Wherever God is Not, Evil Fills the Void.
by Preacher Jeff
Once, when I was 11, I was riding my bike uphill on a road. As I crested the hill, a large German Shepherd charged toward me, barking fiercely. I immediately put into action what my mother had always drilled into my head; freeze when approached by an unfriendly animal. There I was, still on my bike not moving a muscle and the dog ran right up to me. Right as he reached me, his owner came outside the house as he heard the commotion, and yelled to the dog. The dog immediately stopped moving and barking, but continued to stare at me. The owner yelled over to me, “Don’t worry, he doesn’t bite.” I didn’t answer and continued to not move a muscle. The man turned around and returned back into his house. As the door shut behind him, I began to pedal away. As I did, the dog ran up to me and bit me on my butt cheek.
Many of you have probably experienced or witnessed something similar. Why, because animals operate through instinct. They can be intimidated, trained or otherwise influenced in their behavior, but ultimately, they are operating under somewhat unpredictable principles that are ingrained as a matter of their created design.
Instinct is defined as the “innate, natural tendency by animals in response to stimuli apart from reason or morality.” Every creature on the planet, no matter how well-trained, behaves solely upon instinct with exception to mankind. Man was created uniquely in the image of God. This means that he is not just flesh and soul, but was given the divine-quality of a spirit. All physical creatures have some sort of flesh as their natural component. A great number of creatures also have a soul as their unique personality and life animating force. But only we also have a spirit of divine image origin. When God created the first man Adam, the divine record says, “God formed Adam (his body) from the dust of the ground, breathed (the word for spirit) into his nostrils and he became a living soul.” The spirit gives man’s soul an immortal future in eternity.
Therefore, our unique spirit is what connects us with God. We were created to have fellowship with Him. But sin kills our spirit. Oh, we are still physically alive, but spiritually dead. This is because man’s spirit was designed to operate in connection with God’s Spirit. In fact, Jesus’ favorite term for God the Spirit was the Paraclete. The word is often translated as “Helper,” “Counselor” or “Comforter.” Literally, it means “one who comes along side.” Think of the vanity of using something by itself which was designed to work in tandem with something else. Imagine a drill bit; a drill bit was designed to be used in tandem with a drill. Without the drill, the bit is pretty useless without that source of power.
Now, imagine your spirit; designed to be used in tandem with God’s spirit. How useful will it be when removed from its source of divine power? What is left? Essentially devoid of an effective spirit, one can only revert to instinct. Instinct is selfish, driven-merely by self-preservation. It is why we see natural selection at work in most all of creation. Survival of the fittest is the “morality” of instinct.
The consequences of a culture whose constituents distance themselves from God are clearly evident: Mass shootings, horrific murders, racial tensions, emotional fragility, addiction, devaluation of life, and the like. Of course, God forewarned us of this.
For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, (Romans 8:5-6)
This obvious truth is preached every day by talking head on the news. Quizzically, however, they scratch their heads at the horror that is ever increasing in our world, country and communities. “Why?” they ask. “How can this happen?” They seem genuinely agnostic to the cause of these societal ails. They then begin grasping at any answer that will not lead them to the truth. They point fingers and make scapegoats of guns, mental health policies and legal loopholes. But you could easily draw a graph and see a direct correlation between a culture distancing itself from God and the increase of evil in our world. The real problem stares us all right in the mirror. We are the problem. It’s a heart problem; a spiritual issue of a society disconnected from is source of moral awareness, power and reason. This is the real “problem of evil” philosophers should posit because wherever God is not, evil fills the void.
There is only one good God, the God of the Bible; all others are conjured in the minds of evil men. The real solution is not more laws or fewer weapons or greater psychological treatments. The real solution is to return to God. As we are changed by God, we are better prepared to change our world one soul at a time. Time for the church to get to work.
“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (1 Chronicles 7:14)
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