There are rules in
nature, as there are in mathematics, physics, and biology to name
a few. Rules seem to surround us. They define how we exist. They give us boundaries. They protect us. For example, without the ‘rule’ of gravity,
we could float away from the ground, eventually reaching a point where the
atmosphere is too thin for us to breathe, causing us to lose oxygen and
die. Gravity therefore binds things
together, such as us to the ground, keeping us safe. No matter what the ‘rule’ is, breaking it,
leads to a consequence. It is equivalent
to the concept of cause and effect, and this is true even in the area of moral
laws, not just physical ones. When
‘trust’ is broken for example, it is quite difficult to restore. It is not impossible to put back, but the
effort to rebuild a broken trust is no small endeavor. It is then far easier to keep trust than to
restore it. So it was that the choice of
things other than good, had consequences that must be addressed. The nature of evil, once explored, takes over
its victim, corrupts their judgment, and wreaks havoc on them until they
completely self-destruct. It is somewhat
ironic that placing focus on self, leads so thoroughly to
self-destruction. None the less this
‘penalty’ (or result of these choices) must be paid.
After preparing our world for us, with an abundant variety
of plants, animals, birds, and fishes our Creator God made the first human
creation and called him Adam, later He made Eve. We will discuss this act of creation in much
further detail, but for now were going to stay focused on the topic of the details
of God’s plan for us. In order to insure
that God truly offers all of His creations freedom of choice, Lucifer (now
called Satan) was permitted access to our
world. He lied to our ancestors, and
they failed to trust God. That failure
led to disobedience, and disobedience self-perpetuates and consumes its victim,
as it did to Adam and Eve. It was at
that point that the death of man seemed to be our only fate. Having embraced ‘evil’ we would now have
suffer the fate of ‘evil’.
But instead, God took pity on man, and laid out what His
plan was to save us. God, in the form of
His Son Jesus, would come to this world.
This Messiah would come as a man, live a perfect life (accomplishing
what we failed to do as a species), and then pay the penalty for our sins. He would literally die in our stead. He would suffer cruelty throughout His
lifetime here on earth. He would be spit
upon. He would be beaten with whips that
held pieces of glass in their tip. He
would be abandoned by those that stated they loved Him. Those who He loved would be the instruments
of His torture. This was the level of commitment God
made to save us, to reach out to even His most devout enemies. To endure all of these things, while all the
time being able to choose not to follow-through with it. He could have simply resumed His God status
and left the misery of this world behind in a second – but that would have left
us condemned to the fate we deserve. And
He would not. He chose to die for us; to
pay the consequences of the broken laws, on our behalf. Oh the depths of love, to do ALL of this for
someone so unworthy as Hitler, and Saddam Hussein, and me. To offer the very least of mankind the fate
that God deserves, and take on Himself the fate that we deserve. Herein lays the most compelling evidence that
our Creator God is the ONLY God.
For thousands of years man looked forward to the promise of
a Messiah. During this time, the
Universe watched our world and continued to hear Satan blame God for all the
woe and calamity here on earth. And the
remaining intelligent life beyond our world continued to trust God, but
pondered Satan’s arguments. Then the
Messiah came, and even Satan was amazed that God would go this far for fallen
man. Though God had given many
prophesies to help men know the time of His coming, we were completely
unprepared for His arrival. But as
promised, He lived that perfect life, and at our hands He died. At that point ALL life in the remainder of
the Universe saw the true nature of ‘evil’ – Satan
was unmasked. He was seen
for what he was, and it was known that any and all ‘evil’ would eventually
result in the death of the Creator. At
this Satan was completely rejected everywhere in the rest of the Universe. No intelligent life would ever listen to him
again. His arguments had been proven
completely false. And so for the last 2
thousand years, man has been given an opportunity to see evil for what it truly
is. It is our turn now to choose to
reject evil, and be bound by it no more.
This is the plan of Salvation done for us. Our freedom cost the Son of God, our Creator,
His very life. Though after 3 days, the
Messiah arose from death, and conquered it.
He returned to His Father’s side to see if the sacrifice was enough to
reclaim us. And the Father God accepted
the sacrifice of His son, and declared our Salvation complete. We should not ever forget what was done for
us, and while we were yet His enemies.
As we continue our journey to know and grow close to our
God, we can begin to KNOW He loves us more than His own life. It is much easier to trust someone who loves
you. We can accept what He asks us to
do, and accept the advice He gives us – KNOWING
that everything He asks or says is based in complete love for us. He did not die for us to bring us evil, but
to deliver us from it. He did not die
for you to be sad for the things you ‘give up’ to be close to Him. He died and arose for you to begin to see
what evil truly is, and to avoid those things that would wish to destroy your
very existence. These are the stakes - A
Creator God who craves our well being, and a Satanic master of evil and deceit
whose only wish is to torture and kill us.
So what lessons of good and evil can we learn next? How about for starters a conversation on a
topic we all enjoy (or want to) that is, what sex was meant to be, (it’s
probably not what you think) so stay tuned …
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