[elimevil.jpg]

Why
Doesn't
God
Eliminate
Evil?

YOU FINALLY DID IT!   You spouted-off so
     much about God's indifference to evil,
     like a mighty whirlwind, He appeared,
standing before you.
   You try to keep your composure.   After all, you
had always assumed He didn't exist--the
presence of sin and evil had always been your
best argument.   Or, so you thought.
   "Don't think I'm bowing to you," you
tell Him, ready to bow, just in case.
   He just looks at you, displaying an unnerving
degree of compassion.

You are instantly reminded
of the Greek atheist
philosopher Epicurus, who
lived between 341 B.C. and
270 B.C.   Epicurus said:

"God either wishes to take
away evils, and is unable; or
He is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither
willing nor able, or He is both willing and able.   If
He is willing and is unable, He is feeble, which is
not in accordance with the character of God; if
He is able and unwilling, He is envious, which is
equally at variance with God; if He is neither
willing nor able, He is both envious and feeble,
and therefore not God; if He is both willing and
able, which alone is suitable to God, from what
source then are evils? or why does He not
remove them?
"

Of course, you're not about to call God feeble to
His face.   So you begin to reason with Him about
the nagging sin problem.
   You appeal to His claims of being omniscient,
omnipotent, and all good, reminding Him of the
moral obligation such attributes carry.   You
remind Him of that verse that says: "God is

love."   He's not just someone who loves, mind
you, He is love itself!

You pause, realizing your voice has been
creeping upward; you're almost yelling at God.
   In response, He merely says, "The Lord is not
slack concerning his promise, as some men
count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward,
not willing that any should perish, but that all
should come to repentance."
  2 Pet. 3:9

Ordinarily, you hate it when someone quotes
   Bible at you, but this is God
   quoting Bible at you, so you
   keep your peace and merely
   say, "Huh?!"

   You go on, and after two
   hours, and twenty-nine
   quotes alluding to a
   contradiction between a
loving God and the presence of evil, He begins to
nod.
   "What do you want me to do?" He says.
   You pinch yourself.
   "Eradicate all the sin and evil in the world,"
you say, feeling like a hero.   "Judge it.   Pour your
wrath upon it!   Don't just stand by and allow it to
continue."

   "Okay," He says.   "I'll do it right now."

He raises His right hand, and just before He
snaps His fingers, you puzzle at the sudden tear
running down His cheek.
   Seconds later, a profound realization hits
you like a water balloon in the dark.

You now wish you would have
let God be God . . .


"Of course, you're not about
to call God feeble to His face.
So you begin to reason with
Him about the nagging
sin problem."

AS GOD'S WRATH is "finally" poured
      down upon this sin-ridden world, you
      quickly realize that you also are part of
the sin problem.   You find yourself on the
receiving end of God's wrath along with
everyone else.

Many "dissertations" have tried to explain why
God passively allows all the sin and evil in this
world.   However, the simple, yet often missed
reason for God's hesitation is: we are ALL
sinners: "As it is written, THERE IS NONE
RIGHTEOUS, no, not one."
  Rom. 3:10

The Bible says, "For ALL HAVE
SINNED, and come short of the
glory of God"
(Rom. 3:23).   ALL
means everyone!
   No one is excluded.

The self-righteous person
arguing for the eradication of sin
is blind to the fact that he/she is
just as much a sinner as anyone else.   That
person is like a criminal in self-denial, who
zealously campaigns for the instant incarceration
of all criminals, and then is shocked when he
"instantly" finds himself in jail.

We are all lost, hell-deserving, hell-bound sinners
worthy of God's wrath.   God's law condemns
ALL OF US: "Now we know that what things
soever the law saith, it saith to them who are
under the law: that EVERY MOUTH may be
stopped, and ALL THE WORLD may become
guilty before God."
  Rom. 3:19

"All our righteousnesses are as
filthy rags."
  Isaiah 64:6

One often hears about someone not seeing the
forest because the trees are in the way.   It is
common to see all the sin and evil in this world
and overlook one's own sin.   Jesus said, "And
why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy
brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that
is in thine own eye?"
Mat. 7:3

How easily we can look at others and pronounce
their guilt, when the fact is we're just as guilty:
   "There is not a just man upon
   earth, that doeth good, and
   sinneth not."
  Eccl. 7:20

   So many of us have questioned
   why God allows the world's
   injustice.   Yet, as sinners
   ourselves, justice is the very
   last thing any of us would want
   from a holy and righteous
   God: "And thinkest thou this, O
man, that judgest them which do such things,
and DOEST THE SAME, that thou shalt escape
the judgment of God?"
Rom. 2:3

Self-righteous blindness to one's own sinfulness
is nothing new.   It has been around since the fall
of man, when Adam first blamed Eve, and Eve
blamed the serpent.

Jesus encountered the same blind denial in His
time.   One only has to remember His famous
words to the self-righteous of His day: "He that
is without sin among you, let him first cast a


"Imagine the shock of
talking God into judging
sin, only to realize, too
late, that you are just
as much a part of the
world's sin problem as
anyone else."

stone at her."   John 8:7
   Sin is a universal problem.   No one is immune
to it.   Everyone is under it's condemning power,
beginning with the fall of man: "Wherefore, as
by one man sin entered into the world, and
death by sin; and so death passed upon ALL
MEN, for that ALL HAVE SINNED."
  Rom. 5:12

Even our best "goodness"
can't save us from
condemnation.   God's law
is spiritual; following it lies
beyond our carnal reach:
"For we know that the
law is spiritual: BUT I AM
CARNAL, sold under sin"
(Rom. 7:14).

"Because the carnal mind is enmity against God:
for IT IS NOT SUBJECT TO THE LAW OF GOD,
NEITHER INDEED CAN BE."
  Rom. 8:7

It is impossible to keep God's law.   Anyone
thinking they are doing "okay" in following the
Ten Commandments is fooling him/her self.   It
only takes one violation, one broken
commandment, to condemn one's self to Hell:
"For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and
yet offend IN ONE POINT, he is guilty of all"

(James 2:10).
   "For it is written, Cursed is every one that
continueth not in ALL THINGS which are written
in the book of the law to do them."
  Gal. 3:10

Therefore, having said all this . . .

The reason God does not instantly eradicate all
the sin and evil in this world is because He loves
us.   He is "not willing that any should perish[.]"

He's giving us time to repent!

God would have to pour out His wrath upon you
and I, along with the Hitlers and Mussolinis of
the world.

However, God is willing to forestall His intense
   hatred of sin in order to
   give you and I a chance to
   repent: "The Lord is not
   slack concerning his
   promise, as some men
   count slackness; but is
   LONGSUFFERING TO
   US-WARD, not willing that
any should perish, but that ALL should come to
repentance."
  2 Pet. 3:9

The whole world is in the same sin-ridden boat,
sinking toward a devil's Hell.   And God is
mercifully keeping the boat afloat, waiting for
anyone willing to jump into His lifeboat--Jesus
Christ: "But God commendeth his love toward
us, in that, while we were yet sinners, CHRIST
DIED FOR US.   Much more then, being now
justified by his blood, we shall be SAVED FROM
WRATH THROUGH HIM."
  Rom. 5:8-9

Friend, be not deceived.   God is holy.   He hates
sin; judgment IS coming.   He will judge all the sin
and evil in this world.   His seeming indifference
is not a result of being feeble or insensitive.   It is
a result of His love toward YOU.

He's giving you time to repent!

You can learn how to partake of God's mercy by
reading God's plan of salvation on the back [below] . . .


"But he said, Nay; lest while ye
gather up the tares, ye root up  
also the wheat with them."
       
                          Matthew 13:29

IF you were to die today, are you 100% SURE
you would go to Heaven?
  The Bible says
YOU CAN BE SURE (1 John 5:13).

BUT FIRST, you must realize that what keeps you
from going to Heaven are your sins, because:
"...your iniquities [sins] have separated
between you and your God,"
Isaiah 59:2.
In fact, in God's eyes YOU ARE A SINNER: "For
all have sinned, and come short
of the glory of God;"
Romans 3:23.

SECONDLY, you must realize that there is
NOTHING you can do to save yourself and earn
Heaven: "For by grace are ye saved through
faith; and that not of yourselves: it is
the gift of God: Not of works, lest any
man should boast."
  (Eph. 2:8-9)   Baptism, good
deeds, church membership, self-righteousness are
all examples of good works that cannot save you,
because, "Not by works of
righteousness
which we have done, but
according to his mercy he
[Christ] saved
us
,"
Titus 3:5.

THE ONLY WAY you can get saved is through
Jesus Christ.   He said: "I am the way, the
truth, and the life: no man cometh unto
the Father, but by me."
  (John 14:6)   THAT'S
WHY
: "...while we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us
."
  Romans 5:8-9

THEREFORE: You must REPENT (change your
mind
); admit that you are a hell-deserving sinner
and can't save yourself.   Call upon Christ, and Him
alone, to save you.   "if thou shalt confess with thy
mouth the Lord Jesus
[REPENT], and shalt
believe in thine heart
[TRUST] that God hath
raised him from the dead, thou shalt be
saved."
  Romans 10:9

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