Dear Church,

Much like in our current time, the riches, prosperity, health and good fortune that evil people enjoy and the lack of God’s judgment upon them is a lament found throughout the Old Testament, e.g. Job 21:7, Psalm 73, Jeremiah 12:1-2, Habakkuk 1:2-4, etc. How does a loving, righteous and just God allow evil to flourish and thrive while at the same time the righteous and godly suffer? Why doesn’t God do something about the problem of evil in the world?

In our carnal natures, we want God to mete out punishment and justice on evil and wicked people on our timetable and in a manner to our satisfaction. The more thorough, humiliating, public and final these judgments become, all the better in our opinion. Most of the time when people ask God to judge evil, we think of the injustices being done against ourselves, our family, our friends, the church, other Christians and God himself. But what if God embarked upon a campaign of eradicating evil from the world by first starting with you and me? “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23. Needless to say, when we think about the problem of evil in the world, we often start by pointing a finger at others rather than looking at the evil and sin that we commit as if to say other people’s sins are definitely greater and more egregious than our sins and deserving of God’s judgment, but we instead somehow deserve God’s love, grace and mercy. We’d rather God deal with the splinters in the eyes of others rather than the planks that are in our eyes. This is not to say that we are to hang our heads in futility and simply resign ourselves to the notion that the sins of the world, the flesh and the devil are necessary evils. No, continually growing in faith and likeness of Jesus Christ in our thoughts and deeds, i.e. sanctification, is a necessary process for the Christian believer. As Christians we are to condone what is good and actively resist the evil within ourselves, society and with the world.

Why does God permit evil to persist in the world? The answer to that question can be found in the cross of Jesus Christ during His first coming. God is long suffering, not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:8-9), so He has provided the cross of Jesus Christ to reconcile us to Him. God has already dealt with the problem of evil in the world! Why does God delay in judging the wicked of this world? That will be addressed during Jesus’ second coming and at a time according to God’s own will. At that time all of those who refused God’s invitation and gift of grace and mercy for the forgiveness of their sins via Jesus’ atoning sacrifice on the cross will receive the due penalty that their sins deserve: Jesus paid the penalty for the sins of Christians but everyone else will eternally pay for their own sins. That is a hard reality.

As faithful men and women of Christ we are to proclaim the Gospel to a fallen world and wait patiently for His kingdom to come and His will to be done regardless of how long that may take or how that may unfold.

Blessings,
Rick