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Evil is the anti-God. God offers us love. In so doing, He gives us the freewill choice to return His love or not. If we did not have the choice, what we offer could not be called love at all. It requires our choice in order that what we offer be a real love. So what God is really establishing is our freedom. We are free to love, and in love that freedom is boundless. There are no limits to how much we can love another. As God has shown us in the life of Jesus Christ, there are no limits to how much God will love us. And it is His choice to love us, as it is our choice to return love back to Him. In the expression of love to others, there are no laws required to follow. There are no prescribed lists we must check off every day, rather our responses and our desires are liberated to bring joy to others as much as our imaginations can conceive. In love there is absolute freedom. But evil is the anti-God. Where God offers us freedom of choice, in order that love can truly be love; evil is interested in no such thing. Evil is all about control, not freedom. Therefore evil has no qualms with slavery. Satan in his embrace of evil so long ago has so been warped that he is no longer interested in your love of him, only in his control over you. He makes no attempt to win your loyalty; rather he makes every attempt to enslave you into his following. It was the introduction of evil into the universe that prompted the requirement of laws. God had to set boundaries to evil in order to help define it, and as a guide for those who embraced it, to see what evil was while being warped by the disease of evil. Where love needs no laws to constrict it, evil requires laws or it would bring non-existence about to everything it touches.
Evil is addictive. Evil is degenerative. The first sin in heaven was not murder, nor adultery, nor homosexuality; it was a break in trust with God. Lucifer began to wonder what would happen if instead of loving others, he loved himself for a while. Seeing his own image and marveling at his own beauty, he turned his natural inclinations to please others inward to see about pleasing himself. God knew where this would lead, and tried to counsel Lucifer to avoid this idea and resume his love to others, not to self. But Lucifer broke trust with God and continued on his path of self-exploration. Upon doing so, he realized there was a difference between Christ and himself. To this point, he had been largely unaware that Christ was the actual son of God, and he was merely the arch angel or angelic leader. God loved all His creation so much, that none perceived a difference in how God felt about them. But in his mind, now beginning to yield the effects of self-pursuits, he became jealous of the relationship between Christ and God. Eventually he became jealous of God Himself, and scripture tell us he thought to become “like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14). He began to enlist other angels in his newfound philosophy. He pointed out to them, that they should be free not to love God, without necessarily having negative consequences. But this thinking was in error. He refused to trust the God who created him, and thought only to love. He embraced his freedom not to love which no one had ever done. And his path was set. Eventually there would be war in heaven between him and his followers and Christ and his. Lucifer, now Satan, would be cast out forever more. What started as an interest in loving self, ended in war in heaven, later it would kill Christ on Calvary. Evil is both addictive and degenerative.
There is no version of expression of evil that is not both addictive and degenerative. Perhaps the best example of the path of evil is the dead junkie on the side of the road. At one time, that person had a life, a job, a family, and a reason to get up in the morning. But for whatever reason, perhaps to experiment, or to open their mind, or to join their peers, or simply to “feel good”; they decided one day to sample a chemical hallucinogen. And for a brief time, the death of the brain cells and accompanying euphoria gave them a moment of perceived pleasure. In point of fact, they were damaging their own brains and bodies, but were unable to perceive what was really going on. A few repeated incidents of these actions, and their bodies developed a chemical addiction for it. Now their priorities get rearranged by their bodies chemical demands – their jobs matter less, their possessions matter less, eventually even their families matter less. And the need for the drugs becomes greater and greater requiring stronger versions dispensed more often in order to meet the “need” they have developed. It reaches a point where most finally meet their demise through an overdose; ending their lives with nothing else left to lose. A junkie simply cannot just say “no”. A junkie will not refuse more drugs, he will instead pursue them. A junkie trusts no one but the drugs. And without outside intervention, death is the verifiable end that every junkie will meet. This is the very nature of evil. But it is not limited to merely the “evil” of taking chemical stimulants and hallucinogens. It works the same way with every type of evil expression.
Pedophiles, rapists, and various other sexual degenerates do not simply wake up one day, throw out everything they ever knew, and become the degenerates they are today. Instead, it is a process, where appetites are developed over time. It may begin with nothing more than a simple curiosity about sexual expression outside of what God has outlined for us. But like Lucifer’s first questions about love to self, the exploration of sexuality outside of Gods intentions leads to greater and greater deviance from “normal” over time such that the definition of “normal” itself is remade again and again. Eventually the pedophile believes there is “nothing wrong” with what he is doing and it is no-one else’s business. The rapist believes his victims deserve it, and secretly want it, and he derives pleasure from the control (sound familiar) over his victims in the process. Both define societal evils for which both would be jailed if caught. But what is more interesting is that both reach a point where they do not comprehend why their actions are indeed evil. They see them as their version of “normal”. Those folks who are Christians today, and have not reached the point of being a rapist or pedophile, but still think it wise to indulge pornography, or flirtations and innuendo with people other than their spouse, are on the same road, to the same evil, that will cause pain, and eventually death. The difference is that each person sees evil only in the actions of those who are perceived “worse” than they are. At least I don’t rape children, says the serial adulterer. At least I don’t have affairs, says the serial pornographer. At least I don’t look at porn, says the person with great lust in the heart. No matter where they are in the process of evil, they do not perceive it in themselves only in those they believe are worse off than themselves. Part of the danger of the degenerative nature of evil, is that it blinds those engaged in it.
There is only one punishment for evil, as there is only one destination where ALL evil winds up – in death. It is easy to see how a junkie winds up dead. And it is easy to see how a pedophile or rapist might be caught and killed for what they do. But what about a gossip? Or how about someone who is merely arrogant or simply an over-eater? Why should they die for their sins? Satan presents the God of the Bible as looking to kill all those who disobey His laws. He presents God more like his own characteristics than those of truth and love, for Satan has no truth or love left in him. But there is a difference between consequences and punishments. If I run out into the middle of a very busy highway, chances are I am going to be hit by a car. Is it the car’s fault? If I jump off of a very high building, gravity will carry me to the ground, is that the fault of God for inventing the laws of physics, or refusing to alter them based on my own decisions and stupidity? Gravity exists, to pretend it does not, and jump off a building will only offer a few seconds of regret. Love too exists. When we move away from it, we find only evil. As evil is degenerative, it is not content to merely “maintain” itself at some seemingly innocent level. It degrades, further and further into more and more depravity until killing the author of love sounds like a good idea. Evil does not want to be contained by laws, and could care less who it hurts in its endless empty pursuits of self-discovery and fulfillment. Indulging a sense of pride may not seem like much, but it leads to greater and greater self-indulgence – just a quick look at Satan shows exactly where it leads. To diverge away from the source of life can only inevitably lead to death. This is the path of evil.
But the knowledge of evil is NOT enough to prevent or deter it. Logic would dictate that having made this discovery about the nature of evil, one would simply refuse to ever embrace it again. If I know where gossip will lead me to, I simply quit gossiping. The same is true of any other form of evil is it not? Logically it makes sense to simply just say “no” to self. But logic is almost invariably not enough to combat our genetics, and learned behaviors. Saying “no” to one’s self looks like the opposite of fun, it looks painful, ugly, non-desirable. So we say “yes” to me; and the heck with the other guy. Most of us rationalize that by saying “yes” to me, no one else is really getting hurt. But this rationalization rarely reflects reality (say that 3 times fast). Instead we indulge our desires to please self, leading us to make these decisions easier and easier in the future. Much like the hard core drug addict, our brains develop chemical pathways that become habit to us, instinctual, easy, and preferred to the alternative. And very quickly we become the wind-up toys for evil that require little maintenance or encouragement by the evil one. It is natural for us to engage in comparative analysis of evil; in short we gauge evil on a scale that weighs our own evil as negligible compared with the evil of others we know. But all evil leads to the same place, so what is the difference other than where we are on the journey? Knowing how evil works is just not enough for us to defeat it.
There are those who believe they are strong willed enough to decline from doing evil. This might be a die-hard married spouse who despite temptation has never given in to physical infidelity. They may make it all the way to the grave without ever having been unfaithful to their spouse. But upon closer examination, does this reflect a victory over sin, given to them by Christ in recognition of their surrender to Him on this topic? Or is it more likely, that while they have never physically fallen into the trap of adultery, their minds have wrestled with desires to do so, every day of their lives. Modern social norms dictate that masturbation is a “normal” part of life. However self-gratification can rarely be achieved with an “empty” mind. Lust requires an object, even if only in the mind, to achieve its selfish goals. Another social norm is the idea of fantasizing during the act of intercourse. Men and women do not like talking about such things, but engage in it more often than they would ever admit to their partners. In so doing, lust is engaged; love or concern for another is discarded in an attempt to please self. While never actually committing adultery with another person, it is possible to harbor inappropriate feelings, thoughts, and lust on a daily basis that is never seen in physical action by those who believe they have strong will. It is not a victory. It is instead a struggle, and a needless one. What must be changed is not half as much as what we do, or refrain from doing, as HOW we think about it. Our actions merely reflect our desires. If our desires were remade to be holy, our actions will follow suit. If our desires remain impure, our actions will eventually catch up with them. It is not a matter of how strong our will is; it is a matter of recognizing our disease.
Evil is more than a disease of the body, it is a disease of the mind. Evil warps the minds of those who embrace it to believe that what they do is not really evil at all. Evil has a way of rationalizing anything. Most of the dictators and despots throughout history never thought of themselves in those terms. Instead they truly believed that what they did, no matter how horrific it seems to us, was in the best interest of their countries, or people at the time. 6 million Jews murdered in Nazi Germany in the 1940’s and more than one person believed this was a good idea. 6 million more gypsies murdered in the same period and even fewer mourn these deaths today. Yet to listen to Hitler, you would think he was nothing more than a patriot who invented a “solution” to the problems of Germany of his day. We would call him deluded, but examine our own evil on much more friendly terms. After all, we did not kill 6 million anybody’s this year, so we can’t be all bad right? Hitler was not lying when he considered himself a “good” person, any more than you look in the mirror and lie to yourself about your own “good” nature. But all of us are self-deluded. It is a characteristic that marks evil. When evil is embraced it becomes harder and harder to see it as evil. It begins to look more and more “normal”, eventually it looks to us as if the evil we do is actually “God’s will” for us. Scripture might point out our folly, but few consult it to see the error of their beliefs. Instead we open the word to validate what we already think, and evil wins again.
Though it seems unbelievable, there are those who can validate any evil in their lives, by combining various thoughts, passages and ideas from scripture to fit how they believe. Murder is justifiable as self-defense, or to eliminate the infidel, or to protect the honor of God, or in response to another victim of murder. Lying can be justified if it serves the greater good, keeps us from offending our brother, etc. We can break the Sabbath if we are hungry, or helping someone else, or traveling at the time. We pay tithes and offerings only on our increase, if I am in debt, I have no increase therefore I need pay no tithes. Any doctrine, teaching or law that may have been given to us as a gift to eliminate pain from our lives can easily be discarded in “light” of our modernized theology and scriptural interpretation. And as a last resort if the wording is just too clear to dispute, we tone it down, by saying that perhaps the real meaning was lost in translation many years ago by some overreaching scribe who did not copy it down exactly. The net of all this exercise is nothing more than to nullify any counsel that would point out the evil we have come to enjoy embracing in our lives. We do not want rebuke, if it might mean looking at our behavior through the prism of needed reform. It is wonderful to rebuke another, or judge another, or condemn another – but the guy in the mirror is off limits. Evil can rationalize anything.
Self is simply not able to defeat self. We are unable to remove the disease of evil from our minds, or our bodies. We need outside help. The condition of evil is terminal. It leads to death. It is not a light matter or one of inconsequence – rather it is one of life and death. Everything we would truly desire – life, love, fulfillment, compassion, grace, mercy, forgiveness – cannot be found associated with evil. Evil only brings their counterparts. To find life and love we must begin with realizing our condition, our disease is one of the mind. It will require a complete makeover, a complete re-do of how we think. We must become someone other than who we are. We must be reborn, remade, or recreated. The sooner this process begins the better our lives will be. We do not need or desire to wait to put off the cure for pain and death; we need it now, ASAP. We need it STAT. It is our very existence we are discussing, whether to reduce the pain and eliminate the death, or continue on the path of pain and the highway towards our demise. A simple choice, we must have a cure. And the cure is only to be found outside of ourselves and our own efforts. This disease must end and for that to happen, we must submit to our Master Physician and re-creator.
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