A Whole New World – NEEDED!

And the grief goes on. In what the Bible refers to as this present evil world, grief, sorrow and sadness goes on and on and on and on – and on (Galatians 1:4).  This time the grief and sorrow originated from my esteemed alma matter, Michigan State University.  Three bright young students were senselessly murdered by a man who subsequently took his own life.

This follows an increasing pattern of similar grief producing events in this country, from the mass murder of elementary school children and teachers in Uvalde, Texas, to the slaying of multiple innocent citizens in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.   Some of the motives behind these unspeakable crimes are known, such as racial or religious bigotry and hatred.  However, in many, the exact personal motive(s) will never be known.

What is known is that each of these acts was evil, no matter how we choose to define that term.  In my previous post I defined objective evil as that which stands in direct opposition to God and His order and design for human flourishing and happiness which we find in the first two chapters of the Bible where everything created by God was good (Genesis 1 and 2).

However, mankind, beginning with Adam and Eve, have rejected God and His order and design for human flourishing and individual happiness, even at times calling it evil and those of us who espouse it haters and bigoted.  We have believed the devil’s lie that we, mankind, should have the right to define for ourselves good and evil, right and wrong, free from any accountability to a fussy and exacting God (Isaiah 5:20-21) (Genesis 3:5).  In such a world, we have everyone doing what is right in their own eyes, and the Old Testament Book of Judges and world history itself demonstrates how well that works out (Judges 17:6) (Proverbs 21:2).

I am certain Vladimir Putin considers it a moral good for “Mother Russia”, to usurp Ukraine’s sovereignty at any cost. Prior to Putin, German Chancellor Adolph Hitler and his followers considered it a moral good and their duty to rid the world of Jews.  In our country today we have many, possibly even a majority who consider it a moral good and even a human right to murder unborn children conceived in the image of God, so that women can have equal opportunities to men.

However, God is not mocked, and has thus given mankind over to our willful ignorance of and rebellion against Him and the natural and judicial consequences of doing so (Romans 1:18-32) (Galatians 6:7-8).  We have fallen far from God’s good and gracious intent in creation into a world of misery and death, suffering the degrading and deadly spiritual, social, psychological and physical consequences of sin, de evolving into shattered, distorted, sin corrupted images of the glorious beings God created in the beginning and called very good (Genesis 1:26-31).

Tragically, all of creation has been impacted by man’s sin, including nature, which God in judgement cursed in response to Adam’s rebellion, such that the earth is no longer the blessing to man as it was created in the beginning, but has turned against man, as seen in all of the natural disasters, plagues and famines that have afflicted mankind since the great flood (Genesis 3:17-19) (Genesis 6:5-8)  (Genesis 7:1-24) (Romans 8:20-22).

These natural disasters used to be called in most insurance policies “acts of God”.  However, we now blame them on global warming and ecological abuse/neglect. I am not sure how either of those could account for the destructive earthquake in Turkey and Syria, where we recently watched as thousands of our fellow human beings were crushed to death by poorly erected buildings that could not protect them from this horrific natural calamity. Truth be told, mankind has nothing to protect ourselves from any of the grievous tragedies inflicted by nature or man that are a result of God’s judgement on mankind’s sin (Amos 3:6) (Isaiah 45:6-7).

Despite all of our technological, psychological and medical advances, despite the present explosion of knowledge and information available to anyone who can hold a cell phone, despite the trillions of dollars poured into research and education; grief and sorrow, tragedy and despair continue to indiscriminately fill this world. Despite our renowned medical and healthcare advances, people still suffer grave and agonizing injuries and illnesses, and the death rate continues at 100%.  We have not come close to eliminating or decreasing poverty nor crime (mass shootings) nor war nor hate nor prejudice nor injustice.  We have no defense against natural catastrophes when they rage against us and indiscriminately kill thousands of people as in Turkey and Syria, and many of inventions that we created for our comfort and convenience (planes, trains, motor vehicles, gas stoves?) end up all too frequently being instruments of our death.

The Bible reveals that as we move toward the end of this present evil world, which could be any day, mankind will grow increasingly evil. Wars and rumors of wars will become more numerous and natural disasters more frequent, with God justly and mercifully putting an end to all of it in a final and fiery judgement of this sin cursed earth and of all the evil works of men and women who do not know and love God and do not believe the gospel of Jesus Christ (2 Timothy 3:1-9) (Mark 13:3-8) (Revelation 6:1-17) (2 Peter 3:10-12) (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10).

To those of us who do know and love God, who have repented of our sin, believed the gospel and submitted to Jesus as our Lord, we have the glorious promise of eternal life, the glorious life with God for which we were created, in a whole new world described in 2 Peter 3:13 as a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells (Titus 1:1-2) (Mark 1:14-15) (Romans 10:9-11).

This is the great and glorious promise that is given by our gracious God to sustain us through the trials, temptations and sorrows of this world, as we set our hearts and minds on things above (where our Jesus is), not on things on the earth (Colossians 3:1-3). 

More in my next post.

Grace and Peace ×