Brass Heavens
The Mystery of Silence
Copyright 2018 by Steve Phillips
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Brass Heavens
Deut.28:23
Three things are too wonderful for me,
yes, that remain mysteries until now:
The tolerance of the dragon by a sovereign Father,
Jesus’ choosing and abiding with Judas,
And the Holy Spirit’s presence in Babylon developing.
I have kept silent for a long time,
I have kept still and restrained Myself
Isa.42:14
Of whom were you worried and fearful when you lied,
And did not remember Me
Nor give Me a thought?
Was I not silent even for a long time
So you do not fear Me?
Isa.57:11
There they cry out, but He does not answer,
Because of the pride of evil men.
Surely God will not listen to an empty cry,
Nor will the Almighty regard it.
Job 35:12,13
Pray in this manner…Deliver us from evil
Mt.6:9,13
1
Evil Is A Problem
Famine ravages inhabitants of southern Ethiopia. Cries ascend to the skies ‘til exhausted tears flow no more. “Where is the God of heaven?” Affliction, privation, and starvation circle the suffering with ravenous intent. Innocent children faint in their mother’s skeletal arms, soon to expire.
Sobbing moans split the sweltering night’s thickness: “If there is really a God of love and power, why does He not fly to our rescue?” And the heavens glare down as if gleaming brass.
Many hearts are rent with such scenes, and rightfully so. What accounts for such distress and to what can we attribute the lack of response from heaven? We do not know. But when demands are made that God remedy even such “natural” disasters, much more is being solicited than appears on the surface of our seeming well meaning wishes.
Evil does not exist in a vacuum. Deep channels like underground rivers run unseen beneath desolate landscapes above. Wickedness is not something one can corner and capture in a carton to be disposed of tidily.
And before we swiftly condemn the idleness, insensitivity, or inability of heaven, several tributaries that empty their flow into this stream need to be considered in such aggrieved scenarios as described above.
Food is scarce because Muslim slave traders pillaged populations in times past, weakening their heritage by capturing the fittest and most capable among them leaving them decimated of their strongest and best. Orthodox Christian priests have impoverished the land by levies and enforced
contributions in order to erect lavish cathedrals and fund luxurious extravagance for their religion and their station therein.
Educators have disdained the local populace, considering them unworthy of expending efforts to instruct them in sustainable agricultural techniques and land use to stave off the encroachment of the Sahel. Government officials neglect the rural poor since they have nothing to contribute to the political process and only become a drain on federal funds with nothing benefitting them in return.
Neighboring tribes hoard food, wishing the afflicted to perish due to generations of animosity. The Ethiopians themselves engage in sacrificing their own children as offerings to the god of fertility in order to placate its wrath against their unfruitful land.
Charities are stretched with many other pressing needs and, because of embezzlement of donations, decisions must be made where to best allocate resources to insure continued contributions by foreign benefactors.
Foreign benefactors daily scrape into their garbage bins days of sustenance after they have indulged their overweight torsos, spending more on sweet desserts and unnecessary fare than is ever contributed to relieve such calamities.
Urban dwellers abroad briefly scan the news blurb about Ethiopia’s plight and pass on to their own affairs unconcerned and doing nothing to remedy the situation.
Now, let us ask ourselves again: Why doesn’t God do something to end the evil of this famine? What then would we like Him to do?
Where should He begin and how far do you wish Him to trace the tributaries so as to eradicate the evil? In such scenarios, these pointed words gain uncomfortable significance: “If You, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” [Ps.130:3].
That something is not right in the universe, all men instinctively sense. An innate barometer of propriety functions within every beating heart. That internal alarm signals against injustice, lies, sordid crimes, callousness, and cruelty.
An irrepressible longing for wrongs to be righted pulses in the human breast regardless of religious affiliation or lack of the same. Whether one acknowledges God or not, men are aware that evil is a global reality that ought to be righted.
Violence, treachery, theft, and sexual assault are witnessed in the animal kingdom. And though while much may be shocking to observe, men do not account beasts as morally blameworthy for such.
This is not so among their own kind, however. Translate these same deeds into humanity and there is awakened a sense of violated moral propriety.
The violence of the jackal is dubbed murder among humans. Treachery is prosecuted as fraud, theft is criminal, and should men engage in the aggression of the rooster against the hens, it is accounted reprehensible rape.
It is curious, is it not, that though the so-called natural realm mimics similar behavior, it is man alone that we consider to be culpable.
Men are instinctively aware that they are not beasts and that something is morally wrong in the universe despite protestations to the contrary; and deep within his consciousness is the urge to see evil rectified.
Witness the reactions among atheist, evolutionist, Hindu, Christian, and secular urbanite alike when someone barges in and cuts his way into the front of the line at the bank at 5:00 pm on a Friday. That universal sense of “That’s not right” immediately surfaces.
Some will voice it; all will think it. Men know there is evil.
Furthermore, there exists an innate awareness that such misdeeds are deserving of correction, if not punishment. We do not observe the impropriety of cutting into the bank line without moral judgment and appropriate consequences flashing through the mind, even if for a moment.
“Hey, get back to the end of the line and wait your turn” is the instant judgment. “We were here first” justifies the verdict. “Where’s the manager?” engages the judicial enforcing branch of consciousness. And this all happens in an instant.
Men want evil resolved. It is in our very nature. And this brings us to the crux of our dilemma.
2
Evil Is Not Original Equipment
Let us trace the source of the contributing rivulets that empty their pollution into the slough of evil. From whence spring sorrow and suffering, wickedness and wrong?
“God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good” [Gen.1:31] is how the Old Testament begins the chronicle of human affairs. “Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse” [Mal.4:6] is how that revelation concludes.
How do we account for this disparity? What then has gone awry?
Boil out everything from the kettle and the profoundly singular scum remaining is Pride.
It was the original downfall in unseen realms amidst once bright spirits, now darkened demons. Pride entwined its serpentine coils around the soul of our first father, Adam, though surrounded by Eden’s unsullied splendor.
Pride is that distorted confidence in self, an inflated sense of self-esteem. Pride is a delusional self-sufficient orientation that accounts itself as adequate to assess matters of life without recourse to God. The proud person consults with self preeminently; God is in none of his thoughts.
It is the opposite of sound judgment; it stems from thinking more highly of self than one ought to think. The terse summation is this: “As for the proud, his soul is not right within him” [Hab.2:4].
Pride warps everything within the inner man. Perception is dulled, values are clouded, understanding is darkened, aspirations are skewed, volition is weakened, and delights are perverted: all because of pride. And the consequences do not end here.
Pride issues in everything that Christ is not. The Lord Jesus emptied Himself, stooping to the level of the creature and assuming the lowliest station among them. Abject humility in performing the will of another characterized Christ.
This the proud soul repudiates with disdain. Pride is the embodiment of the antichrist spirit by insistence upon its autonomous will.
Pride leads to lawlessness which issues in violence. Pride’s self-assertiveness manifests itself in the ugliness of self-insistence. And that inflated autonomy spills over in unmitigated aggression.
When self is raised to the level of autonomy, we have lawlessness: the arrogant stiff resistance and rejection of any outside influence attempting to influence or govern the life.
The lawless soul is defiantly determined that nothing and no one besides self will direct it. Any who would curtail its insistence upon self-will must face rebuff and worse in order to pursue its chosen course. And pride is at the helm.
In Christ-like godliness, humility leads to submission issuing in peace. Pride leads to self-insistence issuing in conflict. The Beatitudes of Jesus are the antithesis of Lucifer’s ambitious revolt of self-ascendency recorded in Isaiah 14.
“Sin is lawlessness” [I Jn.3:4]. Lawlessness is not merely transgression, a violation of codes and commandments, rituals, and regulations. It is much more than that. It is the self-absorbed disposition that refuses any other contributing or controlling influence. Self is conceived to be sufficient in wisdom, ability, and purpose apart from all others, especially God.
Though the Majesty in the heavens is exalted upon a “great white throne from whose Presence earth and heaven flee away” [Rev.20:11], yet pride has so distorted our inner man that we do not quake at the thought. To the proud, both sin and God are viewed as inconsequential; pride has contorted our sensibilities to that extent.
But considered from the standpoint of the magnitude of boundless moral perfection inherent in the weight of God’s glorious being, lawlessness becomes a horrendous revolt of monstrous proportions bordering on insanity.
The manifold excellence of God’s limitless character radiantly manifest is the backdrop for the arrogant repudiation of all that is noble, right, wise, and good in preference for vacuous conceit. By lawlessness, creatures, dependent and lowly, assert their own contrary self-assessment and forge their own course thereby, even to resistance, hatred, and revolt.
And this is how it all began, shrouded in mystery as it is. Evil is more than a human phenomenon; it is a spiritual influence from unclean deceiving spirits of demonic power. And man has willingly acquiesced.
Its source cannot be sought for in externals: environment, privation, hardship, or lack of anything good; in the beginning, everything was perfect. Evil’s inception resulted not from outside influences, but from a subtle shift in perspective, an elevated assessment of self, a creeping conceit, an inflated aspiration that did not correspond with reality, an inordinate exaltation of creature worth beyond what was instilled by the Creator. And one flaw spoiled it all.
What is pride but a trembling drop of poison that pollutes the whole well?
Transport yourself back to that pristine epoch when as yet nothing sullied the complexion of the universe. In the splendorous abode of the God who is Light, and in company with myriads of bright felicitous spirits, there is a being of radiant brilliance in multi-hued magnificence.
Observe him, incomparable in wisdom, at home in the midst of the stones of fire in stainless perfection. Here is the pinnacle of angelic majesty, the anointed covering Cherub, freely traversing on the mountain of God in the midst of Edenic splendor [see Ezek.28:12-18].
Now, gaze within the machinations of his internal reflections. Imagine that ever so subtle shift from dependence and humble acknowledgment to regarding himself as something that he was not – self-sufficient. Aghast, view the stirring distortions of aggravated conceit, the ensuing darkness of perception, a dulling of those acute sensibilities; see the ascending agitated insistence on its invented twisting of reality.
Then witness further when independence awakens its sullen head, self-will smolders into ravaging flame, cords of restraint are cast aside, lawlessness usurps the throne, and feverish distorted perspectives grip his cognitive functions. Observe appalled as an armory is amassed, resistance arises, retaliation is determined, and rigid rejection of contrary voices are stoutly slain.
You have just had the curtain drawn back to unveil the origin and essence of all evil. All because of one shimmering drop of pride. Is it so small a matter after all?
By it Lucifer, the son of the dawn, the bright shining one, became the prince of darkness [See Isa.14:12-15]. His self-absorbed campaign of exaltation whose five-fold slogan was, “I will,” nevertheless thrust him down to the Pit. And the anointed Cherub who covers became the great red dragon who corrupts.
A full one third of angelic hosts were swept away in pride’s lawless revolt [see Rev.12:4]. Those flaming winds and ministering servants [see Heb.1:7,14], abandoned their proper abode to serve twisted destructive ends as darkened demonic denizens.
Introduce Leviathan, the one who “looks on everything that is high; he is king over all the sons of pride” [Job 41:1,34]. And then observe his end: “In that day the Lord will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, with His fierce and great and mighty sword, even Leviathan the twisted serpent; and He will kill the dragon who lives in the sea” [Isa.27:1].
Yes, Leviathan is “the great dragon, [who] was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world” [Rev.12:9]. And where does he dwell? In the midst of the sea:
“Woe to the multitude of many peoples who roar like the roaring of the seas, and the rumbling of nations who rush on like the rumbling of mighty waters!” [Isa.17:12]. “But the wicked are like the troubled sea, for it cannot rest, whose waters toss up refuse and dirt” [Isa.57:20]. “The waters which you saw where the harlot sits, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues” [Rev.17:15].
What is the realm of this twisted serpent’s domain? Over dark demons and deceived mankind. And how does he dominate those he governs? Through pride.
And in the train of that lawless revolt, man has succumbed with the same devastating results. “As for the proud, his soul is not right within him” [Hab.2:4]. Beware, “…lest being puffed up with pride, he fall into the same condemnation of the devil” [I Tim.3:6].
In Eden, the lawlessness of this usurper prince was perpetuated and a kingdom expanded. Through it, creation itself became corrupted, subject to vanity and groaning outrage [see Rom.8:19-22]. There in that once pristine garden, man opted for devilish delusion. And thus Satan’s insurgence invaded Edenic innocence, being invited knowingly and willingly by our first father [see I Tim.2:14].
The continuing involvement of this dragon king in the affairs of man is a consequence of Adam’s moral, spiritual, and intellectual lawlessness. By that choice, his moral nature was corrupted, his spirit gasped its last, decay set in within his body, and his understanding became obscured by darkness and delusion.
The legacy of that insurrection leaves his descendants with but two alternatives: heeding the wisdom from above or opting for that which proceeds from below; there exists no third option. When the heavenly, spiritual, and godly is spurned, nothing remains but the earthly, natural, and demonic [Jas.3:15].
Thus, Satan abides as the god and ruler of this world, and “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” [I Jn.5:19]. Indeed, all lawless breathing souls walk “according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience” [Eph.2:2].
And lest we object that we’ve been unjustly afflicted with Adam’s dereliction, let us reflect that in every respect he was superior to every soul proceeding thereafter – in his environment,
proximity to God, in intellectual capacity, moral excellence, and untainted faculties. And if the greater succumbed when thus, what then shall be the outcome of the inferior?
We affirm daily our loyalty to that initial waywardness. Allegiance with that departure is stamped in our every transgression in thought and deed. From that flawed prototype proceed marred and damaged replicas, and all with our hearty approval. Yet all the while in the delusion of pride, we protest that we are not “that bad” for perpetuating moral outrage against heaven.
Humanity is not victimized by Adam’s misdeeds. We have actually adjusted ourselves quite comfortably to this abnormal state of evil, preferring it to our original heritage of purity and light.
Pride is the spoiler of the inner man. Pride is the independent lawless perspective that accounts self as sufficient in wisdom, power, and resources and thus needing nothing. It is the antithesis of dependence. By it God is accounted as irrelevant and His truth as benighted opinion. It is devilish.
The arching brow and wry smile betray its presence. It is the first requisite for aligning with elite memberships. Pride dissuades the destitute from receiving charitable help.
The fashion and cosmetic industries are driven by its allurement. Disdain of differing opinions springs from its conceit. Insistence upon one’s own assessment and desire flows from this polluted fount.
The snapping sharp rebuff arises from its arrogance as does the smirking “whatever” of disdain. The sweeping off-handed comment, “People are so stupid,” drips with its ugly vaunted airs. The scorching flames of pressing one’s “rights” are fueled by self-assertion distilled from pride.
Tribal, regional, and national contempt of others are its children. “Selfies” blatantly plaster self-engrossed images on electronic billboards. Preference for the refined and exotic stem from this haughty self-occupied chamber.
Self-esteem is merely a euphemism to mask this hideous grip of conceit upon the soul. Pride’s lurking presence bursts out in offense at unflattering insinuations. Its dominance is betrayed in the swiftness at which decisions are made without recourse to God – “The wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God; God is in none of his thoughts” [Ps.10:4].
Through pride, self is exalted to the status of a god by elevating one’s own thoughts, outlook, and decisions as adequate substitutes for the revealed mind and will of God contained in His Word.
“Listen and give heed, and do not be haughty, for the Lord has spoken” [Jer.13:15]. But this, the children of pride do not do.
The just living by faith jettison confidence in self and put their whole trust and confidence in the God of heaven who has spoken truth in His unchanging Word. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” [Rom.10:17]. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths” [Prov.3:5,6].
But the arrogant rather trust in Self with all their heart and lean entirely on their own understanding; in none of their ways do they acknowledge Him; they direct their own paths.
There is no fear of God in pride, for self is accounted as a sufficient base for life and godliness. Pride does not hate evil but rather revels in the very things that God hates: “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; Pride, arrogance, the evil way, and the perverted mouth, I hate” [Prov.8:13].
“He does not regard any who are wise in heart” [Job 37:24]. “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble” [I Pet.5:5]. “He strikes them like the wicked in a public place, because they turned aside from following Him, and had no regard for any of His ways” [Job.34:26,27].
“Because of the multitude of oppressions they cry out; they cry for help because of the arm of the mighty. But no one says, ‘Where is God my Maker…?’ There they cry out, but He does not answer because of the pride of evil men. Surely God will not listen to an empty cry, nor will the Almighty regard it” [Job 35:9-13].
Man complains against the ways of God even though man rejects all of God’s attempts to arrest his wicked course, to humble his pride, and to redeem him from destruction. God speaks and man neglects, refuses, and revolts against it.
The Lord afflicts that man may seek relief and man becomes bitter and hardened. The Lord sends messengers to remind man what is right in order to restore righteousness and enlightenment to his eyes with the light of life, and man spurns. This is the message of Job 33:13-30.
“Why do you complain against Him that He does not give an account of all His doings? Indeed God speaks one way or another, yet no one notices it. In a dream, a vision of the night, when sound sleep falls on men, while they slumber in their beds, then He opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction, that He may turn man aside from his conduct, and keep man from pride; [emphasis added] He keeps back his soul from the Pit, and his life from passing over into Sheol” [v.13-18].
“Man is also chastened with pain on his bed, and with unceasing complaint in his bones; so that his life loathes bread, and his soul favorite food. His flesh wastes away from sight, and his bones which were not seen stick out. Yes, his soul draws near to the Pit, and his life to those who bring death” [v.19-22].
“If there is a messenger for him, a mediator, one among a thousand, to remind man what is right for him, then let him be gracious to him, and say, ‘Deliver him from going down to the Pit, I have found a ransom;’ Let his flesh become fresher than a youth, He shall return to the days of his youth.
“Then he will pray to God, and He will delight in him, that he may see His face with joy, for He restores to man His righteousness. Then he looks at men and says, ‘I have sinned, and perverted what was right, and it did not profit me.’ He will redeem his soul from going down to the Pit, and his life shall see the light” [v.23-28].
“Behold, God does all these things with men oftentimes, to bring back his soul from the Pit, that he may be enlightened with the light of life” [v.29,30].
Here is the summation: “…that He may turn man aside from his conduct, and keep man from pride; He keeps back his soul from the Pit” [Job 33:17,18]. Pride has so corrupted the inner man and his outward conduct, that certain destruction in the Pit awaits all who tread that path. And yet the alarming reality is that man prefers this rather than to forsake evil, all because of pride.
Why does God not eliminate evil throughout the globe? Because to do so He must eliminate pride. And should He do that, He must eliminate man altogether; for pride has so entered the collective soul of humanity as water has permeated every fiber of their being.
“Why do You stand afar off, O Lord? Why do You hide in times of trouble? The wicked in pride persecutes the poor; Let them be caught in the plots which they have devised. For the wicked boasts of his heart’s desire; he blesses the greedy and curses and spurns the Lord. The wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God; God is in none of his thoughts” [Ps.10:1-4].
Here is raised the profound query that has perplexed anguished souls over millennia; Why has God not intervened to alleviate suffering? Why does He not fly to our relief? Note well the reply, the true assessment of this seeming inactivity of heaven as highlighted in the preceding passage.
Man, through wicked devious scheming stemming from pride, spurns all of God’s attempts to turn him from the evil desires embraced in his bosom, the very evil he objects to that is permitted to abide in the world unchecked.
O how thorough the deception, benighted the perception, and recalcitrant the determination of man through the ravages of pride!
Pride leads to lawlessness. Lawlessness leads to self-assertion. Self-assertion leads to repudiation. Repudiation leads to violence. O how pervasive is the ruin of pride!
And why has evil not been remedied by the God of heaven over the ages? Because the earth would have become one vast wasteland of human carnage, heaps of corpses littering the then purged landscape.
And should the repulsive revolt of pride, arrogance, boasting, conceit, scoffing, smugness, haughtiness, self-esteem, contempt, vanity, egotism, loftiness, disdain, and snobbery not suffice to set one’s heart to trembling and bowing in humility, consider well the following; this is the true assessment and indictment of this pernicious plague.
“When pride comes, then comes shame; but with the humble is wisdom” [Prov.11:2]. “By pride comes nothing but strife” [Prov.13:10]. “In the mouth of a fool is a rod of pride” [Prov.14:3]. “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall” [Prov.16:18]. “A man’s pride will bring him low” [Prov.29:23].
“We have heard of the pride of Moab, he is very proud; of his arrogance, pride, and fury; his idle boasts are false” [Isa.16:6].
“…you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil” [James 4:16].
“The Lord of hosts has planned it [destruction], to defile the pride of all beauty, to bring into contempt all the honorable of the earth” [Isa. 23:9].
“I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem, this evil people, who refuse to hear My words, who follow the dictates of their hearts…But if you will not listen to it, my soul will weep in secret for your pride, and my eyes will bitterly weep and flow down with tears” [Jer.13:9,10,17].
“The arrogance of your heart has deceived you” [Ob.3].
“In that day…I will remove from your midst your proud, exulting ones, and you will never again be haughty on My holy mountain” [Zeph.3:11].
“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts…pride/arrogance, and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man” [Mk.7:21-23].
“…lest being puffed up with pride/conceit, he fall into the condemnation of the devil” [I Tim.3:6].
“For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world and its lust is passing away, but he who does the will of God abides forever” [I Jn.2:16,17].
“You rebuke the proud – the cursed – who wander from Your commandments” [Ps.119:21].
“The arrogant utterly deride me…have forged a lie against me…have dug pits for me, those who are not according to Your law” [Ps.119:51,69,85].
“Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scoffing of those who are at ease, with the contempt of the proud” [Ps.123:4].
“For the Lord is exalted, yet He regards the lowly, but the proud He knows from afar” [Ps.138:6].
“Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from violent men, who have purposed to make my steps stumble. The proud have hidden a snare for me, and cords” [Ps.140:4,5].
“For the day of the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything proud and lofty, upon everything lifted up, that it may be brought low…the pride of man shall be bowed down, and haughtiness of men shall be bowed down; and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day” [Isa.2:12,17].
“All the proud men said to Jeremiah, ‘You are telling a lie! The Lord our God has not sent you to say, “You are not to enter Egypt to reside there”’” [Jer.43:2].
“If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not consent to wholesome words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing…” [I Tim.6:3,4].
“All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble” [I Pet.5:5].
“Your heart has lifted you up to boast” [2 Chron.25:19].
“Rise up, O Judge of the earth and render punishment to the proud. How long shall the wicked, O Lord, how long shall the wicked exult? They pour forth words, they speak arrogantly; all the workers of iniquity boast in themselves” [Ps.94:2-4].
“You have spoken arrogantly against Me and have multiplied your words against Me; I have heard it” [Ezek.35:13].
“Where then is boasting? It is excluded” [Rom.3:27].
“God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should boast in His presence” [I Cor.1:27-29].
“Those that walk in pride He is able to humble” [Dan.4:37].
God is able to “look on everyone who is proud, and make him low: look on everyone who is proud, and humble him.” [Job 40:11,12].
God is doing something to remedy evil; He is patiently appealing to men to repent of pride, that polluted cesspool from which all evils have flowed. Apart from that, the only prospect is utter annihilation of every proud soul. If pride remains, evil abides.
3
Evil Is Worse Than Imagined
“But to the wicked God says, ‘What right do you have to tell of My statutes and to take My covenant in your mouth? For you hate correction, and you cast My words behind you. When you see a thief, you are pleased with him, and you associate with adulterers. You let your mouth loose in evil and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother, you slander your own mother’s son.
“These things you have done and I kept silence: you thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you and state the matter in order before your eyes. Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear in pieces, and there is no deliverer. Whoever offers praise glorifies Me; and to him who orders his way I will show the way of salvation’” [Ps.50:16-23].
Men, who themselves are evil, want God to intervene in calamity and to judge evil in the world. But a wholesale execution and eradication of evil is not what is desired; men wish this on a highly selective basis. It is not all evil that they wish to see eliminated lest they themselves be numbered in the cull; spare self but judge others is the bald and shameless request.
Men want bread, but not that of heaven, comfort but not conviction, remedies but not repentance. Benefits are sought but not the Benefactor. The convoluted desire is to have Eden restored in all its pristine splendor, all the while partaking of its forbidden fruit.
The illogical appeal is to have thorns and thistles removed while continuing in self-will and lawless revolt. Simply put, let there be no consequences for my misdeeds.
This raw and unflattering orientation may be stated thus: evil and calamity should be eliminated in the world while leaving me, the individual touting such, untouched in the process.
Thus stripped of its masquerade, exposed in all its hideousness are [1] the bile of man’s malice against the Most High for not complying with the demand and [2] the actual disregard for the welfare of his fellows whom he wishes to be purged and [3] the unmitigated lust to continue in revolt and lawlessness without consequence.
Through the darkened twisted concourse of our hearts’ deepest chambers, we instinctively both fear and despise judgment upon the evil sludge that oozes therein. “Judge others, yes! They are deserving; rid the world of malefactors’ scum. But don’t touch me.” Multiply this by countless billions of the world’s inhabitants demanding the same and you have the utterly abysmal self-occupation of men exposed in all its wretched hideousness.
Mercy and grace from God are not obligatory, justice is. “You are just in all that has come upon us; for You have dealt faithfully, but we have acted wickedly” [Neh.9:33]. And this is precisely what man refuses to acknowledge.
“When the earth experiences Your judgments, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. Though the wicked is shown favor, he does not learn righteousness; he deals unjustly in the land of uprightness, and does not perceive the majesty of the Lord” [Isa.26:9,10].
Judgment reduces man to the conscious status of a creature in his own eyes and leads to an acknowledgment of his weakness, helplessness, and guilt. Comfort, affluence, and favor flatter the heart of man into thinking that he is worthy of such amenities; his sin is masked and trivialized in his mind, while emboldening him to demand more favors based on his skewed sense of worthiness.
And it is precisely this complacent arrogance, luxury, careless ease, and self-occupation that leads to moral perversity of the most abhorrent nature. So perverse is the heart of man, that a life full of “grace” in the form of affluence and leisure does nothing to lead him to God, but only entrenches him further in pride and self-indulgence.
“Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy. Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them as you have seen” [Ezek.16:49,50].
Reflect further on the true assessment of the heart of man as catalogued in Prov.1:23-32. It is well that we unhurriedly consider these sobering words.
“Turn at My rebuke; Surely I will pour out My Spirit upon you; I will make My Words known to you. Because I called and you refused, I stretched out My hand and no one paid attention; and you disdained all My counsel and did not want My reproof,
“I will also laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your terror comes, when your dread comes like a storm, and your destruction comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you.
“Then they will call upon Me, but I will not answer; They will seek Me diligently but they will not find Me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, they would have none of My counsel and despised My every reproof.
“Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way and be filled to the full with their own devices. For the waywardness of the simple will kill them; and the complacency of fools will destroy them; But whoever listens to Me will dwell safely, and will be secure, without fear of evil.”
Here the true condition of man is set forth and the consequent judgment of heaven. Despite all Divine overtures, man is recalcitrant in his self-chosen path of stubborn lawlessness.
The Wisdom of God called, but they refused. That hand was stretched out, yet no one regarded. They disdained hearing any rebuke. Therefore, when difficulty and calamity come, God will laugh in mockery at their terror, destruction, distress, and anguish.
They will then call upon Him, but He will not answer. They will seek relief to no avail. Why? Because they hated knowledge, did not choose to fear the Lord, would have nothing of God’s counsel, and despised His every rebuke. Thus they will eat of the fruit of their own ways and be filled with their own notions and self-conceived ways.
Reflect on this unvarnished exposure of heart of man; he hates wisdom, despises God, is belligerent in refusal of counsel, and is willfully determined to proceed in his own self-chosen lawless path. Only when the inevitable results of this scornful rejection envelope him does he call upon the Lord.
But even then he is merely begging that the discomfort be removed, that the thorns he had sown not now pierce his hand. He loves pride, lawlessness, and revolt, but not their consequences.
And thus it is that God turns a deaf ear to those who disdained to listen to His Word. “‘And just as He called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen,’ says the Lord of hosts” [Zech.7:13].
Proverbs 11 further catalogs the fearful prospect of all such who neglect and/or refuse to hear Him who speaks from heaven and adjust their lives accordingly. Here is the true indictment.
“The crookedness of the unfaithful will destroy them” [v.3]. “The wicked will fall by his own wickedness” [v.5]. “The unfaithful will be caught by their own lust” [v.6]. “Trouble comes to the wicked” [v.8].
“He who pursues evil pursues it to his own death” [v.19]. “The perverse in heart are an abomination to the Lord” [v.20]. “The expectation of the wicked is wrath” [v.23]. “He who seeks evil, evil will come to him” [v.27].
Calamity, distress, affliction, trouble, and privation are not only justified in view of the horrific breach stemming from proud lawless revolt, but are also a merciful intervention to arrest man’s maddened spiraling descent into everlasting ruin.
Ungrateful and perverted hearts being delivered over to self-chosen ways by God is remedial in its prospect. The design is so that bondage might be felt in the present in order to deliver from that greater and enduring wrath of unending bitterness and corruption everlastingly [Rom.1:18-32]. The parallel of disciplining children through pain in the immediate is to lead to escaping unending pain hereafter [Prov.23:13,14; Heb.12:11].
Men assess misdeeds and evil on a sliding relative scale of comparison against those of greater moral crimes. It is thus that men may salve their troubled conscience and even congratulate themselves that they are alright after all.
But God does not share that assessment as evidenced by Jesus’ confrontation of this deceived notion: “‘Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners/debtors/culprits than all other Galileans, because they suffered these things? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you all will likewise perish’” [Lk.13:1-5].
And it extends deeper still. Listen to Jesus’ indictment: “If you, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts…” [Mt.7:11]. Here are men who are in fact evil described as doing something good. Men who do good are actually evil according to the pronouncement of the God who knows.
Our relative comparison of reprehensible behavior and attitude on our scale of acceptability will always approve of what God condemns. The ones we account good, Jesus declares to be evil though they perform outwardly admirable deeds.
This is a devastating verdict against the deluded and darkened understanding of men who do not see themselves or others as they are indeed. “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like filthy rags” [Isa.64:6].
Reflect further upon the true condition of man: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They have corrupted themselves, they have done abominable works: there is none that does good.
“The Lord looked down from the heavens upon the children of men, to see if there were any that understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside, they are together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one” [Ps.14:1-3].
“The expression of their faces bears witness against them, and they display their sin like Sodom; they do not even conceal it. Woe to them! For they have brought evil on themselves.
“Say to the righteous that it will go well with them, for they will eat the fruit of their actions. Woe to the wicked! It will go badly with them, for what he deserves will be done to him” [Isa.3:9-11].
“‘Your own wickedness will correct you, and your apostasies will reprove you; know therefore and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God, and the dread of Me is not in you,’ declares the Lord God of hosts” [Jer.2:19].
“‘He who sins against Me injures himself; all those who hate Me love death’” [Prov.8:36].
“Wash your heart from evil, O Jerusalem, that you may be saved. How long will your wicked thoughts lodge within you? Your ways and your deeds have brought these things to you, this is your evil. How bitter! How it has touched your heart!” [Jer.4:14,18].
“‘Righteous are You, who are and who were, O Holy One, because You judged these things; for they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and You have given them blood to drink. They deserve it/are worthy’” [Rev.16:5,6].
“Fools, because of their rebellious way, and because of their iniquities, were afflicted” [Ps.107:17].
“‘O Lord, are not Your eyes on the truth? You have smitten them, but they have not grieved; You have consumed them, but they refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to repent’” [Jer.5:3].
Love acts to influence towards the good, the right, and the true. Power acts to persuade from plunging into everlasting ruin. Though Almighty, God’s love and power both have their limits of effectiveness due to the constitution and nature of man as created by God. Love and power reach their threshold when encountering the individual will of each person, and that door will not be breached or battered down without invitation to enter.
A soul that refuses love’s overtures and power’s exertions, will not be subjugated by overwhelming might or ravished by irresistible affection. God will not “rape” the soul to express His love.
Neither will He “kidnap” a man to rescue him from perdition. In both cases, willing compliance and welcome of Divine advances must be present in a soul before God will deliver.
Evil results from man’s choice, and God in mercy attempts to awaken the soul from its complicit participation in that disaster. Calamity is designed to arrest the deceived rebellious soul from its complacency while a pending greater doom looms threateningly on the horizon. Pain, disaster, and privation serve as clarion monitors sounding their alarm to conditions requiring remedy.
But even though their peals of warning go unheeded, the sobering and grim truth remains that those who perish in famine, catastrophe, plague, and war are receiving what is their just due because of the horrific nature of sin.
This, few believe. And fewer yet will account the following as true.
None are innocent, not even children. “The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies” [Ps.58:3]. The Lord has this indictment: “Well do I know how treacherous you are; you were called a rebel from the womb” [Isa.48:8].
All are deserving of judgment. “Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, And he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord” [2 Chron.36:8]. “The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women make cakes for the queen of heaven…behold, My anger and My wrath will be poured out on this place” [Jer.7:18,20].
These are uncomfortable realities to process. We actually revolt at these ideas. They disturb us significantly as they fly in the face of all that we have presumed of human nature.
A certain queasiness churns within our inward parts at the thought, not so much due to concern for the “innocents,” but because, if they are defiled and blameworthy, then how much more detestable and corrupt am I, who have drunk “iniquity like water” [Job 15:16] since my earliest days!
Nonetheless, this is the true assessment and incontrovertible verdict of the human condition. “But why doesn’t God do something about it,” shouts our panicked consciences.
What then would you like Him to do?
There is no injustice or impropriety in not violating the sanctity of human volition to ward off evil; it actually would be a crime to do so. A man who is forced against his will to love a God he disdains and submit to a sovereign he rejects, will only hate Him all the more.
Nothing good will come of it. It would only compound the evils already existing. And God would become a lustful tyrant captor, and that individual a violated bitter seething lackey.
What then would you like Him to do?
4
God: Unconcerned or Impotent?
The difficulty in grasping the seeming silence of God in the face of obvious evil revolves around two fundamental misconceptions: [1] with respect to the nature of God and [2] concerning the nature and state of man.
Only if God is transcendent, that is, as existing prior to and exalted above His universe and possessing being apart from it, do we have anything to discuss about His intervening or not interfering in events and circumstances affecting men. And only if He possesses certain attributes and abilities can He be culpable or exonerated by doing so. The God of the Bible is the only One that fits these criteria, and for the following considerations.
If God, if that designation is deemed fitting to use at all, is an abstract force, an impersonal influence, a principle or “spirit” animating all that is noble, good, true, and beautiful within the human consciousness, then we cannot object to “him” acting or not acting in the affairs of men; for “he” is an “it,” having no distinct personal existence apart from the natural order.
As such, if we are so inclined, we can be stirred in our sentiments to admire or even praise the agreeable and inspiring character qualities infused within the natural realm of which man partakes. But they leave us unaccountable to emulate such, because there is neither an external standard that is binding nor anyone to be accountable to outside the natural realm. Let’s just call that arbitrary admiration, but those qualities cannot properly be contrived into an ethically guiding formulary.
These traits that are deemed so desirable or praiseworthy are merely aspects of a larger naturalistic system. Likewise, so are the disagreeable or reprehensible characteristics we deplore.
But all that is observable in such a scheme are accounted for by natural phenomenon, man being a part of that system, and “God” is neither responsible for their presence nor absence. They simply “are:” natural conditions divested of any ultimate moral approbation or blameworthiness, forces as part and parcel of human existence.
Consequently, they fall into the same category as other phenomena, energies, and influences. There exists no “ought” with respect to gravity, propulsion, electricity, or geothermal activity; they are simply forces operative within the natural sphere that affect man or are harnessed by him for his own ends. Some of these forces exert a power that if mishandled may be detrimental or even lethal to humans, thus eliciting a degree of respect and even fear.
But they are not served. They make no demands upon human behavior. Liars and thieves equally can interact with these forces as well as saints.
And if we conceptualize “God” as such a force that permeates nature having no separate and distinguishable existence, then we have really said nothing intelligibly distinctive about him/it. Furthermore, if we are clever enough, we might even be able to tap into this “god-force” and channel it to our own ends much as men have harnessed the properties of lightening into electricity and combustion into motorcars.
Thus, should we conceive of that “god” as simply an impulse to higher aspirations, a universal consciousness, or a “force” to be manipulated, then man himself is that “god” since he is the only morally accountable being that can be ascertained within nature. In such a system, nature is all that exists: with no god, spirits, or forces existing outside that realm to interact with it. And nature, so contrived, is reduced to a self-sustained and closed system of cause and effect void of intervention from without, for there is nothing outside that dimension to influence it.
If that be the case, the blame then for all evils squarely falls upon man since he alone possesses this capacity for the noble, good, true, and beautiful as well as their counterparts of malevolence, malice, and mayhem.
Pigs and boulders are not responsible for embezzlement, terrorism, and fraud. Neither do they create art, establish charities, nor attend to sick and suffering.
Further, if this naturalistic scheme is actual, then there can be no rational objection to the existence of “evil” in the universe; “evil” is only a perception by man of natural forces that have no moral properties attached to them. Man may dislike aspects of what he observes, but he does so groundlessly on the basis of their propriety or impropriety.
One cannot object to nature on moral grounds; nature, so conceived, is amoral. Nature is neither right nor wrong, good or evil, wise or unwise, loving or hateful; it simply “is.” Within nature is discovered both beauty and repulsiveness, pleasantness and repugnance, tranquility and chaos, tenderness and violence, fidelity and treachery.
But to prefer one above the other in this rubric, is nothing more than arbitrary sentiment prompted by creature comfort and self-preservation; nature cannot establish moral “oughtness,” for none exists. Nature does not present itself with an attendant code or internal compulsion dictating conduct; neither can a universal standard be discerned within its conflicting arena.
The transcendent God alone provides an unchanging referent for moral behavior. Only if an absolute standard exists, can we coherently discuss the issue of what constitutes evil or what obtains as good.
Apart from that, all discussion of good or evil becomes arbitrary, irrelevant, and absurd. If there is no God, we have no final way of knowing what is in fact good, or any explanation of the moral “oughtness” present within human awareness.
I am a carpenter. One of the most utilized tools in my belt is a measuring tape. All whom I labor alongside also carry one. Everything is constructed according to that standard, despite how the individual workman feels at the moment, regardless of what his opinions are, or whether the work commences today, next month, or was completed seventeen years ago.
The tape measure judges everything in the building. Differing workers can utilize that as a reference point to assess anything he or any others have done in the process.
It is not arbitrary. It doesn’t alter its fixed standard or “stretch” to accommodate a misread report or botched craftsmanship.
There are not an array of tape measures to select from according to how various individuals construe “one foot” to be. The dimensions are all represented identically because there is an unchanging referent for what “one foot” actually is. Otherwise, chaos would ensue, buildings collapse, and disaster result.
But that such an absolute standard in the moral realm exists, modern man rejects. In the philosophic flow stemming from the latter 1800’s, one that has pervasively gripped the consciousness of Western culture, truth died when God died; the reference point vanished.
All that was left was to uncomfortably adjust to the loss of ultimate value by accommodating itself to pursuits that may extend even a glimmer of hope in the bleakness of an existence with no cogent way of defending the options. The angst of meaninglessness ensuing in the aftermath has been augmented by pleasure, vocation, family, education, humanitarianism, and a myriad of other stopgap measures. But all prove to be vain attempts to stave off the tsunami of despairing irrelevancy threatening to engulf the soul and consciousness of cultures.
“What is truth?” echoes disquietingly in the chambers of every hollow soul. This now infamous inquiry first dripped through the jaded lips of a self-serving opportunist, the then politically correct ruler who authorized the slaying of the Son of God.
It was not a sincere query. Rather it expressed the bleak and even scoffing abandonment of ever realizing a cohesive, comprehensive, and unifying reality about existence.
Apart from the absolute standard of the transcendent God, we are left with but two insufficient shabby bases for establishing truth claims: options immortalized by Mr. and Mrs. Pilate.
The husband of this duo considered truth to be a relative expedient, a situational accommodation motivated by self-assessment and self-interest. Though he openly confessed thrice that he found no guilt in Christ and even sought to release Him [Jn.18:38; 19:4,6,12], he nevertheless delivered Him over to be crucified when accused by the mob of being no friend of Caesar’s [Jn.19:12-16].
Mrs. Pilate considered truth to be an internal subjective encounter motivated by self-assessment and self-interest. Her basis of appeal for her husband to not have a hand in the demise of Christ was this: “I suffered greatly in a dream because of Him” [Mt.27:19].
He evaluated action based on a fluid situational ethic assessed by a self-serving mind: a pragmatic relativism. She evaluated action by an internal subjective encounter/experience assessed by a self-serving mind: an existential empiricism.
In neither case was there considered to be an absolute reference point that judged moral decisions. The tape measure had been discarded.
Even if one appeals to the longevity of religious tradition as an adequate basis to determine truth, this does not improve the situation; that is merely old error. The basis upon which tradition developed can be traced to one or both of these tottering reeds; neither can support any who lean upon them.
Absolute truth exists and can be communicated propositionally and rightly de-coded by minds of differing perspectives. This is the incontrovertible thesis of this discussion. All attempts to disprove this are self-contradicting and gratuitous.
For, if one attempts to deny this by asserting, for example, that truth is relative, one becomes embroiled in hopeless contradiction. The statement: Truth is relative, is itself an absolute truth claim. If true, then there exists at least one absolute truth that is undeniable. But if false, its original proposition is proved false by denying the very thing it attempted to establish.
The same pertains to the claim that truth is unknowable. If that is so, then the very statement used to express this “truth” is also unknowable and nothing coherent has been stated.
The same self-defeating problem occurs when declaring that “truth does not exist,” or “truth depends on one’s perspective.” If the former statement is true, then truth does exist which denies the very thing it is attempting to prove. If the latter is true, then there exists at least this claim that is not dependent upon differing perspectives; it is an established absolute, thus disproving its assertion.
Should it be asserted that truth is developmental/evolving, it fails on this same ground. It cannot be evolving if this one statement is comprehensively true.
Further, to aver that words cannot adequately convey truth devolves into nonsense since words that are purportedly conveying this “truth” are being employed; and that claim is a universal absolute, the very proposition that is being denied.
Experience/empiricism equally cannot be an adequate basis upon which to base public truth claims. Experience is not axiomatic; internal subjective encounters are not self-justifying. For as soon as one attempts to express those to others, words must be utilized, words that may or may not reflect the reality attempting to be described.
And words form propositions that are adjudicated as to truth value, not on experiential empirical grounds, but by rational and logical criteria. Experience is simply not self-validating and can never be the basis of establishing truth in the public arena.
The best one can say is: I had an experience. But the experience itself can never be transferred vicariously or absorbed by osmosis. It remains a personal private empirical phenomenon: internal, subjective, and incommunicable without utilizing words to do so.
Do not be mistaken and let no one deceive you; God is not part of the natural order of things, neither is nature all that exists. Absolute truth exists and can be conveyed and de-coded by minds of differing perspectives. To deny this is a self-contradicting impossibility.
There is a transcendent God, the God of the Bible, and His Word is our absolute moral referent. Apart from Him, we cannot even intelligibly discuss the existence and nature of moral truth, of good and evil itself.
“Yeah, whatever, I still think all things are relative; there’s no way there’s absolute truth!”
“But aren’t those statements exceptions to your claim? They sound pretty absolute to me.”
“Huh? O I get it, you’re trying to trip me up. Ok, so maybe there’s one or two things that might be absolute. But you gotta admit truth evolves. There can’t be just one standard!”
“If it’s true that truth evolves, then isn’t that a statement about truth that doesn’t change? But if it does change, then you’ve not actually said anything meaningful about truth since that is a changeable claim you’re making. It might seem to make sense today, but maybe not tomorrow; who knows? Ya feelin me, bro?”
“Whatever, dude. All I know is that evolution proves that everything is changing and that’s what I believe.”
“So if everything is changing and man is evolving, how do you even know if your mind is working in the right way? Maybe it hasn’t evolved far enough to even be able to think correctly!”
“You know, you’re really weird, man. Look, here’s what’s up; there’s a lot of evil in the world, and God isn’t doing anything about it. So that’s why I don’t believe in religion.”
“But you just said that truth changes and there’s no absolute standard. So how do you even know that there’s evil if you don’t know without a doubt what is unchangeably good? If that standard is always evolving, then what you think is evil today may be good tomorrow.
“Listen, man, if there isn’t an unchanging God who is good, then you can’t even discuss the existence of evil since there’s no way then to tell us what that is. You can’t blame God for not getting rid of something you can’t even define with any certainty.”
“You know, dude, I’m outta here; this is just too freaky. Catch you later.”
Yet even if we abstractly concede the existence of a transcendent God, but imagine Him as uninvolved in the world, we have conceived of a being either of absenteeism, malice, or indifference: in any case, one that could not in any sense command devotion or elicit adoration.
This is not even One who provides any sensible referent for establishing good since He is distant and uninvolved in His creation. Such may approximate a description of a devil, but not of God.
If God is absent, it renders Him culpable on several accounts. He could then be justly accused of being slovenly, not completing His purposes and tasks. It would account Him as irresponsibly unconcerned for the sustenance and well-being of His creatures.
Such a being is either self-absorbed, cowardly, or both; worse yet, it unmasks a being of malice who either sadistically revels in the misery of millions or is simply disinterested in their welfare.
If we conceive of God as amoral or ambivalent respecting justice and benevolence, we have imagined a monstrosity who accounts brutality and kindness as synonymous – an evolutionary creature void of any moral referent: a force, influence, or tool in the hand of its wielder, having no distinct consciousness or existence.
.
Do not be mistaken and let no one deceive you; Despite seeming appearances, He neither is absent, malicious, nor indifferent. He is love, the God of the Bible. The true and living God does good, sends rain, and feeds His world with great longsuffering.
Perhaps then, some may imagine that God is simply lacking in power. But such a being cannot be relied upon as he is impotent to assist. This is a being who is then subservient to nature, nature having the greater influence and power that such a god is incapable of overcoming or altering.
Volcanoes and tsunamis triumph. Drought and famine have the upper hand. Plagues and microorganisms are mightier than His feebleness. And if that is the case, then we cannot rightly accuse Him for not ridding the world of evil; He is incapable of doing so, and we cannot justly blame someone for not doing what he intrinsically is incapable of.
No, make no mistake; God is both good and able. He loves, is concerned and has unlimited power to resolve the problem of evil.
Secondly, in the resolution and eradication of evil, we must take into account the nature of man. And the phenomenon of man’s constitution must be considered from two standpoints, [1] from the examination of man as a volitional being as created in the image and likeness of God and [2] as a creature who has exercised that will in opting for lawless revolt.
Intricately woven into the internal fabric of each individual are various aspects and capacities, interwoven threads of [1] Awareness – both resulting from sensual input and cognitive reflection, [2] Disposition – comprised of one’s orientation to both the physical and sentient parts of being, [3] Personality – the unique signature of the composite inner man, [4] Attitude – the fluctuating outlook towards what is known, felt, and experienced,
[5] Aspiration – longings after significant desires, [6] Determination – that settled resolve to abide by convictions and aspirations, [7] Cognition – the capacity to process ideas and information via the abilities of assimilation, analysis, synthesis, canons of rationality and logic, recall, and the relevance determiner of priority assessment, [8] Presuppositions – the multi-faceted filter thru which all reality is processed,
[9] Conscience – the internal component that testifies to conduct by knowledge of a standard, [10] Emotion – a spectrum of feelings accompanying either internal or external stimuli, and [11] Volition – the captain at the helm, the decision making faculty that sets action into motion.
Within the complexity of the human constitution, volition reigns as the executor of all that transpires therein. Apart from decision, all remains dormant and not actualized. Choices are made as the engaging mechanism of the soul’s potential.
And in order to grasp the significance of this arbiter of human experience, let us first reflect on the characteristics of human will in its capacities.
There are only a certain range of possibilities within the exercise of human will, and that range of options is full within the spectrum of actuality.
In the very nature of the case, a decision in the present cannot alter those made in the past. Equally a choice now cannot be substituted in a future situation. Moral choice is a matter for the moment and each succeeding moment thereafter in the present.
Volition is not capable of choosing logical or ontological impossibilities. I am not free to choose a square circle or a fourth primary color. Such are, by definition, impossibilities. Neither may I choose to not have existed at all, or to become a pine tree. In the very nature of the case, these are not options consistent with the reality of being.
I can, however, choose to believe, abide by, and express my will within the spectrum of moral possibility. A potential of choosing love, implies the option of the polarity of hate: righteousness or its opposite of corruption, truth and its adversary, error.
Neutrality within the moral spectrum, however, is not an option. Man as a being with moral agency and capacity, cannot exist as void of those qualities somewhere on that moral scale.
Man is not free to refrain from choosing. That is an impossibility due to the very nature of human will within the realm of being and morality.
There exists, as well, an inherent exclusivity within the exercise of volition. A choice to believe truth necessitates a corresponding disbelief of error. If I opt for love, hatred has been rejected by that very fact. An alignment with purity is accompanied by the shunning of corruption.
[1] Man must choose. Man is not only capable of choice, he cannot escape the necessity of it. The internal engine of volition cannot be shut down; it operates without interruption within the
consciousness of every man. And it is exercised thousands of times daily whether consciously and deliberately or instinctively engaged. But man unabatedly chooses.
[2] Choice is sacred. By that, it is meant that infringement against its decisions is an impropriety, a violation of sanctity. To ravage without consent or persuade by violent threats are intuitively abhorrent. Even apart from the biblical declarations, rape, theft, and kidnaping are crimes by instinctive common consensus.
In each of these actions, the sanctity of ownership is universally acknowledged and guarded. Without the constituent elements of compliance, welcome, and voluntary agreement from the owner, all these activities become repugnant and an illegitimate infringement of one human will upon another.
As such, a relative sovereignty is innate in the very nature of volition itself, which, if violated, defiles and compromises the essence of choice. To force a moral decision in another becomes a crime in and of itself, even if the outcome is inherently good, noble, or correct.
With respect to the presence of evil in the world, the reality is that man has opted for evil and God does not infringe upon those decisions by overwhelming the soul to comply by enticement, deception, or might. God, though powerful, does not force love, obedience, righteousness, or honesty.
Neither is choice in humanity pre-programmed. It could not be and still retain any semblance of the nature of choice.
Consequently, love, for example, becomes an impossibility should that be either automatic or coerced. If it is attempted to “force” love, it would lose its very essence and thus cease to exist, its core elements of the spontaneity of free delight and devotion would be destroyed; it would no longer be love because the sanctity of volition had been tainted, violated, and removed.
What remains would be a facade, a hollow shell of disingenuous pretense. Sincerity perishes through force and sanction. Furthermore, love disappears altogether if it is an automatic conditioned reaction, a mechanistic programed function, much as pushing a switch on a child’s talking doll.
The same holds true for happiness/enjoyment, honesty, and uprightness. Subjugate these by enforced compliance and their essence is destroyed in the process. An honesty that does not spring from one’s own inner conviction and expression, actually is a form of hypocritical dishonesty. The willing compliance of choice cannot be coerced and yet retain its integrity; this is what is meant by the sanctity of the will.
Furthermore, the individual personality disappears when volition is tampered with. Unique to the internal composition of each individual are a myriad of component elements, blended in an inimitable manner.
Tamper with, violate, intimidate, or sanction the full and free decision and expression of those traits, and the essence of that constituent personality is marred, caged, or manipulated: at times beyond recognition.
The sanctity of human will is no small matter.
[3] Choices result in consequences. Should the exercise of choice not be attended with corresponding outcomes, then the morality of goodness, truth, and justice devolve into irrelevancy, arbitrariness, absurdity, and even wickedness. For, if I choose the evil and good results, then the impetus to select the good has lost all incentive and even ultimate significance, thus becoming irrelevant.
For if evil issues in good, then evil has become a “sanctified” means to attaining good, and good has become corrupted in the process; Both have disappeared, becoming indistinguishable options, thus rendering moral choice as arbitrary since the result may be the opposite of what was chosen.
Crime with impunity is its own evil. Righteousness issuing in wickedness is injustice. Evil producing good destroys both.
If there is no consonant connection between moral choices and their outcomes, then moral decisions become inconsequential. If that is the result, then all moral referent has disappeared in the irrelevancy of selecting one course of action over another.
And if the moral referent is absent due to arbitrariness, then all moral choice becomes absurd since there is no way to distinguish one from the other, or whether there will result corresponding outcomes for choosing either good or evil; in this construct, good and evil are indistinguishable.
Yet we know instinctively that this is not the case. Man is innately aware that evil exists, that corresponding consequences ought to inevitably flow from moral choice, and that rectifying moral failure is expected in order to maintain justice.
This we know. So why doesn’t God do something about it?
Because humanity has chosen evil willingly, and neither the sanctity of human choice itself nor its resultant consequences can be abrogated or violated. The very fabric of human nature as designed and created by God would be shredded into unrecognizable shards should moral decision be overridden without consent.
Boil everything out of the pot and what remains is this: Am I willing for God to remove evil and its consequences from my own life? That is the question.
5
Silence And The Inside Out Solution
Evil did not originate in a slum. In pristine idyllic settings the noxious nightshade of wickedness took root and sprung up within the human heart. Evil originated in Paradise.
Silence reigned in Eden as all heaven watched the serpent entice and deceive the woman. Every holy being from that august vantage gazed down without intervention as the man took from her hand and followed suit in conscious lawless revolt.
Why did the God of love with power sufficient to create heavens and earth withdraw quietly and simply observe as moral and spiritual catastrophe ensued upon earth? This indeed formulates one of the ultimate questions presented to any reflective mind.
Thorns and thistles abide as painful reminders of anomalies in nature as consequence of moral and spiritual revolt. Sweating brows testify to loss of Eden’s plenty, once free for the plucking in the cool of the day.
Trees sighing in the breeze breathe out doleful choruses. Banana leaves groan raspy protests against buffeting winds. Splitting earth, trembling and hurling quaking stones, reels under the weight of abnormalities. And the heavens themselves darken and bellow, weeping in the storm.
Then, sickness reinforces mortality whose sentence of impending death hangs as a smoky pall over wayward souls. Wild beasts fearfully roar the disruption of harmony in an originally good creation.
Clothing, however finely tailored, merely masks the shame of moral departure and its accompanying guilt and corruption. Sorrowing pangs of laborious birth, shrieks the agony of begetting sinful progeny. These are all poignant reminders of matters gone tragically awry.
Following the defilement of Eden and man’s banishment from there, all of these serve to awaken the sensibilities that things are not as they ought to be. They arouse an awareness of needing to seek remedies outside the realm of the natural and outside of the external.
Pain is a blessed emissary announcing the discomfort of matters that are amiss. It shouts its warning to remedy the cause.
A wound needs attention lest it fester with infection, lest the infection develop into blood poison, lest the blood poison progress to gangrene, lest the gangrene lead to death. Pain is the early alarm system to take measures in the present to avoid further greater and even irreversible disaster in the future.
Pain, calamity, privation, and sickness are all designed to awaken dulled, calloused, and distracted souls unto repentance and obedience [Lev.26; Deut.28]. These heralds interrupt the routine of life to announce their startling message that something is wrong.
Sorrow, suffering, and calamity are couriers bearing a solemn message of unending woe for all who continue in lawless ways. These uncomfortable and unwelcome heralds are designed to awaken calloused sensitivities. They serve to proclaim that things are not right throughout the world and in the souls of its inhabitants.
They painfully warn against approaching ceaseless disaster. These outward messengers serve to awaken hardened hearts, to humble stubborn wills, to illuminate the gross darkness of blinded understanding.
The God of mercy has built into the human body properties that alleviate sickness, wounds, and many abnormalities. The cut will heal, the cough will cease. But not all maladies are healed, either naturally or supernaturally.
There is no remedy for the decline of the aged. Death has no cure. No pill will avail to bypass the grave.
There is but one solution to internal malady: “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?’” [Jn.11:25,26]: Live even if he dies, and never die if he believes.
This is a remedy transcending the temporal. It affects everlasting destinies of every person so oriented. Yes, there will be death of the body and suffering in this life. But this solution surpasses the demand for immediate succor and secures relief unendingly. God does do something to end suffering and evil. His solution is the cross of Christ.
God stripped Himself of majestic splendor in humility to take on humanity’s flesh. The everlasting Word who Himself is God [Jn.1:1] “became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the Unique One of the Father, full of grace and truth” [Jn.1:14].
God entered humanity, not as a regent, but as a servant. And as such, “In all our afflictions, He was afflicted” [Isa.63:9]. God tasted our common lot of sorrow and suffering. He is not distant and unconcerned. He has not left us to wallow in misery without flying to our relief.
Jesus, the living God, “was tempted in all forms as we are, yet without sin” [Heb.4:15]. He has abundant mercy, kindness, and goodness to alleviate any and all who draw near unto Him in time of need [Heb.4:16]. He has been made like unto us in all things that He might be faithful and merciful to all who willingly avail themselves of His goodness [Heb.2:17].
“Since He Himself was tempted in what He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted” [Heb.2:18]. Yes, He suffered, even before birth. Jesus, the light of heaven, was plunged into darkness and silent obscurity for nine long months enclosed in the womb of that virgin Israelite maiden.
He came forth, not into palatial pampered isolation, but in privation and poverty with goats and sheep as His patrons in Bethlehem’s manger. Hounded by murderous rage, His infant form was swiftly whisked away as a refugee into a neighboring foreign land.
He was later carried to reside in an obscure bush-village of ill-repute to take up the menial unglamorous trade of carpentry [Mk.6:3]. There He toiled to support his widowed mother amidst ungrateful and spiteful siblings who despised His person [Jn.7:7].
What does God know about the suffering of humanity, you ask? He knows everything, far beyond the limited afflictions you may have encountered. His entire life as Man was one of sorrows.
“He was despised and rejected of men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” [Isa.53:3]. Glimpse what He endured, what beset His stainless soul throughout His days of affliction on earth.
“His appearance was marred more than any man…we did not esteem Him…He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows…He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities…cut off from the land of the living…it pleased the Lord to bruise Him…the anguish of His soul…because He poured out His soul unto death…and He bore the sins of many” [Isa.52:14 – 53:12].
Hear Him say, “I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting” [Isa.50:6]. “Consider Him who has endured such contradiction/hostility of sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and discouraged in your souls” [Heb.12:3].
He, with indignation, was “grieved at their hardness of heart” [Mk.3:5]. He wept over the willful blindness and repudiation of every overture of mercy proffered by His gracious hand to their stubborn and proud conscience [Lk.19:41-44]. He wept because they “did not recognize the hour of your visitation” [Lk.19:44].
Make no mistake; God has done something about evil. He has tasted it Himself and overcome its malicious malady by so doing. It is the inside-out solution.
The Lord has struck at the root of the matter and resolved it. An external striping of malignant fruit will not stay the flow of the sap that produces it in its native stock. Christ has purged the core at its source and thereby insured that disastrous fruit will no longer spring forth.
Evil is resolved in the Lord Jesus Christ, the true and living God. The certain end and resolution of all wickedness and aberration is thereby obtained.
Consequences of moral waywardness and departure may continue for a season until the consummation, but its final demise in all its forms is already secured. “Therefore, we do not lose heart, but though our physical body is wearing away, yet our inward person is being renewed day by day” [2 Cor.4:16].
The event of the cross of Christ at once displays both the greatest of all evils perpetrated by humanity while issuing in mankind’s greatest good. There we witness the outrage of torturously murdering the very God of heaven.
Christ voluntarily carried the weight of a world’s moral revolt and deserving punishment. There the greatest indignity and breach of all moral propriety was heaped upon God in pitiless mocking and malice. And Christ the Lord chose to endure all indignity and violent wrath to resolve evil once and for all.
Do not so brazenly and ignorantly claim that God has done nothing to remedy evil in this world. “He became their Savior; In all their affliction, He was afflicted” [Isa.63:8,9].
At the cross of Christ, righteousness and peace kissed each other, justice and mercy embraced [Ps.85:10]. For there, the root of the matter was vindicated and vanquished in judgment, a provision for evil’s eradication was realized, while securing an internal resolution for any who will avail themselves of its bounty until the banishment of sins’ effects are realized throughout the cosmos.
Evil was dealt the death blow in the death of the Son of God. Wickedness was purged in the bosom of the Beloved. Fitting wrath, that brimming cup of fire, brimstone, and burning wind, was drained to bitterest dregs by Him who rasped: “I thirst.”
“For He made Him who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” [2 Cor.5:21].
See here at the cross what it entails for sin to be eradicated from the world! Behold the only means that avail! Evil is no pittance to be brushed aside as a mere annoyance, no simple speck out of place.
Darkness shrouds the noonday landscape enveloping with a thickness that could be felt as the cry pealed from parched lips, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
Thus it was with the sinless Son of God Himself. Do you wish evil to be removed from the globe? It requires inhabitants being plunged into blackness of darkness and utterly forsaken in fiery wrath. Who then can stand? Who then will escape?
Only One. He who was made sin for us. If we ourselves have made ourselves sin by wicked choices, then this will be our portion. Evil cannot be removed apart from judgment upon it. That is the harsh reality.
But He who knew no sin has remedied that. Look unto Him, to “Him who bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness” [I Pet.2:24]. See what the remedy of evil entails. It cannot be and was not dismissed with the wave of a hand.
This is a solution that penetrates to the depths of the malady. Thorns and thistles transformed to fruit and flowers are one thing; Hearts corrupt with evil propensity are another.
They can only be remedied if there exists a righteous basis to do so. Evil requires righteous judgment upon it ere it can be eradicated. And this Jesus did, suffering in humanity’s stead.
The death of Jesus the Lord resulted in judgment “upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out” [Jn.12:31]. And the testimony concerning that judgment is that “the ruler of this world has been judged” [Jn.16:11].
This is Lucifer whose creeping internal conceit erupted into arrogant pride and polluted angels and men alike. He is the one who deceives and tempts, who blinds unbelieving eyes, the one who through fear of death held captive all men in oppressive bondage [Heb.2:14,15]. This is the one who has the whole world lying in his power through coveting, comfort, and conceit [I Jn.5:19; 2:15-17]: an internal control of desire, outlook, and deception.
“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world” [Jn.16:33].
“Whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” [I Jn.5:4,5].
Because Jesus has overcome evil at its source, those who avail themselves of His conquering provision also can overcome the world with its lust of eye and flesh along with the pride of life. This ultimate victory over all evil issues in overcoming the downward pull of despair and corruption of lawless self-pursuits. It overcomes the certain judgment of all whose orientation is of this world, whose roots entwine deeply into the dung and soil of earth and suck up their only sustenance from thence.
The cross of Christ and His victory over wickedness thereon has its sure and liberating internal results. Arrogance succumbs to humility, coveting to contentment, and comfort to willingness to endure affliction.
The evil one is overcome and defeated at the core; the remaining aspects externally follow in due season. Christ strikes at the root of the matter that will necessarily alter its fruit.
It was observed previously that the origin and continuance of evil is not to be sought for in external conditions. It is an internal matter requiring an internal solution. Reflect again that evil arose in the midst of perfection, both in heaven and in Eden.
The premises of all those clamoring: “Why doesn’t God do something about evil?” are these: [1] Evil exists [2] Evil is justifiably punished and eradicated [3] God is culpable if He does not do so [4] A sinless ideal environment is desirable as the best of all worlds.
God in Christ has resolved all of these.
Eden was such an environment and man revolted in lawlessness. The only thing God could have done was to forcefully override man’s very constitution and determination by compelling him against his will to abide in perfect conditions with untarnished character. But that in itself would have been an unjustifiable evil on God’s part that effectively would have destroyed individual integrity.
Eden at the beginning shows that ideal conditions do not lead to ideal moral response once the element of human choice is a potential.
The source of abnormality and wickedness cannot be sought for in externals: environment, privation, hardship, disaster, or lack of anything good; in the beginning, everything was perfect.
Evil’s inception resulted not from outside influences, but from a subtle shift in perspective, an elevated assessment of self, a creeping conceit, an inflated aspiration that did not correspond with reality, an inordinate elevation of creature worth beyond what was instilled by the Creator. And one flaw spoiled it all.
What is pride but a trembling drop of poison that pollutes the whole well?
Outward regulation of conduct in an ideal environment do not eradicate evil from the heart. This was evident from the beginning of man’s history in Eden and is reinforced once again at its end.
When Christ returns to earth a second time in that coming future day, for 1,000 years the futility of imagining that man’s deepest desires and values will be changed if his outward station is idyllic is exposed.
As well, the impossibility of enforcing righteousness and regulating love is irrefutably revealed as the non-option that it has been from the beginning. Simply put, this 1,000 years of ideal conditions with the Lord Jesus Christ Himself as the world’s Regent demonstrates incontrovertibly that the solution to evil does not lie in the external.
At the conclusion of it the world rallies in revolt once again against God and His Christ; righteousness, peace, and goodness can only be achieved should there be willing compliance and transformation in the heart of individuals.
This Millennium demonstrates conclusively that God’s internal solution to evil has been the only solution all along; modifying the external environment to make it “ideal” does not remedy the problem of evil. To change the outward to pristine does not issue in love, righteousness, and truth.
Peace, justice, orderliness, outward prosperity, harmony in the natural realm [Isa.11:1-10; 35; 65:25], combined with execution of all evil breaches of propriety describe this coming period. Yet men hate this rule and will revolt when given the chance.
“When the 1,000 years are complete, Satan will be released from his prison, and will come out to deceive the nations…to gather them together for the war” [Rev.20:7,8].
The solution to the world’s evils is internal and God in Christ has accomplished that.
Enforcing outward compliance with what is good and upright when the heart is oriented otherwise, only provokes seething hatred and revolt. Why, in an ideal environment, must Divine rule be with a rod of iron to shatter outbreaks against dwelling in such a paradise?
Simply because evil at its root is not a matter of whether one resides in Edenic splendor, but extends to the deepest recesses of corrupt inner workings inside the heart of every man. The lopping of diseased branches does not stem the saturation of sap in the stock.
From the beginning God has acted to ameliorate evil. From the advent of evil, God promised One who would rectify and put an end to evil plaguing mankind [Gen.3:15]. Though the ground was cursed as a consequence of man’s revolt, that did not constitute outright condemnation but rather frustration. The earth so cursed yet yielded its fruit for life, though sorrow and sweat remained as a constant reminder of sin’s abnormality and as an impetus to seek God Himself.
He provided suitable garments to cover the reproach of guilt and shame for our first parents. He did not abandon them but rather sought them to restore from their miserable condition.
In the days of Noah prior to disastrous global devastation, His Spirit strove with men through the preaching of righteous Noah for 120 years [Gen.6:3; 2 Pet.2:5]. Goodness was extended to rectify evil at its genesis: “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” [Gen.6:5].
For four hundred years the longsuffering of God waited during an ever increasing wickedness among the inhabitants of Canaan before their demise. The nation of Israel itself had mercies extended “new every morning” [Lam.3:23] until their cup of iniquity ran over and righteous judgment fell at last.
God satisfies the soul of every living creature [Ps.104:27,28]. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, sending rain on the righteous and the unrighteous [Mt.5:45]. God is good and does alleviate suffering in His creation.
God is doing something to put an end to evil; He is doing so presently by His own people “not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but blessing instead” [I Pet.3:9]. “See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all people” [I Thess.5:15].
And so our Lord Jesus has directed His people: “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to those that hate you, and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you” [Mt.5:44].
He is good in that God speaks to the heart through conscience, and to our deepest inward abyss by conviction through the Holy Spirit. The messages are ones that men would otherwise never be awakened to: that there is but one unforgivable sin, righteousness has been accomplished, the evil one has been defeated [Jn.16:8-11]. He thus is doing something to address the fountain of evil’s pollution.
Afflictions serve variegated purposes in the scheme of God. Job 36 provides these clarifying words: In the bondage of affliction, God opens the ear to instruction and commands men to turn away from iniquity [v.5-12]. Hypocrites, however, store up wrath; they don’t cry for help when He arrests their wicked course [13].
Such who refuse His overtures die among the perverted [14] but He delivers the poor in affliction and opens ears in oppression [15]. Because of wrath, God will remove in one blow. Don’t choose iniquity over affliction [16-21].
Do not be so foolish as to challenge the Sovereign Maker of all. Who has said to God, “You have done wrong”? [23]. By rain and storm He judges in order to awaken man to his internal need of deliverance from evil [31].
Yes, God is not and has not been silent. It is that man has willfully closed his ears to His voice.
But what are to be the consequences of a life-long refusal to heed Divine messages? What happens should the souls of men opt for evil, refusing to abandon it all of their days?
Will evil be absorbed into righteousness, will malice be merged with goodness? Shall willful error be assimilated into truth? They shall not.
Corrupting and life-threatening maladies rightly require quarantine. Leprosy is one such ravaging disease that is correctly banished into isolation lest it spread to others. The so afflicted must abide apart from the healthy to prevent that malady from contaminating one and all.
Hell serves the same purpose. It will prevent sin’s contamination from infecting and corrupting those not afflicted with that contagion. There really is no other alternative.
To force those into heaven who have of their own choice opted for rejection of ultimate good, love, light, and purity would be to subject them nevertheless to unending torment. For they relish evil by their own desire and design.
All that God and heaven are is abhorrent to them. And thus coerced to abide therein contrary to their self-formed natures would be everlasting vexation and gnashing of teeth.
Furthermore, to compel them against their life-long chosen character into heaven would pollute heaven itself and the very evil men demanded to see eradicated upon earth would abide forever throughout the whole. They would bring the evil of their own desires and corruption of their very constitution to reside therein. In short, heaven itself would become hell for both the righteous and the wicked.
Hell as a quarantine for spiritual contagion is the only viable option in a moral universe. It could not be otherwise. To tolerate evil’s continuance infects those tolerating, even the Majesty in the heavens Himself. “Your eyes are too pure to approve of evil; You cannot tolerate wickedness” [Hab.1:13].
To subjugate those against their will who have reveled in corruption and darkness into heaven’s purity and light will only promote further revolt, provoke malice, and entrench in an ever increasing hatred. Though banished from God’s presence, these everlasting souls will acknowledge the justice of their final condition though chaffing against the consequences of their life-long decisions.
“You are just in all that has come upon us; for You have done faithfully, but we have done wickedly” [Neh.9:33]. “At the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father” [Phil.2:10,11].
And thus the undying relentless gnawing worm in that isolated abode is the continuous torment of a violated conscience. The flaming fire is the heated burning realization that one’s entire life has spurned the everlasting good. And the blackness of darkness reserved forever in that prison is the irreversible consequence of benighted souls who hated the light throughout their days here on earth.
They abide there by their own choice. It is what they have loved throughout their lifetimes. They reside there despite repeated attempts on earth to arrest the path of destruction readily chosen with their wholehearted approval.
God has spoken severally, but they continually turned a deaf ear from a hardened heart. They did not want the light, the love of God; goodness was repudiated, wickedness was embraced.
But God has not been silent. He speaks daily of His eternal nature and Divine power through the handiwork of His creation [Rom.1:20]. Spinning galaxies and resplendent waxing and waning moons testify to His wisdom, might, and goodness [Ps.19:6].
“God speaks…in a dream, in a vision of the night…then He opens the ears of men…that He may turn man from his conduct and keep man from pride” [Job 33:13-17]. The still small voice of troubled conscience is His emissary to arrest man’s proud direction [Rom.2:15]. He is not silent.
Yes, flashing skies lightening His dark heavens, thunder His reverberating voice from on high. Torrents, billowing clouds, swirling stormy winds, and icy cold heed the voice of His commands on earth – for correction, His land, or for mercy [Job 37:1-13]. They speak on His behalf.
Majestic sunsets blaze their magnificent message on heaven’s canvas declaring a glory reserved hereafter at the end of days in the dwelling of God above [Ps.8:1]. He speaks in seeming random flashes of awareness when “He uncovers mysteries from the darkness and brings the deep darkness into light” [Job 12:22].
Kindly deeds that show pity on the unfortunate speak to the depths of all human hearts. Cups of cold water proffered to satisfy the parched convey His voice of kindness. Words of advice freely given to arrest wayward feet are His messages to men [Rom.15:14].
Bibles, His everlasting Word, are on hand in virtually every land. Missionaries have reached remote villages across the globe with the glad message of deliverance from evil and the free offer of light and life.
He is not silent. He speaks, and is speaking now.
6
Ultimate Issues Of Unending Consequence
The Mystery of Silence
[1] Testimony
Enduring the same conflict of suffering common to all mankind produces a testimony in the world due to Christ’s life within. It gives evidence to a source of deliverance outside the natural realm: a testimony of possessing a different kind of life than the earthbound dweller has experienced [I Thess.2:14]. Divine internal comfort is “effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer” [2 Cor.1:6].
This is the inside-out solution. The Christian endures with grace the same afflictions common to all man and gives evidence of life from above in so doing.
“[By faith…] others were tortured, not accepting their deliverance, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others received the trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, of chains and imprisonment.
“They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, slain with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. All of these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise” [Heb.11:35-39].
No, they did not receive immediate and continual relief of all they endured out of love to the God of glory. They endured, even with joy, all suffering they encountered and obtained a testimony thereby.
Through suffering, it becomes evident that God is worthy of adoration and service though outward discomforts are not removed. In such conditions, a testimony is established that love for God is dependent upon deeper unseen and supernatural realities: that God is good and desirable in and of Himself whether external conditions are improved or not.
If every discomfort, pain, lack, and disappointment were immediately rectified and resolved for the faithful, all men would join the ranks for the benefits of such entitlement. But it would not be God who is loved and served; it would be self. God would be nothing more than a crass means to an end. He would not be loved or even thanked.
Malevolent corruption would be systemically entrenched in every throbbing heart while stretching out expectant demanding hands. Then when the Divine dole is grasped, they will go their way without so much as a backward glance to Him from whom the kindness had been received.
In John 5 we see this evidenced. It portrays a parable of humanity at large. Multitudes of afflicted souls lie awaiting the merciful moving of the waters. One is healed. Others continued in their debility and suffering.
The one whose pitiable condition was relieved, is warned by Christ, the Healer, to stop sinning that nothing worse might befall him. Here we discover the clear link between sin in the universe that leads to universal suffering. Also evident is that the effect of affliction leads to longing for a remedy.
Yet evil has so marred the constitution of fellow sufferers that repeatedly another stepped down before him to claim the benefit. The irrevocable insistence on self-preservation and advantage manifests in its complete disregard for the welfare of fellow sufferers.
For 38 years this had been the case: each rushing for self. And so this cameo at Bethesda’s pool portrays millennia of human self-absorption jockeying for position to the detriment and disregard of others misfortune. All is prompted by self-gain.
Yes, it is a microcosm of the world’s condition. Affliction leads to seeking a remedy. But evil has so permeated the fiber of our collective consciousness that self-absorbed pursuits leave other unfortunates in their miserable condition while rushing to secure one’s own relief.
Yet should God on a wholesale basis immediately relieve everyone of all affliction, the world would stream in an unceasing pilgrimage to the spot. Multitudes would “believe” and give lip-service to God in order to be graced with the benefits thereof. “Everyman is a friend to him who gives gifts” [Prov.19:6].
And should instant mercies extend to each in his native locale, ideal conditions would be the portion of every person. But all the while individuals would continue in the very sin that resulted in malodorousness in the first place.
Thus rectifying outward evils, disasters, sickness, and discomforts would not resolve the reality of evil in the world; it would actually serve to increase it. Evil is a matter of the human heart, not the human circumstance.
Lk.17:11-19 recounts the mercies shown by Christ the Lord to all ten pitiable lepers who were healed by His goodness. But Christ Himself had to inquire, where were the 9 afterward? Why did but one return to give thanks to Him who had graced them so?
Benefits bestowed without do not alter the condition of the heart within. Evil is not remedied thereby.
The evil heart of man is such that mercies received increase callousness and provoke demands for further entitlements. Israel had manna daily for 40 years, yet they despised the provision, demanded better and abundant meats instead, and craved savory fare to their liking [Num.11:4-6; 20:5; 21:5]. Abundant outward benefits does not rectify evil.
“When the earth experiences Your judgments, the inhabitants of the earth will learn righteousness. Though the wicked is shown favor, he does not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness he will deal unjustly, and will not perceive the majesty of the Lord” [Isa.26:9,10].
Favor, grace, kindness, and prosperity do not result in the removal or even abatement of evil. Outward peace and plenty do not equate to peace within and spiritual wellness.
Man imagines an outward-in solution to perceived problems. But God’s inside-out remedy is the only actual resolution to evil’s ills.
No, man’s demanded outward-in paradise will never effect a cure. But the inside-out provision of the God of heaven is its only effective and realistic remedy. Endurance of evil in this life establishes a testimony that immediate relief from all sorrows presently could never result in.
[2] Punitive
The effect of God not intervening in judgment whether by calamity, punishment, or even death, entrenches the hearts of men to continue in self-destructive paths. It is for this reason that God periodically executes wrath in the present, as a somber warning of avoiding that final terrifying day of wrath to come and also to justly put an end to sin’s contaminating influence in the present.
“Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed swiftly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil” [Eccl.8:11]. It is for this reason that God has established governments for the purpose of rewarding the good and the punishment of evil.
Governing authorities are servants of God in order to execute judgment upon transgressors. Such punitive judgment results in the curtailment of evil tendencies and outbreaks that otherwise would lead to unrestrained evil reigning in societies [Rom.13:1-7].
Sin/evil in the heart of man is the reason for just judgment. Jesus warned the one who had been shown mercy, “Do not sin anymore lest a worse thing come upon you” [Jn.5:14].
Those who insist on God putting an end to all evils immediately in this world do not know what they are asking. For, if He were to do so, He would begin at the source of the problem, which is the human heart. And then who could stand? “Therefore I will also make you sick, striking you down, desolating you because of your sins” [Mic.6:13].
God intervenes in justified destructive wrath upon rebels revolting in wickedness. It is just for Him to do so. “The wages of sin is death” [Rom.6:23].
It is not a breach of propriety to pay what one has earned; it is actually obligatory. It may be merciful to forestall such payment, but it is not wrong to do so; it is just. Thus suffering, calamity, destruction, famine, pestilence, and even death may serve just punitive purposes.
God speaks even through these.
[3] Formative
Even Jesus the Son of God Himself “learned obedience through the things that He suffered” [Heb.5:8]. Full-orbed virtues of character are developed to maturity thereby.
In that crucible, aspects of communion with the God of heaven are experienced that could not be grasped relaxing in cool breezes by the seaside. The reality of sustaining grace within the heart of the devoted follower is known in its fullness even in the tempest’s blast.
It is in affliction that we deeply drink of the “God of all comfort who comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in every trouble with the comfort which we have received from God” [2 Cor.1:3-7]. The inside-out solution of transformative power and effective comfort produces beneficial sympathy to the relief of fellow sufferers.
Even tribulations can be endured joyously, even with exultation, for the formative gain resulting thereby. Proven character, character that has been tested in the furnace of affliction and come forth as gold, produces an unshaken hope of certain future glory. Through patient endurance of such difficulties, true believers enjoy the poured out love of God through the Holy Spirit [Rom.5:3-5].
This formative reality is the reason true believers can count it all joy when various trials are encountered. Such testing of faith produces endurance and development of godly virtue that eventuate in a perfect culmination when the formative process is complete [James 1:2-4].
[4] Voluntary
Those partaking of the inside-out solution actually choose to suffer in fellowship with the Son of God. Such suffering is referred to as “fellowship” in Phil.3:10.
Willingly with joy Paul presented his body as a living sacrifice to bear reproach, suffer hardship, and “fill up that which is lacking in the afflictions of Christ” [Col.1:24-29]. As joined to Christ in a living union through the Spirit in the inner man, through insults and harm poured out upon him by wicked men, he contributes to fulfilling Christ’s purposes upon earth.
If the Head of the body was ill-treated, how much more His members? And these afflictions are gladly entered into with joy for the ultimate end of presenting “every man complete in Christ” [Col.1:28]. This is the glorious outcome of voluntarily entering into such tribulations.
And we all are enjoined to do the same; to “suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus” [2 Tim.2:3]. Let us also willingly lay down our lives for the sake of the brethren and the glory of Christ who suffered all in our behalf [I Jn.3:16].
This has been the pattern of the godly even before the advent of Christ. Witness Moses who by faith chose “to endure ill-treatment with the people of God rather than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin for a season, considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward” [Heb.11:25,26].
[5] Probationary
Suffering and evil are tolerated in the courts of heaven pending the outcome of moral decision. As such, no final retribution can be administered until the consummation of life. If the initial voluntary lawless deed met with immediate execution, humanity would cease to exist.
The initial course of life may not indicate its final outcome. Repentance, restoration, and reformation may yet take place in the soul. Previous crimes may be pardoned and a new life emerge.
It was so with one of the most reprehensible and wicked among men that has entered the annals of history: Manasseh. His longest reign of any monarch in the southern kingdom of Judah overflowed in abominable crimes and putrid moral and spiritual decadence. Idolatry, human sacrifice, and sorcery abounded.
After irreversibly corrupting countless souls, and repeatedly refusing the Word of the Lord sent to arrest his maddened course, an astounding even occurred. After being captured by hooks, bound as a slave in bronze chains, and deported to a Babylonian dungeon, this depraved beast of a man repented.
“When he was in affliction, he entreated the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers” [2 Chron.33:10-19]. Upon release and return, he tore down the very idolatrous altars he erected and sacrificed to the Lord God alone while ordering all Israel to do the same.
Similar events transpired with Saul of Taurus. This murderous fanatic, zealous for the traditions of his forefathers, ravaged the church of Christ, dragging off both men and women in his fury to extinguish this troublesome sect [Acts 8:1-3]. His own testimony is that “I persecuted this Way unto death…as I punished them often in all the synagogues, I tried to force them to blaspheme; and being furiously enraged at them, I kept pursuing them even to foreign cities” [Acts 22:4; 26:11].
But Christ Jesus in His resurrected glory arrested his rabid hatred and Saul the savage became Paul the saint. Letters received from the High Priest in Jerusalem were scattered in the dust along the Damascus road in order to empty his hand to receive thirteen epistles from the hand of Christ contained in our New Testaments.
And his testimony resounded far and wide from that point: “He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy” [Gal.1:23]. Blessed be the God of probation who does not immediately execute His judgment upon evil at its first polluting outbreak.
Yet not all who are graced with a stay of execution respond as did Manasseh or Saul. Of the wicked Jezebel reigning in the midst of Thyatira’s church, Jesus had to say: “I gave her time to repent, but she does not want to repent of her immorality” [Rev.2:21]. Mercy’s probation may yet be spurned.
The Lord of longsuffering mercifully endures the noxious ascent of filth’s stench arising continuously into His heavens. The day when this reprieve will terminate will instill terror in every soul. Gloom, distress, wrath, ruin, anguish, devastation, fury, darkness, a terrifying end of all inhabitants of the earth: this is the horrifying prospect when God next speaks and intervenes from heaven.
“Near is the great day of the Lord; near and coming very quickly; the voice of the day of the Lord: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of ruin and desolation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and gross darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm, against the fortified cities and the high corner towers.
“And I will bring distress upon men, and they shall walk like blind men; for they have sinned against the Lord; and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as dung: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them, in the day of the Lord’s wrath; but the whole earth shall be devoured in the fire of His jealousy, for He will make a complete end, indeed a terrifying one, of all the inhabitants of the earth” [Zeph.1:14-18] .
“Behold, the Lord lays the earth waste, devastates it, distorts it surface and scatters its inhabitants…the earth will be completely laid waste and completely despoiled, for the Lord has spoken this word. The earth mourns and withers, the world fades and withers, the exalted of the people of the earth fade away.
“The earth is polluted/defiled under its inhabitants, for they have transgressed the laws, violated/changed statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore the curse devours the earth, and they that dwell therein are held guilty. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned/consumed, and few men are left” [Isa.24:1-6].
Yet, “the Lord is not slow as some count slackness, but is longsuffering towards us/you, not willing/purposing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” [2 Pet.3:9].
“Longsuffering is that quality of self-restraint in the face of provocation which does not hastily retaliate or promptly punish; it is the opposite of anger, and is associated with mercy, and is used of God, Ex.34:6 (Sept.); Rom.2:4; I Pet.3:20; 2 Pet.3:9,15” [From Hogg and Vine, Notes on Thessalonians, pages 183,184 as quoted in Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1997. Page 684].
In longsuffering, God restrains His righteous fury against creatures in revolt. Mercies forestall His intervention. Through toleration of evil for a season, maximum opportunity is afforded individuals to turn from lawlessness and experience transformation and deliverance within.
Probation is actually a cause to give thanks to God for not executing removal of evil from mankind swiftly and immediately. None of us would remain if He did so.
[6] Disciplinary
It would be disastrous should discipline’s consequences of pain be restrained. Pain is intended to be remedial. It awakens realization that something has gone awry, that its wounds need to be attended to as a restoration to normalcy.
Otherwise, if there are no consequences to moral action, either good or evil, then all basis for morality is eroded into irrelevancy as was discussed previously.
Pain and unpleasant results must follow should evil be chosen. It is inevitable and unavoidable given the nature of man in God’s universe.
Disciplinary consequence flows from the goodness of God to curtail repetition of disastrous conduct. “Those whom the Lord loves He chastens and He scourges every son whom He receives” [Heb.12:6].
Indeed, “if you are without discipline of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons…He disciplines us for our good that we might be partakers of His holiness” [Heb.12:8,10].
Even in the natural realm, purging is the end in view of fiery trials. So too in the spiritual and moral spheres; some outcomes can only be realized through suffering’s crucible like unto silver being purged of its dross.
“Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction” [Is.48:10]. Should correction be absent, evil contaminants will abide, spoil the whole, and continue to develop unrestrained.
[7] Eternal purpose
In the mysterious arena of silence, the temporary tolerance of evil’s abnormality serves eternal purposes. In an isolated corner of a pristine universe evil emerged and has been localized. Such disaster has been permitted by an all-wise Sovereign.
The internal solution to this temporary aberration has been present from sin’s inception. God’s remedy proffered super abundantly compensates for damages encountered.
From the standpoint of Scripture, the noxious consequences of revolt have emanated from one locus, earth. From Eden’s lawlessness, the creation itself was subjected to futility [Rom.8:19-22]. From one corrupted garden wafted pollution to planets and spinning suns in countless constellations.
But from that one epicenter, emanated the ultimate prescription and provision to amend all finite guilt. From sin’s inception, the cross of Christ was in view [Gen.3:15] and the movements of grace thereafter brought succor and relief to all fleeing for refuge to the living God until that was finally realized.
In the economy of God, the lesser condemns the greater. The weak triumph over the mighty. Things of nothing are lifted above the things that are. The foolish confound the wise.
Children cry Hosanna while Pharisees chide. One man blind from birth whose vision was restored rebuffs the entire assemblage of reverend doctors. A woman of ill repute washes Christ’s feet with tears while the Pharisee offers Him no water.
A donkey will convey the King. Stones will cry out even while murderously hurled at Stephen. Trees of the field jubilantly clap their hands [Isa.55:12] though hewn down to fashion a cross.
God’s ways are not our ways. It is God’s method to employ “the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised…the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are” [I Cor.1:27,28].
Yes, the foolish shame the wise, the lowly the lofty, the poor the rich, the ignoble the majestic, and the humble the proud.
And since this is so among man’s own compatriots, how much greater is that gulf when transcending to principalities, powers, and world forces of darkness? “Do you not know that we shall judge angels?” [I Cor.6:3].
Yes, man, a creature housed in clay, made “a little lower than the angels” [Heb.2:7] will nonetheless be crowned with glory and honor, placed over the works of God’s hands, and will pronounce sentence upon dark fiendish angelic hosts.
Here is “man, that maggot, and the son of man, that worm,” [Job 25:6] that will condemn Lucifer, the bright shining one who once walked in the midst of the stones of fire. In that day the final triumph of the inside-out solution of grace from the God who is good will be vindicated.
The final outcome of the mystery of silence is that a vast uncountable host, myriads upon myriads of redeemed and purified souls, will be an everlasting showcase of glory as well as the witnesses, prosecutors, and judges of the wicked who left their first estate through lawless revolt. God will simply turn and say: “Have you considered My servant…”
He will point to His loving overcomers from every tribe, and people, and tongue, and nation, selecting His representatives who by their endurance of tribulations here below have maintained integrity throughout. Their testimony will condemn those who, having all, despised and rejected the ultimate good in order to suck the slime and ooze from sin’s cesspool.
Yes, men will judge angels. The triumph of God’s children over every conceivable temptation and trial will forever silence the malicious affronts of the Accuser, the Slanderer, and Adversary of all that is good, right, and true.
It is the eternal purpose of God, mystery that it is, “that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenlies” [Eph.3:10,11]. Men will judge angels, saints will condemn sinners, and the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father while writhing souls and darkened demons will be banished to outer darkness forever and ever.
And thus the final resolve of all of evil’s suffering will be realized: “Put your feet upon the necks of these kings” [Josh.10:24]; the oppressed triumph, the oppressors are tormented.
Those who ignited the ovens of Auschwitz will writhe in the anguish of unending flame. The merciless miser, casting widows from their pleasant dwellings, will be stripped of his finery and forever hurled from the city of gold.
The blood of the martyrs crying out for the justice of divine retribution will be avenged [Rev.6:9-11]. The harassed and hounded by raging hate will gaze on their enemies fleeing the gnawing worm of conscience in vain.
The wretched and deprived, scrounging for morsels amid meager dust bins below, will feed on angel’s food in that glad eternal expanse. But the engorged wealthy of earth with bulging eye, will groan through endless ages for crumbs that shall never be swept in their direction.
Hear the Almighty good God who is not silent utter His final resolution concerning the scourge of wickedness: “Behold, I make all things new; the first things have passed away” [Rev.21:4,5].
Yes, evil will ultimately be vanquished and vanish. No more shall its debilitating corruption torment the souls of the just throughout all eternity.
Quarantined forever will be its malevolent maliciousness and polluting putrefaction. That shimmering drop of pride will never again poison that fount of everlasting bliss.
Death and its corruption will plague no more. Banished are sorrows, groans, tears, shrieks of anguish, and tottering burdens under blazing suns.
Grief is gone. Tribulation terminates. Sorrows cease. Pain perishes. All affliction is alleviated. Destroyed is death.
Behold, He has made all things new. The mystery of silence has ceased. All is resolved in that longed for endless day.
