When Evil Prospers – Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, I shared a little of my personal story and discussed the importance of processing, at a deep emotional level, the reality that we are not alone.  Others who have gone before us have experienced similar struggles, pain, sorrow, horror, grief, and unanswered questions.

You are not alone!

In this post, we will discuss what it means to live as God’s image bearers in a broken world.

We Live in a Broken World

For me, this is a good starting point in beginning to make some sense out of things.  The Genesis account tells us God created the heavens and the earth.  He created the seas and the dry land.  He separated light from darkness.  He created the marine life, the land animals, and the birds of the air.  Finally, God created mankind in His own image, placing Adam and Eve in authority over all the earth.

God said it was good.

As God completed each step of creation, He declared it to be good.  When God finished creation, He declared all of creation to be good.  Then God rested.

God did not create a world filled with sorrow, pain, and evil.  God created a world that was good.

God did not create mankind filled with wickedness, selfishness, greed, and hatred.  God created man in His own image, both male and female, and they were good.

Then something went horribly wrong.

The serpent entered the garden, spinning his lies, planting seeds of doubt and dissatisfaction.  Adam and Eve fell prey to the serpent’s web of deceit. They betrayed God and entered into covenant with evil.

God had warned Adam, “In the day you eat thereof, you will surely die.”  From that day to this, sin and death have ruled this world.

The sorrow, pain, and evil we each experience in this life are a direct result of living in a fallen world.  This is the fruit “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” of which Adam and Eve partook.  We were created good, in the image of God, in covenant with Him.  We have fallen into covenant with evil, whose image we now also bear.

Why Did God Not Intervene?

Sure, God created a good world filled with good animals, overseen by good people created in His own image.  Yes, Adam rejected God’s goodness and embraced the serpent’s lies.  Yes, we now live in a broken fallen world filled with sinful people… a world in which evil flourishes and godliness seems all too rare.  Yes, our pain, sorrow, grief and loss is a direct result of living in this fallen world.  Evil is a consequence of Adam’s belief in the serpent’s lies… not anything God has wrought or willed.

Yet, we cannot help but wonder.  Knowing God is all-powerful… knowing God is creator of all… knowing God declared His creation to be good… knowing God is good… knowing God loves us deeply… we cannot help but wonder… why does God not intervene?

Why did God not intervene in the garden to prevent Adam and Eve from embracing the serpent’s lies?  Why did God allow the serpent to enter the garden?  Why did God create Adam and Eve with a weakness susceptible to the serpent’s temptation?

On a more personal level, why does God allow evil to flourish today?  Why does God allow His children to suffer at the hands of evil abusers?  Why does God allow judges to make unjust decisions?  Why does God allow pastors to side with abusers against the abused?  Why do wicked people seem to flourish while godly people seem to suffer?  Why does God not intervene?

God does intervene!

In the garden, God warned Adam in advance.  God warned Adam to stay away from evil.  God clearly told Adam the consequences of eating the fruit “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” “for in the day you eat thereof, you will surely die.”

God did intervene, but God also honored Adam’s free will.  God had given Adam authority over all the earth… which meant Adam also had the authority to plunge the whole earth into darkness if he chose to.

Today, God still intervenes.

God has spoken to you.  God has called you to right relationship with Himself.  He has promised to never leave you nor forsake you as you place your trust in Him.

God has also spoken to your abusers.  He has spoken to the judges who have made decisions.

I can say with a high degree of confidence, if you look back at your life and the events surrounding your trials and grief you can see glimpses of God’s intervention… the temporary softening of an otherwise hardened heart… miraculous protection from danger… provision made when it was needed most… strength to do what was needed… wisdom provided to make hard choices.

God has not been silent.  God has been intervening all along.

However, God also honors human free will.  God has answered your prayers to speak to your abuser’s heart… but has not forced the abuser to submit his will to God.

Evil flourishing is not a sign of God’s lack of power nor lack of concern.  Rather, it is evidence of how respectful God is of the free will with which He has gifted each of us.

All Things Work for Good

Pain, sorrow, grief, suffering and temptation are part of the human experience in a fallen world.  For believers and unbelievers alike, for both the wicked and the righteous, these are simply a part of life.

For the believer, though, God provides comforting promises.

First, God promises to be our faithful friend who never leaves nor forsakes us.  God does not promise to spare us the consequences of living in a fallen world.  He does, however, promise to be with us as we traverse those trials.

Second, God promises “all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to His purpose,” for the fulfillment of His divine will.  For all who believe in Christ, God has preordained a divine destiny to be conformed to the image of Christ… much as Adam was created in the image of God… to reflect His glory… each in our own unique way… as we were created and destined to do.

God uses every experience, every life circumstance, to bring about this purpose in our lives.

No, God does not bring evil into our lives.  No, it is not God’s will for His children to suffer.  However, God uses the evil wrought by wicked people to bring about His good will and divine purpose in each of our lives.

As Joseph said to his brothers, “What you intended for evil, God has used for good.

A Light in the Darkness:

The New Testament gospel accounts describe Jesus as The Light of the World and proclaim, “the people living in darkness have seen a great light.”

The ministry of Christ includes being a light in the darkness.  In a fallen world filled with sin and blindness, Jesus is the light.  He is the way, the truth, and the life.

Christ calls us to the same ministry.  We are called to be a light in the darkness.

Photpgraph of nearly full moon

Reflected Glory!

Being a light in the darkness requires living in darkness while walking in the light of God’s truth.  This means we still experience the darkness.  We still experience the consequences of sin, both our own sin and the sins of others.  We still experience the fruit “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

Yes, God could whisk us home to Heaven the instant we ask Him to be our Savior.  He doesn’t do that.  Instead, He commissions us to the ministry of being a light in the darkness… which includes the experience of living in a world filled with darkness.

As we give those painful experiences to God, He uses them to equip us for ministry.  He uses them to draw us into closer relationship with Himself.  He uses them to help us let go of those stale legalistic assumptions of being able to prevent bad things from happening if we just live righteously enough.  He uses them to help us learn to rely completely on Him.  He uses them to help us relate to and empathize with others going through similar experiences.  He uses them to give us wisdom we can share with others as we point others to Christ.

We are called to be God’s image bearers in a world filled with darkness.

 

This is the second post in a series on the topic “When Evil Prospers.”  Please join me for the next post in this series, in which we will discuss how Jesus Christ understands and shares in our suffering.

 

Permissible

picture of a divorce decreeOne July morning in 1994, I found myself sitting in my pastor’s living room. He had graciously responded to my desperate phone call with an invitation to come over and talk.  My wife had left me, and I had no idea what to do.  All I wanted was God’s best for our family of four young children.

“Joe, you know divorce is permissible for adultery and abandonment. If you divorce, you would still be eligible to remarry.”

His words supported what I had been taught…and he meant the words to be gracious and helpful. He was sharing the truth of God’s word as he understood it, viewing the permissibility of divorce for specific situations as God’s grace to deal with harsh realities of life in this world.  In fact, by even bringing up divorce as a valid option, he was being much more liberal than many pastors would have been.

But at that moment, those words were no help at all.

In 1 Corinthians 6:12, the Apostle Paul said, “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.”

In the New Covenant, we live under grace, not under the law. So, I was not interested in what was permissible…what I could get by with.  My heart was, and is, to wholeheartedly pursue God’s will and seek God’s best!

See, this whole concept of divorce being permissible only for specific rigidly predefined situations is founded on a false paradigm. First it assumes that divorce is sin, although the Bible never calls it sin.  Second, it interprets Matthew 19:9 and 1 Corinthians 7 as providing rigidly narrow “exception clauses” for when divorce is permissible.

Now, there are some basic logic errors in this paradigm.

As discussed in this post, sin is never permissible.  Therefore, since both Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul discussed situations where divorce may be a godly course of action, divorce cannot be inherently sinful.  The sin is either in what led to the divorce or in how the divorce is handled, not in the act of divorce, itself.

Also, if Matthew 19:9 is interpreted as Jesus saying all divorce is forbidden with the solitary exception of adultery, and 1 Corinthians 7:11-15 is interpreted as Paul saying all divorce is forbidden with the solitary exception of abandonment, then we have the Apostle Paul contradicting Jesus.  They cannot both be providing a rigid solitary exception in which the solitary exception is not the same.  So the whole paradigm of divorce being unlawful with the exception of certain specific narrow instances listed in scriptural exception clauses falls apart.  It is based on flawed logic.

But that summer morning in 1994, I was not thinking about flawed logic and biblical hermeneutics. At that time, I accepted the prevailing Divorce Mythology as truth.  It was what I had been taught by men I respected and trusted.  I had never had serious reason to question its validity, and to be honest, I had never studied the topic closely enough to recognize the obvious errors.

What I was struggling with that morning was of a much deeper emotional nature.

See, this whole concept of divorce being forbidden, but then having narrowly defined exception clauses for when it is permissible…it fundamentally assumes divorce is never the best course of action.

When presented in sermons, we can almost always count on the preacher to immediately add, “…but not required.” For example, in a sermon on Matthew 19, he might say, “Divorce is permissible for adultery…but not required.”  The implication being it really would always be better to not divorce …that the truly godly course of action would be to find a way to reconcile…no matter the circumstances.  It implies that no matter what led to the divorce, people who have divorced are somehow less spiritual, less faithful, less holy than if they had remained legally married.

It felt to me at the time as though divorce would be a deviation from God’s best plan for my life… condemning myself and my family to a life of something less than God’s best…some sort of second-rate grace begging scraps from the children’s table.

This false assumption of divorce never being the best course of action is reinforced even in the terminology.

Consider the word permissible.  It means permitted or allowed, and that’s exactly how it is treated… as though divorce is always wrong but sometimes grudgingly permitted under specific narrowly defined exceptions.  Many churches treat divorce as something that should always be discouraged, never encouraged…no matter the circumstances.  In effect, divorce is sometimes permissible…but always discouraged.

Then there are these exception clauses used to rigidly define when divorce is permissible.  Do you see how legalistic this whole paradigm is?  Even the terms forbidden, permissible and exception clauses are legal terms, illustrating the inherent legalistic nature of this false paradigm.

Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus consistently spoke against the legalism of the religious leaders, repeatedly demonstrating that righteousness is a heart matter. He often condemned the system of rigid rules, legal loopholes, and exception clauses debated among the religious leaders of His day.

Yet, somehow, many Christians (including many learned theologians) have embraced an unscriptural paradigm making Jesus out to have (on the solitary topic of divorce) replaced the law of Moses with a much more stringent law, including rigidly applied exception clauses for legal loopholes. This is the epitome of legalism and the very thing Jesus denounced the Pharisees for doing!

That summer morning, as I was reeling from shock trying to figure out what to do next, I didn’t need to be told divorce was permissible for my situation.  I needed to be told God is the God of divorce just as He is the God of marriage.  I needed to be told, divorce is sometimes the best and most godly course of action.  I needed to be told God’s blessing in my life and the lives of my children was not dependent on my staying married to their mother.

Who can you encourage with a message of God’s blessing and faithfulness through divorce?

 

[Linked to Messy Marriage, Wild Flowers, Redeemed Life, Tell His Story ]

 

Guilty Stain

The Guilty Stain of the God-slayers
A poem by Joseph J. Pote
[republished from April, 2014, with minor revisions]

It began in the Garden of Eden,
With fruit from the forbidden tree.
Adam chose to disobey God,
Believing sin would set him free.

No longer desiring to hear God’s voice,
Nor willing to be God’s slave,
Adam conspired to usurp God’s throne,
To claim what his heart did crave.

Oh, the horrible guilt; the burden; the pain!
Paradise lost, and nothing to gain!

Rejecting the morals of his creator,
Seeking only to make himself greater,
By denying the Truth of God’s word,
Adam became a traitor.

Adam displaced God’s authority,
Though God’s Spirit dwelt in his heart.
He slew the best of man’s spirit,
Forcing God’s Spirit to depart.

Oh, the horrible guilt; the sin; the shame!
Emmanuel’s dead, and Adam’s to blame!

And so the killing continued.
Cain murdered his brother, Abel.
Fleeing his guilty conscience,
Cain treated God’s law as a fable.

Cain’s hands were covered with blood;
Abel’s blood cried out for vengeance.
Yet God showed Cain His mercy;
Though marked, Cain was not sentenced.

Oh, the horrible guilt; the sin; the shame!
Abel is dead, and Cain is to blame!

In Noah’s day, man’s wickedness spread.
Their hands were covered with blood.
Seeing how corrupt the world had become,
God slowed the infection by sending a flood.

One lie leads always to another;
One murder demands another’s death.
The stain of sin just keeps on spreading.
A contagious disease, it infects with a breath.

Oh, the horrible spread of that bloody stain!
We all are dead, and ourselves to blame!

The Israelites sacrificed blood
To pay for the guilt of their sin.
Seeing the stain on their bloody hands,
They confessed the lost state of men.

The sheep’s blood did not remove guilt,
But acted as promissory note.
A lamb’s blood cannot pay for sin,
Nor can the blood of a goat.

Oh, the horrible guilt; the sorrow; the pain!
Who can remove this awful stain?

God gave his word through the prophets,
But all of the prophets were slain.
Killing God’s prophet was easier, far,
Than facing the guilt and the pain.

God belongs on the throne of man’s heart,
But all have gone their own way.
We’ve all conspired to usurp God’s throne,
And now there is Hell to pay!

Oh, the horrible guilt; the sorrow; the pain!
All hope is lost; God’s spokesmen are slain!

Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
Oh, hear the angels sing!
Unto us a child is born;
A Savior, Christ, the King.

Jesus is the Word of God;
God, born in human flesh.
He gave sight to human hearts,
God’s truth conquers death.

Oh, the wonderful joy; the hope; the life!
God’s Son has come, to end all strife!

Jesus died a criminal’s death,
Nailed to Calvary’s tree.
The immortal slain by a murderer’s hand;
Now, who can set us free?

Men chose darkness rather than light,
Because of their wicked ways.
They hated God’s truth; it showed their sin.
Darkness conceals the stain.

Oh, the horrible guilt, despair, and shame!
God’s Son is dead, and we’re to blame!

Jesus died to pay for my guilt.
‘Twas my sin He bore on that tree.
He gave his life to pay off my debt.
He died so I could be free.

The nails which tore so cruel through his flesh
Were driven because of my pride.
My rebellion was the cause of his death.
My sin thrust the spear through his side.

Oh, the horrible guilt; the sin; the shame!
Christ Jesus has died, and I am to blame!

Jesus, save me from this horrible guilt!
Forgive the deeds I have done!
I’ve removed you from the throne of my heart;
I’ve murdered God’s only Son!

When I confess this most loathsome of sins,
I am cleansed from the guilt and the pain!
The very blood which should seal my fate
Removes all my guilty stain!

Oh, the wonderful joy in confessing the blame!
I’m free from my guilt, since I called on His name!

Adam tried to conceal his sin;
He said that Eve was to blame.
We must confess the sins of our heart,
If we want to be cleansed of the stain.

There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.

Oh, what a glorious irony!
Emmanuel’s death brought the guilty stain;
His blood brings the victory!

[Linked to Messy Marriage, Wild Flowers, Wellspring, Redeemed Life, Tell His Story ]

 

Condemned or Redeemed?

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This past week, I was reminded anew how arrogantly self-righteous and legalistic church leaders can be in dealing with situations of abuse. Persistent Widow, at A Cry for Justice, has been posting her story of escape from abuse and her … Continue reading

The Guilty Stain

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The Guilty Stain of the God-slayers A poem by Joseph J. Pote It began in the Garden of Eden, With fruit from the forbidden tree. Adam chose to disobey God, Believing sin would set him free. No longer desiring to … Continue reading

Divorce is Sin…Says Who?

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This is a repost (with minor editing) of my article previously posted on Crying Out for Justice on April 4, 2012. “Divorce is sin…  God hates divorce…”  Most of us have heard this mantra so many times, that we’ve come … Continue reading