The Mystery of Evil and the Miracle of Life

A few days ago a student that I tutor showed me a video of these guys laughing while burning a whimpering dog for fun.  Usually he mocks me for believing in God, but that day he was so upset by the video, he looked at me and said “This world needs a God.”

It was the same day I saw on my FB newsfeed people posting a YouTube video of a helpless man getting attacked by seven people. I didn’t watch it because I knew I couldn’t handle it.

It makes you really wonder. How can people be that evil? What is going on in the mind of people who commit random acts of violence or murder their own children? How could people sell their own children into prostitution? How was it possible to convince people to exterminate an entire race?

That Sunday I remember listening to a sermon by an Apologetics preacher, Ravi Zacharias. In his message he addressed the issue of the mystery of evil and the miracle of life. I found the sermon online and took some notes on the four main struggles that humans face regarding this topic and what our response as believers should be.

1)      Mystery of Human Wickedness

Dr. Zacharias started off by retelling the stories of Susan Smith (mother who murdered her own two children) and Jeffery Dahmer (cannibalistic). The question that everyone asks when they hear these stories are why? Why would they do something like that? These are people who I have learned about in my psychology courses. I remember the professors trying to explain their behavior through theories of reinforcement or personality disorders.

However, Dr. Zacharias explained evil through Genesis chapter 3 in the bible: The Fall of Man. When God first created Adam and Eve, He spoke to them. He revealed His character to them and said that man was good. But at the same time God gives man a challenge. He tells them not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God defined reality, He defined their boundaries and expected them to trust Him.

But the moment the devil deceived Eve to eat from the tree and then Adam, they fell. They fell because at that moment they chose to call God a liar. They wanted to be the ones to define good and evil apart from God.

“Wickedness is governing your life by a starting point of a lie”

From that point on two things appeared in humanity because we deceived ourselves into thinking that we defined reality. Violence and the body began to be abused in sexuality.

Dr. Zacharias then mentions the tower of Babel, the reason that God mixed the languages so that people could not understand each other. People wanted to make of name for themselves and define reality. However, this was dangerous because then people could call what was evil, good and what was good, evil because language defines reality. The Word defines reality.   

Goodness is believing in the truth while evil is believing in a lie. We cannot make sense of evil because it defies language and though; it is absolute nonsense.  What lies are you living with?

John 1 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.

 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

John 14:6  Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

2)      Marvel of Worship

We as humans have a mysterious hunger that the world cannot satisfy. Something that love from interpersonal relationships cannot even satisfy. We may completely love our family, our spouse but there is still a deeper search for meaning.  An emptiness that cannot be filled by anything except God. Only God is big enough to fill the emptiness in us.

Why is it that the psalmist writes that his heart and flesh cry out for the living God? To rather dwell one day in His presence than spend thousands elsewhere. Why would two random strangers hug each other and shout with joy from hearing a hymn acknowledging that God is real?

Worship of the living God is what brings meaning into our lives.

3)      Mastery of Human Will

People who have a lot of money, no longer want more money but power. Nothing can satisfy them. However, where does true power come from?  

Dr. Zacharias shares an example of a time when his daughter was struggling with a deep personal issue when he tried to offer her practical solutions instead of understanding her struggles. He explained that he was distressed when he feared that he had felt as though his power of direction would not be taken. He tried to rely on a power that came from himself.

His wife, however, cradled their daughter and sang hymns to her as she cried her eyes out in her mother’s arms. There was such power within her. Power that comes from a relationship that is bigger than us.

4)      Miracle of Human Existence

We have raised a generation that has released children from the fear of supernatural. Christians overestimate miracles while skeptics underestimate miracles, which is why so many miracles have occurred over human history yet many still do not believe.

“The heart is so determined to follow its own way a miracle will not satisfy”

Yet the miracle that the world is really looking for is not only an answer for evil or life but something that will change the enslavement from within.

Christ is the objective truth that will bring the miracle in your life from the inside and out. The truth that can be known inside and shown on the outside. The miracle of people’s lives being transformed  by this truth. Those who search for this miracle will find it.

Dr. Zacharias then shares two applications for believers.

1)      Live a radically different life

Adam and Eve when they left the garden of Eden moved East. Cain after killing Abel moved East. People from the tower of Babel moved East. Lot moved East.

But Abraham went West. And God gave him everything. Land from the North, East, South, and West.

While the world is moving East, we as believers must move West. Our lives as believers must be so radically different from anything in the world. Beyond anything plausible, in complete contrast.

2)      Learn how to defend the bible

The biggest mistake we have made is that we have not taught our children how to defend the bible. We run around telling everyone that they are living by a lie while we are living by the truth yet we don’t even know how to defend the truth.

We must know why we believe all this to be true.  Why we trust God’s word to be the reality that must define our lives.