Be Prepared...to Give an AnswerНамуна

BE PREPARED... TO GIVE AN ANSWER

DAY SEVEN     

Of all the questions I have ever received about my faith, by far, I hear these the most:  Why is evil here to begin with?  How can a good God allow such evil to happen throughout our world?  If He is all powerful, why doesn’t He just destroy it?         

I love what Billy Graham said:  “God could have made a world with no evil in it.  However, it would have been one of robots and puppets—creatures who could not love Him or anyone else.  Love is possible for only free moral creatures; forced love is a contradiction.  So, in order for the world to be morally good, it must be morally free.  And free creatures are capable of free choices that bring disease, disaster and death.”     

God, the Creator, from the beginning gave us (through Adam and Eve) the ability to choose, and because of a bad choice, one that disobeyed His instruction, it opened the door for our eyes to see things, not the way in which they were intended, but the way they ought not to be.      

Of course, God knew when He created us that this would happen.  He is omniscient.  He also knew the solution to the problem of evil before we ever knew what evil was.       

But when we did become aware of evil, God had also given us the ability and the convictions to do something about it.  For example, if possible, moral human beings stop, or attempt to stop, evil acts all the time.  And to that evil over which we have no control, as believers, God gave us a peace to cope with our pain and our fears that passes all understanding, a peace knowing that all of it ultimately happens for good.     

In the book of Genesis, I love the words of the Joseph, son of the great patriarch Jacob, when he spoke to his brothers for the first time twenty plus years after they had left him for dead.  Joseph had the power as well as every right to punish them for their act, but he forgave them simply because he knew there was a bigger purpose in it all:  “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” 

And take it even a step further.  Had Joseph not been betrayed by his brothers, the Israelites, in all likelihood, would have never ended up in Egypt.  Hence, there would have never been a Moses or a King David… or a Jesus.  This is looking at it from man’s point of view.  God, of course, knew exactly how it would all play out.     

Now, I don’t want to lie, even as a believer, evil is sometimes difficult to accept.  I mean, how can one explain the tsunami that kills three-hundred thousand people, or the mass murderer at Sandy Hook Elementary, or Hitler?  And the list goes on and on.     

Romans 8:28 is a popular verse, and comforting to those who know Christ:  “And we know that in all things,” it says, “God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”     

But what about those who don’t know or love God, or for that matter, believe in Him?  Would this be a comforting verse to share when they are burdened by the heartaches of this world that stem from the evil it inevitably distributes to all of us?  I’m not so sure they would feel any better about their present situation by hearing it.

“If evil is to be overcome, we need to talk about it being defeated, not destroyed.”  Norman Geisler and Ron Brooks      

Again, no living soul is immune from the evils and heartaches of this world.  That’s why it’s so important to share our hope in Jesus, the one who defeated evil.

In his incredible book, Ultimate Guide to Defend Your Faith, my friend Doug Powell sums it all up:

“If moral evil that you have committed is what plagues you, then Jesus takes the punishment that you deserve and pays for it Himself by His death.  If you are a victim of someone else’s moral evil, then either Jesus pays for it with his death, or He sits as judge and punishes the person responsible….He will either judge or justify every person who ever lived….Jesus is also the solution for natural evil…His resurrected body cannot die, get sick, or be corrupted in any way.  This indicates a fulfillment of the way things were intended to be, an achievement to the goal to which all things are moving according to God’s good purpose.  All things (the earth included) will be not just restored to their state before the fall of man (Genesis 3) but will attain the good purpose for which they were created.  Evil is only a problem for those who refuse Him….It is only when we stop viewing the world in a self-centered way and see the world as it really is, centered around God, that we can make sense of evil.”      

I pray that all of us live our lives in such a way that we attract others to us like magnets of love, drawing those near to us who are yearning to understand why and how a good God can allow evil in the world.  

Lord, help us to express to them to consider just how much beauty and love there is in the world, for there is so much more good than evil.  We just need to view the world through different lenses, praising and thanking God for all the moments we are given.  

But most of all, I pray that we’re prepared to tell them about Jesus.  For when we know Jesus we can, as Powell said, make sense of it all.  

Thank you so much for reading this study.  I am humbled by it.  

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