A Study on Evil - What's Its Purpose and Why So Much? (Replay)

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September 5, 2007

 Happy Hump Day Everyone,

It is truly a great day to be alive.  I started feeling a little under the weather these past couple of days but I've already spoken to this thing and I'm coming out!  Besides my wife and I have a vacation to attend next week, so no room for sickness *LOL*.  I could call the slight sickness evil but then that would be me choosing to remain sick instead of speaking directly to it and doing something about it :-) .

We've made some good headway thus far.  We've:  1) defined evil,  2) found it's origins,  & 3) talked about defeating evil.  Today we are going to talk about what is the purpose and why is there so much of it.  I mean let's be real, everything has a purpose right?  Even if it isn't always for the good there is a purpose and this leads me to believe that there is a method to God's madness (He's not really mad, just some slang yall :-)).  "There is a difference between our knowing the purpose for evil and God having a purpose for it.  Even if we don't know God's purpose, He may still have a good reason for allowing evil in our lives"¹. 

Let's look at our good friend Job.  In Job 1:6-22, the Lord allowed Satan to test Job.  It was rather like a bet but God allowed Job to endure this suffering so that he might further call on the name of God.  In Jonah 1:17, it says, "But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights."  You might say that was just wrong, but you have to look at what happened.  The Lord had given Jonah orders to go preach, but he ran.  Well he was swallowed by the fish and allowed some time to think.  In the next chapter, Jonah 2, we see that Jonah prays to the Lord and eventually surrenders to the Lord's will.  Another example.  If you keep telling a child (like our child) to quit standing on the top of her toy box after a while you will have to stop talking.  One day she will eventually fall, but she will learn that she cannot stand and dance on the box any more.  It's the little ways God uses evil to stop us from allowing greater evil to consume us.

"But good gracious Antoine, what about all the other evil that seems to be running rampant?"  Well, to answer this question we have to look at the gift of free will that was given to us by God.  As human beings we have choices to make.  Unfortunately, not all of us make the choice to follow God and because of this some choose the path to hell.  You can bring a horse to water but you can't make him drink.  In other words, you can show people the right way, but ultimately they must choose that path.  So, to wonder why is there so much evil, you have to analyze the human race and not God. 

Before I go, I wanted to leave you guys with some scriptures about how not to choose to evil and how to follow God:

1. John 3:18
2. John 3:36
3. John 5:39-40
4. John 8:24
5. John 12:48
6. Luke 10:16
   

 Be blessed gang and have a good one.

¹ Geisler, Norman and Brooks, Ron. When Skeptics Ask. Copyright 1990.  pp. 65-------------- snip ---------------

Regards,

Antoine E. Hall

Blog:  http://toinebo.blogspot.com
Twitter:  http://www.twitter.com/AntoineHall

"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." - James 1:22