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Our Mission: Revelation 14:6-12
The Moment of Truth - Lesson 4
Why
Does Evil Exist?
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Welcome to this lesson! Let us ask God to assist us:
Our Heavenly Father,
Why does evil exist? Why do suffering and death dominate on this planet?
Will we be forever captive within a world where everything goes from bad to worse day
after day?
We ask you to guide us in the study of Your Word, that we might find answers to all these
questions.
This is our prayer, in Jesus Christ.
Amen.
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Job 3:20-22
Why is light given to him who is in misery, and life to the bitter of soul, who long for death, but it does not come, and search for it more than hidden treasures; who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad when they can find the grave?
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Job was neither the first nor the last to address this famous
question to God: «Why does evil exist?»
Another popular form of this question is: «If God exists, why is the world full of all
kinds of evils?»
In this lesson, we will search the Scriptures to find the origin of evil.
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Ezekiel 28:12-14
Son of Man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and say
to him,
«Thus says the Lord God: "You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and
perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your
covering. (...)
You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; you were on the holy mountain
of God."»
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God is speaking to a cherub, that is, a mighty angel who was
already living in Eden.
We can see from the above text that God had entrusted this angel with great
responsibilities from the beginning.
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Ezekiel 28:15-17
You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till
iniquity was found in you.
By the abundance of your trading you became filled with violence within and you sinned.
(...)
Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of
your splendor.
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This angel called Lucifer, which means «light bearer», was
created perfect. Please note that God did not create a devil.
One day, Lucifer, for an inexplicable reason, let pride seize him, and a mad ambition
rushed to his mind: to take the place of God Himself!
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Isaiah 14:12-14
How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!
How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in
your heart:
«I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also
sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend
above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.»
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Rebellion invaded Lucifer's heart, and he became Satan, which
means «Adversary».
He then succeeded in leading a third of the angels to rebel too...
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Revelation 12:7-9
And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought
against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor
was a place found for them in heaven any longer.
So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who
deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
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Openly declaring war on God, Satan was expelled from heaven, with
the angels whom he deceived.
But what became of them on the earth?
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Isaiah 14:12
How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!
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Luke 10:18
And [Jesus] said to them: «I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.»
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Revelation 12:12
Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, with great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.
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Satan's fall to the earth was not announced as a blessing for those who dwell on this little blue planet...
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Genesis 3:1-5
And [the serpent] said to the woman,
«Has God indeed said, "You shall not eat of every tree of the garden"?»
And the woman said to the serpent,
«We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is
in the midst of the garden, God has said, "You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch
it, lest you die."»
And the serpent said to the woman,
«You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be
opened, and you will be like God.»
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As soon as he reached earth, Satan undertook to deceive the human race.
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Genesis 3:6
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it
was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and
ate.
She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.
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Man's happiness was linked to his obedience to God.
But God did not want a forced obedience: so He allowed man the freedom to follow the way
he preferred. However He gave him a serious warning about the consequences of his choice.
Alas! Satan deceived him in spite of that warning, and got him to disobey.
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2 Corinthians 4:3,4
But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.
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John 12:31
Jesus said, «Now the ruler of this world will be cast out.»
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«The god of this age», «the ruler of this world»... This is
how the Bible describes Satan.
When man chooses to believe Satan instead of God, he establishes Satan as prince of this
world.
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Luke 4:5-7
Then the devil, taking [Jesus] up on a high mountain, showed Him
all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And he said to Him,
«All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me,
and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be
Yours.»
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John 18:36
Jesus answered, «My kingdom is not of this world.»
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Jesus and Satan agree on this point: after the disobedience of Adam and Eve, the kingdoms of this world became Satan's property!
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John 8:44
You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father
you want to do.
He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no
truth in him.
When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of
it.
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Remember that Satan promised Eve that by disobeying God, she
would not die but on the contrary she would become as a god.
The first couple chose to believe Satan.
And what were the consequences of such a choice for the whole human race...?
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Genesis 3:22,23
Then the Lord God said,
«And now, lest [the man] put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and
live forever» - therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the
ground.
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1 John 3:4
Sin is lawlessness.
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Stained by sin, that is transgression of the divine law, man lost
the privilege of living in God's presence.
And since God is the only source of life, therefore man also lost the right to eternal
life.
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Isaiah 59:1,2
Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save;
nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear.
But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face
from you, so that He will not hear.
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Sin's most serious consequence is the end of the intimate
relationship that existed between God and man before the Fall.
Sin, by staining man, made him unable to bear God's glory, and therefore to survive in His
presence.
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Genesis 3:16
To the woman [God] said,
«I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth
children; your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.»
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Let us take good note of this: God had created man and woman
equal.
Unfortunately, the entry of sin into the world gave man dominance over woman. That
domination would be outrageously misused throughout history.
Sin also made the human race subject to suffering, another appalling consequence of the
first couple's choice.
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Genesis 3:17,18
Then to Adam [God] said,
«Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I
commanded you, saying, "You shall not eat of it":
Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.»
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Nature was also marked by the appearance of sin.
The soil no longer cooperated so easily with man. Many beasts became wild. The planet
became hostile with its storms, earthquakes, and other disasters.
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Isaiah 1:4-6
Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of
evildoers, children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked to
anger the Holy One of Israel. (...)
The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints. From the sole of the foot even to the
head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores.
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To choose sin also meant to choose suffering in all its forms: physical suffering, psychological suffering, spiritual suffering...
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Job 2:7
Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.
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Luke 13:16
The Lord said, «So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound - think of it - for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?»
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Let's carefully review these verses: who, then, is ultimately responsible for the suffering here on earth? God or Satan?
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Genesis 2:16,17
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying,
«Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.»
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Romans 5:12
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned...
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God did not lie to man: the entry of sin into the world made the human race subject to death, and deprived us of eternal life.
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James 1:15
And sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.
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Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death.
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Created perfect by God's hands, Adam, stained by sin, died at 930
years of age (Genesis 5:5).
However, sin rapidly weakened the human body, decreasing its lifespan.
This deterioration was so marked that the psalmist wrote: «The days of our lives are
seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years...» (Psalm 90:10)
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Deuteronomy 32:4-6
[God] is the rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are
justice, a God of truth and without injustice; righteous and upright is He.
They have corrupted themselves; they are not His children, because of their blemish: a
perverse and crooked generation.
Do you thus deal with the Lord, O foolish and unwise people? Is He not your Father, who
bought you?
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God is our Creator, our Father, and our Friend.
If everything goes so badly in the world, we cannot and must not blame Him for this sad
situation.
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Proverbs 19:3
The foolishness of a man twists his way, and his heart frets against the Lord.
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Job 34:12
Surely God will never do wickedly.
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Satan is really wily: not only did he plunge the human race into a world of darkness, of suffering and death, but he has also succeeded in making millions of people believe that God, rather than he, is responsible for all their misfortunes.
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Ezekiel 18:23,32
«Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?»
says the Lord God, «and not that he should turn from his ways and live?» (...)
«For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,» says the Lord God. «Therefore
turn and live!»
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God sincerely deplores man's choice to believe Satan's lies
rather than follow the path He showed him, leading to eternal life.
However God still loves each one of us, and a plan to re-establish the situation has been
provided for us. This plan will be the subject of our next lesson.
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1 John 5:19
And the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.
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2 Corinthians 11:14
And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.
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Satan does not match the description made to scare children, with
two horns, a tail and a pitchfork...
No, Satan is an intelligent and very powerful angel. He knows quite well that he will
control us more easily if we don't believe that he exists.
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1 Peter 5:8
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
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God is not our enemy, Satan is not our friend.
Satan knows that he has a short time, and his only goal is to destroy as many people as
possible.
We can be sure of this: he has a specially designed trap to spring on each one of us, a
trap with bait specifically aimed at our own individual weaknesses, a trap able to keep us
away from God until it is too late.
If we do not discern his efforts, he will definitely conquer us.
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Ephesians 6:11,14-17
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand
against the wiles of the devil. (...)
Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of
righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery
darts of the wicked one.
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
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Only this armor will give us the victory over our enemy, Satan.
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1 John 4:8
God is love.
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As this lesson is drawing to its close, you may ask yourself:
«Why didn't God destroy Satan from the beginning, to avoid the entry of sin into the
world?»
Because the basis of God's government is love.
If God had destroyed Satan immediately, His creation would then have served Him out of
fear: so God chose to allow everyone the time to measure the consequences of Satan's
rebellion.
Fortunately, the experiment will soon come to a conclusion...
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Romans 16:20
And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.
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Nahum 1:9
Affliction will not rise up a second time.
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The experiment is conclusive: sin results in desolation,
suffering and death.
It is therefore with the whole Universe's consent that God will soon destroy every trace
of sin, as well as Satan himself.
This will have been a painful experience for all of us, especially for God, but necessary
in order to guarantee that evil will not appear a second time.
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Let us thank God for His presence during this lesson:
Father,
How comforting it is to understand that even if Satan dominates this world, You will soon
put an end to evil here on earth.
Please open our eyes, that we may see the one who is really responsible for our
misfortunes, that we may understand that Satan is always trying to keep us away from You
by all means, so as to lead us into eternal destruction.
Keep us close to You, in Jesus Christ.
Amen.
The test of Lesson 4 is
waiting for you!