Admitting Evil's Reality is Hard

“Deranged.” This was our President’s description of the man who killed so many on Sunday in a Texas church.  Was he mentally ill? It would sure seem to be true. But, what if he had just given himself to evil, over time becoming so consumed with self and rage that his mind became dark, his heart a sewer filled with murderous hatred? As facts begin to trickle out, we learn that Kelley has a long history of violence – charged with domestic abuse, shaking his baby until the boy was seriously hurt, and animal cruelty.

This was a ‘bad’ guy. In our time we struggle to say that, conditioned as we are to tolerance.  Frequently, we excuse, rationalize, and refuse to deal with evil in a forthright manner until we are confronted with it in a monstrous way, then we are shocked and dismayed, even confused.

2 weeks when came to light that a powerful Hollywood mogul serially sexually abused women, he claimed that he needed time to deal with his issues, that he would go to a clinic for ‘counseling.’  Some quickly suggested that his  behavior resulted from a ‘sex addiction.’  Counseling could help him to understand the evil he’s done. He may well have become addicted to his perversions as he indulged them for so long. But, baseline, what he did was an evil thing and people around him needed to say, “How you treat women is wrong. You hurt others for your own gratification.  That is evil!”  But, culturally we find it difficult to speak the truth about evil.

 Admitting that evil is real is hard.

If people can do bad things, that means that I can do bad things. Who want to admit that? I would rather admit to ‘making mistakes,’ to having ‘poor judgment,’ to being ‘unbalanced’ than to tell myself that I have made choices that were wrong, sinful, offensive to God and humanity.
Here is the truth about human nature apart from God’s redemption - “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?" (Jeremiah 17:9, NLT)  Nobody has to teach us to be selfish, to rebel, do they? We come by such behaviors naturally because we are born with a sinful nature.

We need structure, guidance, accountability, and discipline to restrain that innate evil. But, if we are unable or unwilling to admit to depravity, how will we deal with it?  God does not excuse our sin as ‘just being human.’ He does not look the other way when we are willful, hateful, or rebellious. He judges and He corrects. Most wonderful of all, He saves and redeems!

My favorite book in the Bible offers this hope. "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient." (Ephesians 2:1-2, NIV)  "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus," (Ephesians 2:4-6, NIV)

It is not my intent to suggest that we start to engage in witch hunts, that we become harsh judges of everyone and everything. My appeal is for a renewed understanding of the work of the Devil and the reality of evil. With this realization, we will turn to the One who can save us from our sins. Only then will the amazing Truth of the Gospel of Christ become our lifeline as we give up on saving ourselves.

As you ponder this today, start with Jesus’ words that encourage introspection. “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye." (Matthew 7:3-5, NLT)

Follow that with mediation on this passage. "For the time has come for judgment, and it must begin with God’s household. And if judgment begins with us, what terrible fate awaits those who have never obeyed God’s Good News? And also, “If the righteous are barely saved, what will happen to godless sinners?” (1 Peter 4:17-18, NLT)
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Father, I come to You lifting up
Those who have suffered under the assault of evil.
Comfort them, heal them, give life.

I pray, Spirit of God, for understanding of my own heart.
Show me my hidden faults, my secret sins, and lead me to confession.

Jesus, save me and lead me to a whole and holy life,
That I may honor You, live for You, and
Share the Light that defeats the darkness of Evil.   Amen

When all around my souls gives way

Good Christian people, 26 in all, who were in church together, died yesterday when a young gunman appeared among them with rifle blazing. That news literally left me trembling with sorrow.  How do we make any sense of the senseless?  Few details are available except that the man who did the shooting had a past history of violence and had been dishonorably discharged from the military. 

The finger pointing will begin today. Who failed to notice the killer’s mental health problems? How did he get a gun? And almost nobody will have serious discussion about the spiritual issues that have torn apart our nation.

We tend to see this incidents, and there are more of them all the time, in isolation, one person’s actions. And they are but they are not, too!  The Vegas shooter, the Charleston church killer, this man – they acted alone making terrible and evil choices.  How long before we begin to connect the dots and start to see the bigger picture, of a nation, a culture, that is very, very sick?  We have pushed the idea of life having meaning in the will and purpose of a transcendent God out of the picture, replacing it with a radical individualism that indoctrinates us that our best life is one in which we pursue our personal happiness.   

“Do your own thing,” is a kind of mantra. “Don’t let anyone steal your bliss.”  Even the Gospel of Christ has been recast as a means of finding one’s highest individual potential. Calls to discipleship, to self-denial, to sacrifice of self interest for family, church, and country are increasingly incomprehensible to minds trained to think of Self as a god worthy of fervent devotion.

Yes, of course, we know that Jesus said that He came to give us an abundant life.  He says, "I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." (John 10:9-11, NIV)  But, what is the ‘life to the full’ of which He spoke? We have come to read that as a promise of happiness from cradle to grave - all the money we need, a family life that is untroubled, and personal fulfillment. 

But, did Jesus really come to make the American dream possible?  Did He die on the Cross so we could have all the things we want and live superficially?

The ‘abundant life’ is about following Him, about giving the Spirit the reins of our lives, about seeking His will above our own – and in that – finding a whole and satisfying life in the Kingdom of God, now and when we step from this world into eternity. Do I, do you, really engage our best effort to understand His definition of the core understanding of what it means to be His disciple?   

He stated it in these simple and stark terms. "Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?" (Matthew 16:24-26, NLT)  Returning the Lord to the center of our lives is not a calling for the faint of heart.  The call is to a ’narrow way.’

We romanticize Jesus’ words but they are really a challenge that is impossible apart from a rebirth of the Spirit. When asked how a person could live to please God, Jesus said this - “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31, NIV)

On this Monday morning I am mediating on these ancient words spoken to the people of Judah who were finding life empty and meaningless.  They had neglected to put God first. The expression in our time is different but the principle is timeless!   

 "Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.” 

This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the Lord. “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the Lord Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house. Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands.” (Haggai 1:5-11, NIV)  Pray, and then re-read those words. They ring so true for me.

Our word from the Word comforts me today as I pray for grieving families in Texas.  I do not intend to minimize their loss. May the grace of Jesus, the comfort of the Spirit, be theirs today. "Good people pass away; the godly often die before their time. But no one seems to care or wonder why. No one seems to understand that God is protecting them from the evil to come. For those who follow godly paths will rest in peace when they die." (Isaiah 57:1-2, NLT)

_________

When all around my soul gives way,

He, then, is all my hope and stay.

On Christ, the Solid Rock, I stand;

All other ground is sinking sand.

Not all 'truth' is created equal

There is the parable told of an English captain whose compass was wrong, but by a couple of degrees. He set out for New York and ended up in Florida. That tale may make us smile, but it should caution us about how we calibrate our compass that sets our course through life. How tragic would it be to come to the end of life and to be filled with regret at the realization that we have spent our days misguided, focused on good things but not true things;  or most terribly, to find that we are far from the Heavenly home we thought was our destination?

Is your true North in life Jesus Christ; God come in flesh, Savior of the World, Risen Lord, and Coming King?

Or, are you taken by ‘high sounding philosophy’ of human potential, success, prosperity, pleasure, or power?

The free flow of information that is possible through digital communications in the 21^st century is a double-edged sword. How wonderful is it that the world has become our neighborhood, that we can befriend people literally on the other side of the globe? With a click on the screen, we can sit at the feet of teachers from every nation. This demands a new kind of discernment, a deep caution, and an anchor in the Truth.  Not all ‘truth’ is created equal. There are many ideas that are appealing without context, that seem right but which are untethered from the truth of Christ and thus to be rejected.

John, when an old man, saw the ravages that smooth-talking teachers were bringing to the Church. They came denying that Jesus was the God, Incarnate. They, like thousands since then, used the language of Christianity, but turned the meanings inside out. The old man, an elder, who loved deeply, warned them and us with uncompromising words. "There are a lot of smooth-talking charlatans loose in the world who refuse to believe that Jesus Christ was truly human, a flesh-and-blood human being. Give them their true title: Deceiver! Antichrist! And be very careful around them so you don’t lose out on what we’ve worked so diligently in together; I want you to get every reward you have coming to you. Anyone who gets so progressive in his thinking that he walks out on the teaching of Christ, walks out on God. But whoever stays with the teaching, stays faithful to both the Father and the Son. " (2 John 7-9, The Message)

If you are reading this and believe that I am making an appeal for a return to some ‘old time religion’ you are mistaken. The holiness codes of my youth that substituted rigorous rules to govern behavior were often misguided and led to guilt, not fullness of joy in the Lord. The appeal is that we should live a life centered on the revelation of Jesus Christ, a faith placed in His offering on the Cross, an assurance that rests on His bodily Resurrection.  

Listen to Paul’s words. This man, once an ardent religionist, met Jesus and in Him found the meaning, the purpose, and the hope that would lead him to his eternal home. "I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!" (Philippians 3:7-11, NLT)  Truth!

Have you become your own god? Are you convinced that you are wise enough, that you have insight that reaches far enough, to discard the wisdom of the Word, to ignore the accumulated experiences of Christians through the ages, to live outside of the community of faith, creating your own ‘truth’? A century ago, G. K. Chesterton wrote of the conceit of self-confidence. "Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums. … Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness.” - Orthodoxy

Here is a word from the Word. The Spirit calls us to anchor our hope in Jesus Christ, to walk in the truth, and to remain deeply connected to the Body of Christ. Will we? "And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near." (Hebrews 10:19-25, NLT)

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In Christ Alone

In Christ alone my hope is found

He is my light my strength my song

This Cornerstone this solid Ground

Firm through the fiercest drought and storm

What heights of love what depths of peace

When fears are stilled when strivings cease

My Comforter my All in All

Here in the love of Christ I stand

No guilt in life no fear in death

This is the power of Christ in me

From life's first cry to final breath

Jesus commands my destiny

No power of hell no scheme of man

Can ever pluck me from His hand

Till He returns or calls me home

Here in the power of Christ I'll stand

Keith Getty | Stuart Townend

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