Mankind loves
darkness.
LOVES DARKNESS.
Why? Because their
deeds are evil.
Seriously, how often
do people say they don't want to hear any Bible mumbo jumbo? How often do
people turn their noses up at God in favor of their own personal pursuits? The
answer to both questions is- a lot.
To accuse people of
committing evil deeds because they refuse the light of life in Christ, is to
put a lot of people in an uproar. They are very quick to explain that they are
good people, doing good things, kind to the poor, helpful to the brokenhearted,
generally they are good honest people not lovers of evil deeds. Just because
they don't believe in God, or Jesus Christ for their Savior doesn't make them
evil deed committing human beings. Right?
Wrong.
Refusing to
acknowledge they have a Creator, refusing to acknowledge they have a Redeemer
from evil, is in truth an act of evil.
What is evil?
Let's read from
another source- but make sure you check Bible verses for yourself-
EVIL
ev'-'-l, e'-vil ra`;
poneros, @kakos, @kakon:
In the Bible it is
represented as moral and physical. We choose to discuss the subject under these
heads. Many of the evils that come upon men have not been intended by those who
suffer for them. Disease, individual and national calamity, drought, scarcity
of food, may not always be charged to the account of intentional wrong. Many
times the innocent suffer with, and even for, the guilty. In such cases, only
physical evil is apparent. Even when the suffering has been occasioned by sin
or dereliction of duty, whether the wrong is active or passive, many, perhaps
the majority of those who are injured, are not accountable in any way for the
ills which come upon them. Neither is God the author of moral evil. "God
cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempteth no man" (James 1:13).
See TEMPTATION.
1. Moral Evil:
By this term we
refer to wrongs done to our fellowman, where the actor is responsible for the
action. The immorality may be present when the action is not possible.
"But if that evil servant shall say in his heart" (Matthew 24:48,49),
whether he shall smite his fellow-servants or not, the moral evil is present.
See SIN. "All these evil things proceed from within, and defile the
man" (Mark 7:21-23). The last six commandments of the Decalogue apply here
(Exodus 20:12-17). To dishonor one's parents, to kill, to commit adultery, to
steal, to bear false witness and to covet are moral evils. The spiritual import
of these commandments will be found in Matthew 5:21,22,27,28. "But if
thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness" (Matthew
6:23). Words and deeds are coined in the heart before the world sees or hears
them (Matthew 12:34,35). The word ought or its equal may be found in all
languages; hence, it is in the mind of all people as well as in our laws that
for the deeds and words we do and speak, we are responsible. "Break off
thy sins by righteousness" (Daniel 4:27) shows that, in God's thought, it
was man's duty, and therefore within his power, to keep the commandment.
"Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before
mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well" (Isaiah 1:16). We cannot
think of God commanding men to do what He knew they had no ability to do! God
has a standing offer of pardon to all men who turn from their evil ways and do
that which is right (Ezekiel 33:11-14). Evil begins in the least objectionable
things. In Romans 1:18-23, we have Paul's view of the falling away of the
Gentiles. "Knowing God" (verse 21), they were "without
excuse" (verse 20), but "glorified him not as God, neither gave
thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was
darkened" (verse 21). "Professing themselves to be wise, they became
fools" (verse 22). This led the way into idolatry, and that was followed
by all the corruption and wrongdoing to be instigated by a heart turned away
from all purity, and practiced in all the iniquity to be suggested by lust
without control. Paul gives fifteen steps in the ladder on which men descend
into darkness and ruin (Galatians 5:19-21). When men become evil in themselves,
they necessarily become evil in thought and deed toward others. This they bring
upon themselves, or give way to, till God shall give "them up unto a
reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting" (Romans 1:28).
Those thus fallen into habits of error, we should in meekness correct, that
"they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, having been
taken captive by him unto his will" (2 Timothy 2:25,26).
2. Physical Evil:
Usually, in the Old
Testament the Hebrew word ra` is employed to denote that which is bad. Many
times the bad is physical; it may have been occasioned by the sins for which
the people of the nation were responsible, or it may have come, not as a
retribution, but from accident or mismanagement or causes unknown. Very many
times the evil is a corrective, to cause men to forsake the wrong and accept
the right. The flood was sent upon the earth because "all flesh had
corrupted their way" (Genesis 6:12). This evil was to serve as a warning
to those who were to live after. The ground had already been cursed for the
good of Cain (Genesis 4:12). Two purposes seemed to direct the treatment:
(1) to leave in the
minds of Cain and his descendants the knowledge that sin brings punishment, and
(2) to increase the toil that would make them a better people. God overthrew
Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, cities of the plain, making them "an example
unto those that should live ungodly" (2 Peter 2:6). In the Book of
Isa the prophet, we find a number of "burdens": the burden of Babylon
(Isaiah 13:1-22); the burden of Moab (Isaiah 15:1-9); the burden of Damascus
(Isaiah 17:1-14); the burden of Egypt (Isaiah 19:1-17); the burden of the
Wilderness of the Sea (Isaiah 21:1-10); the burden of Dumah (Isaiah 21:11,12);
the burden upon Arabia (Isaiah 21:13-17); the burden of the Valley of Vision
(Isaiah 22:1-25); the burden of Tyre (Isaiah 23:1-18); the burden of the Beasts
of the South (Isaiah 30:6-14); the burden of the Weary Beast (Isaiah 46:1,2).
These may serve as an introduction to the story of wrongdoing and physical
suffering threatened and executed. Isa contains many denunciations against
Israel: against the Ten Tribes for following the sin introduced by Jeroboam the
son of Nebat; and the threatening against Judah and Benjamin for not heeding
the warnings. Jeremiah saw the woes that were sure to come upon Judah; for declaring
them, he was shut up in prison, and yet they came, and the people were carried
away into Babylon. These were the evils or afflictions brought upon the nations
for their persistence in sin. "I form the light, and create darkness; I
make peace, and create evil; I am Yahweh, that doeth all these things"
(Isaiah 45:7). These chastisements seemed grievous, and yet they yielded
peaceable fruit unto them that were exercised thereby (Hebrews 12:11).
David Roberts Dungan
The bottom line-
evil is many things, deeds of evil are equally of many variations. Keeping
ourselves separated from God is evil.
Our Creator created
us to be a part of Him. When we
willingly choose to be apart from Him we are choosing darkness. Why would we
willingly choose to keep ourselves apart from God? Because we have the belief
in us that we don't need God, that we are self-sufficient.
Joh 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.
Joh 3:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to
condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
Joh 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned:
but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in
the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Joh 3:19 And this is the condemnation, that light is
come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their
deeds were evil.
If we refuse light
on any grounds, we are choosing condemnation.
Many willingly
choose condemnation boasting to themselves proudly they've no need of God. They
pride themselves on being above the God professing believers, and their ways
better being all inclusive in ways God is not. They embrace all evil, rather
than desiring people being saved from evil. They call evil good and have
convinced many that it is so. Rather than shunning anything in our nature they
tell us to embrace ourselves and our nature so we do not have to feel the
weight of guilt for being born with evil tendencies, with the easy temptation
to evil in our very core. Rather than recognizing how extreme our separation
from God has become, we are encouraged to shun God, or to believe that God
would never shun our evil selves, that He accepts our evil without constraint.
Yes, mankind loves
its darkness, and therefore they reject the light.
Are those who
believe in the light superior to those who don't? No, not in a single way.
There is no superiority in us, not a bit. We are not better than those who love
darkness. We are blessed beyond measure, not better. There is NOTHING in us
that deserves better than any other. Nothing. I am not better because I
believe. I am humbled, grateful eternally, and saddened by those who choose
darkness over light.
Please, Father God,
please, we would choose the Light of Life- Jesus Christ our Lord, our Savior.
Please shine upon all the darkness in our lives and helps us to repent and seek
Your forgiveness. Please save us from ourselves, please. Let YOUR light shine
in us in all ways, in any way so that others will want to know YOU, the true
God, the true Savior, the true Spirit of God.
Please.
In the name of Jesus
Christ our Lord, now and forever!!!!!!!
Amen.
