Good morning. I’d like for us to consider today a very basic look at the problem of evil in our world. There is an assumption on the part of many that if people are better informed, educated, as to what is the right thing, they will do the right thing. This means that the problem lies in education. However, experience teaches us that this assumption is not sufficient to explain the problem or to solve it. Many people know what is right but they continue to choose to do what is wrong.
Some would say that if the basic nature of the problem is not one of knowing more, then perhaps the nature of the problem is environmental. The reason people continue to do what is wrong is that they have been raised in an environment that fosters the wrong and fails to promote what is right. In those terms we would say that the problem is a social one. Again, experience tells us that there are flaws with this assumption. We see people from all kinds of social and environmental settings making the same wrongful choices and actions.
Some say that the answer lies in applying the proper punishments to match the level of wrongful actions. The idea behind this approach is to say that if the negative consequence is sufficiently severe, people will be forced to avoid the wrong and to choose the right. But once again experience tells us that there are flaws in this approach. To base rightful actions purely on penalties drives those actions underground but doesn’t seem to end them, or even to discourage them in any meaningful way.
Is there an answer to solving this basic problem of people from every background choosing to do what is wrong, something we Christians understand as sin?
To give a more complete answer would take several pages, or perhaps I should say, “volumes”. But I would like to share a thought today that is briefer:
What our world desperately needs is to see the positive results of righteous choices. They need to see those positives consistently mirrored in the lives of Christian people. They need to see the “fruit” of lives led by the Spirit of God. They need to see Christians live what we see plainly stated as the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-25: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
Deal the evil in this world a mighty blow today. Live in a way that reveals the Spirit’s fruit!
Vern