is a Juggernaut wet with tho
blood Of those sacrificed to their avarice
and evil design. Men who are like
Caligula, who wished that all the people
We're in one neck, that he might cut it off
at one blow. Oh, the slain! the slain!
What a procession Of libertines, of u~surers,
OF lnfamous quacks, Of legal %charlatans, of
world grabbing monsters. What apostles
of despoliation! What demons incarnate!
Thousands of men who have concentrated
all their energies of body, mind and soul
into one prolonged and ever intensified and
unrelenting effort to sacrifice and blast
and consume the world. I do not blame
You for asking the quiyering, throbbing,
burning, resounding, appalling question Of
the text: "Why do the wicked live"
WHY III WICKED LIVE.
First, they live to demonstrate beyond
controversy the long-sutfering patience of
Tod. You rouse up and say: 81 will not
stand it any longer" but perhaps you are
compelled to stand it. God, with all the
batteries of omnipotence loaded with thun-
derbolts stands it century after century.
Sometimes, l have no doubt, an angel
comes up and begs that he may unlimber
1he batteries, crying: "Now is the time to
strike" "No," says God, wait a year."
wait twenty years" "Wait a century,"
Wait five hundred years" What God
does!s not so wonderful as what He does
HOT do. He has enough reserve corps to
sweep from the earth Mormonism, Moham-
meaanlsm, Paganism in one day. He
could take all tho frauds of New York
NltE on the west side of Broadway and in
aa hour pitch them into the Hudson, and
Ill me frauds in New York on the east
a"e Oh broadway and i'll an hour pitch
'neia INTO the East River. He understands
III combination lock of every dishonest
n'asy-safe in Christendom, and could
AA'% II up quicker than by any earthly
yAploslVe. Written all over the earth from
f"astto West and from North to South, and
at over history, are the words Divine
l"s.ehce, Divine forbearance, Divine long
s.aeflny. 1t is a wonder to me that God
"a not burn up the world two thousand
!eafs ago and scatter the ashes through
An'nehslty, its s~erolites dropping into
o'4'er worlds and kept in their museums as
spSc'Nncns Of IL defunct planet. People
,s!N OF 9od as though He were hasty with
aas judgments and snapped a man up
nuVN' No! Before the ancient deluge
,s people We're warned one hundred and
WY years to get aboard Noah's ark.
WY DO the wicked live! To make the
~A'hfoW OF sin more climacteric. They
n1sV PIC up their mischief very high so
I S@s "nole communities may see it; very
sn 50 that all continents may see it;
IVY nigh SO that all the world may see
fa, lAe higher it rises the harder it will
raI i ana the greater tho v%indication Of
ee'usness. Sin is not to be permitted
nns sne"k out of the world in silence. 1t is
merely to resign and quit. 1t is not a
~ ~e " 80 by default because no one APP