If God is all good and all powerful why does He allow evil in the world? This is certainly one of the big questions that trouble people when it comes to the discussion of God.
A Great Eye Opener
Evil points a fallen people to something outside of themselves for help! Throughout all of history there has been no solution to evil. Evil is a great eye opener. It points out that things are not right. We long to see God make all things right.i
How did evil start? God did not create the evil but He allowed it. Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan,ii and chose to eat of the fruit they were told not to eat.iii Adam and Eve were then spiritually dead, and they passed that evil trait on to all of their offspring.iv Evil is now in the world and a part of every person born.v Everyone does evil to various degrees, but regardless of degree we have all become unrighteous in God’s eyes.vi
A Great Teacher
God is perfectly holy and righteous. He is all powerful. He is magnificent. Because He is all powerful and magnificent, the best thing that He could give to creation is Himself and a relationship with Him. God was not surprised that Adam rebelled against Him.vii By choosing against God man became unrighteous and separated from God. Because God is perfectly righteous and holy, man needs to be perfectly righteous and holy to be in God’s presence. Because of sin man is now separated from God. Man needed perfect righteousness. Adam had it but chose to sin against God instead. It is a choice we all would have made given enough time. The fall introduced sin and corruption. Man’s corruption was so bad, he could now only make two kinds of choices. He could make bad choices with man-exulting motives or he could make good choices with man-exulting motives. Man had truly become the center of his own world.viii Fallen man would not make a good God-glorifying choice with a God-exulting motive.ix God planned to help man out. He also made a way for those He helped out, to know Him even better than they could have before the fall. He tells us in Romans 9:22-23 that He wanted the ones who came to Him in His mercy to know about His wrath, His power, His patience and His glory. These are all things that we could not know and whose depths we could not have understood if there had not been any evil.
Think about it this way, imagine we had never fallen and everything was perfect. God tells us that He is a patient God. We would look at each other in wonder not understanding what “patience” is in a world where everything happens perfectly and everyone is always on time. You see, by allowing evil to continue those who experience His mercy are able to know God even better then Adam could have possibly known Him. This deeper, richer, greater knowledge of God will be ours for all eternity. When you realize the profound nature of this, it is completely worth it for God to allow evil to exist. He is passionate to reveal Himself in a greater way to the repentant. God wants His people to know Him well. This is the best possible gift He could have given to those who come to Him.
A Great Forgiveness
Have you ever broken any of God’s laws?x Have you lied?xi Have you ever stolen anything, regardless of value?xii Have you ever used God’s name as a curse word?xiii Have you ever wanted something that belonged to someone else in any way?xiv These are all violations of God’s law, which means that you fall short of God’s righteous standard.xv Because of this we all deserve God’s wrath. This means that we will spend eternity suffering the wrath of God in the fires of hell.xvi
In fact, it means that if God got rid of all the evil in the world, every single one of us would be wiped out immediately! God would get rid of rapists, murderers, and terrorists…but God is SO good, he would also get rid of all liars, and thieves, and blasphemers. However, there’s GOOD NEWS! God made a way for us to be forgiven and restored back into a relationship with Himself. He sent Jesus, His Son, to suffer under His wrath and die in our place to pay the penalty for our sins.xvii
Forgiveness! What an amazing gift from God and a solution to our evil. God offers us mercy and grace through Jesus’ death in our place. Forgiveness is one of those parts of God’s amazing character that we would not know if evil simply did not exist.
But Jesus did not stay dead. He rose again and is seated at the right hand of God in heaven.xviii He has conquered evil, death and hell. They no longer need to have a hold on you. If you will confess your sins, repent of your wickedness and turn to follow Jesus with all of your heart you will be set free from the bondage of sin and eternal suffering.xix
A Great Eternity
To those who repent and come to trust in Jesus to save them there is this one last thing: In eternity when Jesus says I love you my child. We will understand the depth of that love in a greater way, because He allowed evil to exist. We will know that His love was so great and so deep that He was willing to die in our place. You see without sin and evil God could never have shown us the depth of His love for all eternity. Don’t put it off. Today is the day of Salvation.
Repent and follow the Lord Jesus.xx
References
i. 1 John 5:19, ii. Gen. 3:1-5, iii. Gen 3:6-7, iv. Rom. 5:12, v. Ps. 51:5, Eph. 2:3, vi. Gen. 6:5, Ps. 14:3, 53:1-3, Pro. 20:9, Rom. 3:23, vii. Job 23:13-16, viii. Phil. 3:19,
ix. Rom. 1:18-32, x. Ex. 20:3-17, xi. Ex. 20:16,
xii. Ex. 20:15, xiii. Ex. 20:7, xiv. Ex. 20:17, xv. Rom. 3:23, xvi. Rom. 6:23, xvii. Rom. 5:8-9, xviii. Eph. 1:20-21,
xix. Rom. 10:9-10, xx. 2 Cor. 6:2
