Well that was bad

This year thousands of people like you and me have died when missiles blew up in their neighborhoods in Ukraine and Palestine.

All of regular life interrupted by armies shooting ending life, children died, people died.

In Sudan because two leaders could not figure out how to make a government work thousands may stave to death; starting with the elderly and children, because the nation has plunged into war.

That’s just this year and just war. How about the fact that as of July Stockton had 46 forcible rapes reported and they didn’t even make the news because its not out of the ordinary. It’s normal.

What else didn’t make the news: the amount of people who were betrayed just yesterday by anyone. The amount of people who horribly abandoned their personal responsibilities causing horrific pain to those they hurt.

For example this week a couple here in San Joaquin County were arraigned for starving a child to death

Can we all agree that

there is a lot of evil in this world.

Evil isn’t new. It’s super old. It’s not like “kids these days.” Evil permeates everything. From Communism to Crusades to Mongolian raiders earth is filled with a history of evil.

But if we agree with the fact there is evil than

there must be a definition of good.

There must be something good. I have heard many, many people called good. But this definition, maybe you will agree with what I have observed, Many people change thier definition of good based on things like what will it get them, what political party is the good a part of, or what gender or country benefits. The definition of good doesn’t stay the same, what once was good some say is wrong.

Let me give you an example, sometimes they say someone is good or lived a good life because they had people who loved them dearly.

Yet Hitler had a loving relationship with Eva Braun. Many who do great evil can be loved by those who benefit from them. Certainly being loved by others didn’t make genocide, war, and all the evils of the Nazi regime led by Hitler right.

So right must be defined by something else because who wants a world where a racist mass-murder can get away with everything if he finds someone to love him like some insanely crazy disney fairytale.

But there is good. We know it and we desire it. We know it without anyone having to tell us and we get all excited when we think we might see it. Jesus defined good this way,

Mark 10:18 CSB

18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked him. “No one is good except God alone.

God is good. But I have heard so many define a lack of existence for God because their is evil in the world. For many ask, if there is a God how can he allow so much evil to exist.

My wonderful wife Lori is watching a show right now about an alien who has come to earth but crashed when he got close. He came to earth to “save our planet.” His solution, killing every single one of us humans.

Some think somehow God should work by destroying all evil before any of it ever happens without considering who dies. That they themselves have done wrong. When evil is destroyed everyone would die. Notice I said wrong. So many people like to make their evil sound nicer and justify it so I used the word, “wrong” instead of evil. They use the word “mistake” or whatever slang they can think of that makes it less harsh than the truth:

unleashing evil into the world.

In the ancient words of the Bible, wrong, evil, a mistake are all defined the same way

Romans 3:23 CSB

23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;

and the punishment is also clear

Romans 1:28–32 CSB

28 And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they do what is not right. 29 They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 senseless, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful. 32 Although they know God’s just sentence—that those who practice such things deserve to die—they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them.

You see with this evil that we are now experiencing, It isn’t new. And thanks to a loving God, He doesn’t hand out immediate justice. There is no such thing as Karma.

Because Karma isn’t justice, as God determines justice. We like to think that if someone jumps in front of us in line at Wal-Mart and then goes out into the parking lot and gets a flat tire than their is justice.

Yet, if this is how the world functions please explain to me what all the beautiful autistic children I teach have done to deserve having problems communicating and getting on in this world. What did their parents do to not be able to clearly hear their children say I love you.

I once heard a comedian say that Oprah, because she’s worth like a billion dollars should have a weight loss plan where she pays someone just to slap food out of her hand all day and night.

Some think God should be like this, as soon as he sees someone else have evil in their mind, just beat it out of you, take it away, yet God sees our evil and due to his patience doesn’t kill or us or even eliminate all evil from happening.

Instead God is patient.

2 Peter 3:9 CSB

9 The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.

Patience allows for freedom. God invites us to Him. Even in the midst of our own created evil, the things we do, God still loves us and calls out to us.

Romans 5:8–10 CSB

8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 How much more then, since we have now been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath. 10 For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.

When it says by his blood, it means Jesus actually died. Because death is the only thing that can pay for all of this evil. I know, people can say but I wasn’t as bad as that guy or that lady. You know what that person will say, “I wasn’t as bad bad as that other person.”

God created all of this creation. He gave one part of the creation freedom, humanity and we rejected Him. We continue to reject him.

Think of the worst thing you have ever done and realize that you did that to God.

You came to God’s creation and tore it up, spit on it, stompped on it, urinated on it, let it rot, put it back with the rest of creation, and then labeled all that was done as a “mistake.”

Yet God is patient.

Evil exists because God is actually incredibly patient and because evil exists bad things do happen randomly in our world. Evil messes with all of creation

Romans 8:19–22 NRSV

19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now;

Creation itself was messed up by our sin. So yes, disease and disasters exist but this isn’t as it is supposed to be. Yet God didn’t destroy it, instead he is saving it. God is doing something very different than all of us would do.

With all this evil and the immense power to eliminate all of it in less than a second, God is redeeming as many of us who will come home to Him.

Luke 5:31–32 CSB

31 Jesus replied to them, “It is not those who are healthy who need a doctor, but those who are sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

The person who did the horrible thing to God’s creation. Me. You. God came to call us to repentance, to ask for his forgiveness, to follow Him, which turns from our old ways to a new way.

Yes, that’s exactly what is written in scriptures close to 2,000 years old. There is nothing new in our culture of today. No new evils. No new desires, and the same opportunity for us, a new life in following God.

And God is the same God, patiently waiting. A patience that we can see come close allusion to when a teacher or a coach waits to see if their student or player can figure this out, can learn. Yet there will come a time when evil ends. This patience shouldn’t be dismissed as condoning, as agreeing with evil but instead as compassion.

2 Peter 3:9 CSB

9 The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.

And in this patience is the hope that there will be an end.

1 Thessalonians 4:15–17 MSG

15 And then this: We can tell you with complete confidence—we have the Master’s word on it—that when the Master comes again to get us, those of us who are still alive will not get a jump on the dead and leave them behind. In actual fact, they’ll be ahead of us. 16 The Master himself will give the command. Archangel thunder! God’s trumpet blast! He’ll come down from heaven and the dead in Christ will rise—they’ll go first. 17 Then the rest of us who are still alive at the time will be caught up with them into the clouds to meet the Master.

This will end. It will all get fixed and you, who follow the Lord Jesus Christ, will be a part of it.

Revelation 21:1–8 CSB

1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. 3 Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away. 5 Then the one seated on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new.” He also said, “Write, because these words are faithful and true.” 6 Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will freely give to the thirsty from the spring of the water of life. 7 The one who conquers will inherit these things, and I will be his God, and he will be my son. 8 But the cowards, faithless, detestable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars—their share will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

The first part is so beautiful and the last part seems so harsh. It is, but its the reality that evil can’t remain.

It isn’t harsh to say that I would like all of my glass of drinking water to not have any amount of oil in it.

Any amount makes the water undrinkable. Only good, and only God is good as He defines good can exist in the new heaven and the new earth. God will prove He is good and those who accept by faith that this will happen will be able to participate in it. Their will be no more evil. None. No betrayal, no lying, no innocence stolen, no stress to be removed through evil acts. Their will be love, peace, patience, kindness. For all who acccepted by faith.

Those that took a skeptical view will be treated the same as those who denied it.

We see it similarly in our own world. When a person tells someone that they find them attractive, find them hot, and might even be in romantic love with them. The attractive person can deny what the other person says. Oh no, I’m not that beautiful, you can’t possibly think that. You can’t love me. They attractive person might even test a person to see if they actually do feel that way but no test can prove whether a person is attracted to you or desires to genuinely love you. If you keep testing the person than that person might give up or die trying, never to know love.

Love must be accepted by faith. God must be accepted by faith.

Romans 10:9–13 NLT

9 If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. 11 As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.” 12 Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord, who gives generously to all who call on him. 13 For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

This is the invitation for all of us to declare, and to be people of our word, to follow the Lord Jesus Christ in faith. It can be a relationship began at any time, but as we all know time is the one thing that does not forgive and can’t be given again. The Lord is patient, but one should not demand that God wait.

If you have made this declaration. If you know Jesus as your God, you follow Him, than please remember that this is God’s work redeeming the world. Nothing about evil surprises Jesus. Instead Jesus sends us out into it. As the messengers of good. Where there is evil and someone needs to do right - that someone is you. Where this injury and heartache and someone needs to give comfort - that someone is you. Where this good and the joy that it brings needs to be celebrated by someone - that someone is you.

You were bought at a price, the death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ do not abuse your freedom but use your freedom to serve the Lord.

Today, declare Jesus as Lord. Declare it. Declare the hope you have in Jesus Christ’s resurrection. Declare that you know you will be with Him today.