The Chapel - Rediscovering God Changes Everything.

      In order for this to be a problem, then God and evil must actually exist. When we hear of incidents like this and countless others like it, we know in our hearts how horrible they are. We know that such horrors are just flat wrong. Now that’s where things get interesting. For there to be such a category as “wrong,” there must be something also known as “right.” I'm not talking about opinions of right and wrong, but the actual reality of such things. We recoil at a man killing innocent children because it is a senseless murder. But if there's no God, then the event was just an evolutionary anomaly. It can't be wrong because there is no such thing. We are nothing more than random molecules that somehow formed into sentient beings, cast about in a world in which the strongest survive. So what if the weak get trampled? The only way that people have any real value and dignity is if a loving and all-powerful God created us.

     But if we believe that this God is all-powerful, then we are struck with the problem of why he permits evil and why he doesn't do something about it. The good news is that he will. We have to understand that this current world is temporary. We are presently in occupied territory — overrun by a spiritual enemy who is pitted against God and wreaking havoc on the planet. Although we at times feel broken by this mayhem, we are also a part of it. Why? Because, as fallen human beings, we too rebel against God.

     Evil will have its reign but cannot endure. It is only the power of God unleashed through Jesus that we have any hope of rescue. The day will come when this world’s true Ruler will return to fully and finally defeat all evil. We eagerly wait for the day when he rights every wrong and punishes every wrongdoer. God's justice will prevail.

     Why doesn't he do it now? Because some of those rebels are going to turn to him and drink deeply of the eternal life he offers us. His patience slows the clock and allows for more and more people to turn to him. Meanwhile, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:22-23).”