Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
Did God create evil? Does God use evil to teach us a lesson, to discipline us, or to punish us? Does God allow satan to come against us?
In this series of weekly messages, we are going to answer these questions from The Word of God. For too long satan has kept the world and many Believers in deception having them believe God created evil, that He uses evil to train Believers, that He disciplines with evil, that He punishes with evil, or that He uses evil for His glory. If satan can get us believing God is responsible for using evil for his benefit or for our benefit, satan knows he can put us in bondage and bring destruction to us. Double-mindedness puts us in bondage and places us squarely in the kingdom of satan where he is god and where he can control things in our lives.
Where does this double-mindedness originate? From wrongly dividing The Word of Truth and believing lies. God teaches us we must diligently seek Him through study of His Word.
II Timothy 2:15
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing The Word of Truth.
Because of this, man has created their own image of God, and they make God fit into this image rather than rightly dividing The Word of God to truly understand Who God really is and understand His true character.
We will learn God has nothing to do with evil, that He did not create evil, He did not send evil, and He does not use evil. In fact, God cannot have anything to do with evil. Jesus makes this very clear when He spoke Matthew 12:24-28.
Matthew 12:24-28
24 But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.
25 And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand:
26 And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?
27 And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges.
28 But if I cast out devils by The Spirit of God, then The Kingdom of God is come unto you.
The two kingdoms cannot mix, nor would God ever allow them to mix. God has no need and no reason to ever use satan to help Him accomplish anything. God is The Creator and The Judge, The Love, The Light, and The Life. God has no use for the destroyer, the hateful, the darkness, and the death. These are anti-Christ spirits.
Understanding The Character of God
There are two rules by which Scripture must be interpreted:
- Every Scripture must be interpreted in the light of the overall Word of God.
- Any picture of God which does not line up with the life of Jesus Christ is NOT an accurate picture.
What does Scripture have to say about God’s character? The following are but a few of hundreds of verses describing Who God is and His will for us, His children.
James 1:17
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with Whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
III John 2
Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.
Psalm 115:14
The LORD shall increase you more and more, you and your children.
Psalm 35:27
Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the LORD be magnified, Which hath pleasure in the prosperity of His servant.
Psalm 72:18
Blessed be The LORD God, The God of Israel, Who only doeth wondrous things.
I John 4:16
And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
I John 1:5
This then is the message which we have heard of Him [God], and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
John 5:26
For as The Father hath life in Himself; so hath He given to The Son to have life in Himself;
James 1:13
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man:
These verses prove the character of God – that it is not evil, and It cannot be affiliated with evil. OTHERWISE, IT WOULD BE A KINGDOM DIVIDED AND IT COULD NOT STAND.
Jesus exemplified the character of God through His thoughts, His Words, and His deeds. We never, ever see Jesus being evil, using evil to teach or to discipline, using evil to harm, using evil to punish or destroy, or using evil to glorify His Father or Himself. Again, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR JESUS, THUS GOD, TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH EVIL.
Where Did Evil Originate?
Ezekiel 28:2, 14-18
2 Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:
14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities [corrupted one third of the angels], by the iniquity of thy traffick [spread your sin to others]; therefore will I bring forth a fire [sin] from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.
The prince of Tyrus is a symbolic reference to satan. We see satan, who was the anointed cherub named Lucifer, was found by God to have iniquity in him of his own free will. This is where sin and evil originated – in the father of iniquity – satan. God cast satan out of Heaven.
John 8:44
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
Jesus clearly lays out for us in John 8:44 that satan, the devil, from the beginning, was a murderer and a liar, the father of all who are unsaved.
Where Did The Curse In The Earth Originate?
Where did the curse originate? Many attribute the curse to God because of wrongly understanding and wrongly dividing The Scriptures. God is not capable of creating, sending, or using the curse. If He did, He and His Kingdom would be a house divided which cannot stand according to God, Himself.
Genesis 3:17-19
17 And unto Adam He [God] said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
God did not curse man nor did He curse the earth. Genesis 3:17 makes it clear because of Adam’s sin, the curse entered the earth. The curse is part of the kingdom of satan. But satan didn’t have the authority or legal right to curse the earth. Only Adam did. When Adam sinned, the godship of this earth legally passed from Adam to satan. Once this happened, satan’s kingdom was in power throughout the earth. And satan’s kingdom is composed of the curse.
If we read Genesis 3:6, we see that Adam came into agreement with his wife Eve when he ate the fruit. Notice Adam never said one thing to satan or to Eve. Adam could have rejected the fruit, he could have asked God, or he could have ordered satan out of the Garden. Instead, Adam in his pride defied The Word of God, and in doing so, he brought sin and the curse into the earth. Don’t let anyone teach you Adam was somewhere else in the Garden when Eve was tempted. Adam was standing right beside her.
How Does The Curse Impact Us Today?
If curses come upon us, it has NOTHING to do with God. It has to do with the Spiritual law of Sowing and Reaping. The words we speak OR WE DON’T SPEAK, AS IN ADAM’S CASE, either invite the curse or protect and deliver us from the curse.
Proverbs 18:21
Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.
Matthew 12:37
For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.
It is our tongues, the words we speak, that either bless or curse us. We will speak what is in our hearts (Proverbs 23:7).
God makes it clear to us in Deuteronomy 30:19 that WE have the choice of life or death, blessing or cursing. God urges us to choose life for both ourselves and our generations.
Deuteronomy 30:19
I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
Originally Adam and Eve were fed from the fruit of the trees. Notice what Genesis 2:16 says below. They would reach up to be fed rather than bend over and down to the earth to labor for their food. This is the result of the curse. This is seen in Genesis 3:18 above. They went from eating the fruit of the trees to eating the herbs of the field. They went from a state of rest to a state of labor.
Genesis 2:16
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
In closing, we can see that God’s character is only of love, of light, and of life. His Kingdom is a Kingdom of love, light, and life. satan’s kingdom is one of complete opposites – hate, darkness, and death. God can’t create evil, can’t think evil, can’t speak evil, and can’t do evil. If He did, He would be a liar, and He would have a Kingdom divided. If He were a liar, all creation, which is upheld by The Word of His power (Hebrews 1:3) would disintegrate as would God, Himself.
Next message, we’ll examine why man wrongly attributes evil to God, why there was so little revelation of satan in the Old Testament, and why there is so much revelation of satan in the New Testament.
Blessings in Christ Jesus,
Larry