Straight Thinking 051268 Evil in Gods World

Straight Thinking

051268

EVIL IN GOD’S WORLD

Sunday. “It was very good.” God’s original estimate of his wonderful world may not seem to be correct in this time of war and riots and sin. Consequently, people that distrust God and doubt his word need answers to questions like these: “If God is good, where did evil come from? It he is all-powerful, why doesn’t he do something about it” (Read Genesis1:31.)

Monday. Satan is the source of sin. God did not bring evil into his creation; the devil sinned against God, and God cast him out of heaven. When God made mankind and put them on earth, Satan tempted them to disobey God; so Satan introduced sin into the good world God had made. (Read John 8:44; 2 Peter 2:4; Genesis 3:1-19.)

 Tuesday. God created us with free will; we can choose even to disobey him of we want to. Likewise, even Satan was not evil by creation but by choice. We don’t blame God for Satan’s sin or for our sin in the world. (Read Romans 2:4; Titus 2:1-5.)

Wednesday. The evil that’s in the world does not remain because of God’s inability to overcome it, but because of his patience with sinners. He realizes that our physical desires can lead us astray by temptation. Rather than being critical of God for not removing sinners from the world, we should thank him for giving us a second chance. That is to say, we are among the ones that God would be removing because we are part of the problem. (Read 2 Peter 2:9.)

Thursday. Although God himself did not bring sin into the world he is responsible for it now that it’s here. He has provided a way of overcoming sin by giving his God to die in our place on our behalf, and by making the benefit of Chris’s sacrifice our for the accepting. Instead of destroying sinners, he chose to give them an opportunity to repent from their sin. (Read Hebrew 2:14-18.)

Friday. “There’ll come a time.” Although God is patient with our sins, his patience cannot continue forever because, if he withheld his power against evil, he would not be meeting his righteous responsibility to rid the world of it. Even as we’re thankful for God’s patience with our sin, even so we are thankful that his patience is not forever. (Read 2 Peter 3:10-18.)  

Saturday. The eternal triumph of God over evil requires death, judgment, and hell: death to keep sinful people from living forever, judgment to separate them from the righteous, and hell to keep them separate. Human sinfulness does not contradict divine righteousness. In fact, God’s righteousness provides our only hope of salvation from our sins. (Read Genesis 3:22-24; Hebrews 9:27; Revelation 20:10,14-15.)

Virgil Warren, Straight, May 11, 1968                                                                                         christir.org