Do you ever wonder why this world is so messed up? For many people, the idea that the world is a place filled with so much evil is a reason to NOT believe in God. I mean, if there is a God, why would there be corruption, wickedness, hate and overall depravity? The truth is that all of this evil exists whether you put your faith in God or not! 

Some people say, “if there is really a God, then he should stop it all”, but is this really the kind of world anyone would want? Do we want a world without the ability to choose, where everyone walked around following a predetermined path? Wouldn’t this reduce us to robots? Is this really how anyone wants to live? 

Yet, how do we reconcile evil in the world? For those who continue to say they don’t believe there is a God because of evil, then the question still remains: how do we explain its presence in the world?

The most obvious answer is, “it must be our fault!” In other words, MAN is to blame for all of the evil! While some may blame it on environmental malfunctions or evolutionary mutations, the truth is we all know that it is humans who make choices that lead to the evil actions that cause much suffering in our world.

As a believer, I also wrestle with the concept of evil, but I believe that “sinful” man is the reason. But if I am honest, I still don’t understand. How can man, made in the image of God, become so full of evil deeds? This must have been a question the early Christians asked as well because the apostle Paul, in the first chapter of his letter to the Romans explains how man lost his way: 

21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen

According to Paul, three things have led to man’s descent into darkness. First, although man knows God exists, he chooses not to worship Him but rather to ignore him and to put him on the backburner (“they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him”) Next, man trusts in his own thoughts, his own “truth” rather than God’s truth.(“they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools.”). This rationalizing that there is NO God, leads to the final stage, worship of man himself. (“because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator”). It is very clear here how man can become evil. Whenever we “worship” our own desires, our own ideas, our own “truth”, the slip into evil is just a step away. In short, REJECTION of the creator and HIS plan for man, leads to the evil in the world!

The simple answer is SIN. Because of sin, we live in a broken world. This brokenness permeates every part of our world and the result is evil, suffering, pain.., Sin has disordered us; sin has distorted us and the only answer to this is JESUS CHRIST! 

God created us in HIS IMAGE, but His plan was for us to WORSHIP HIM, not ourselves. To make this world right again, He sent Jesus to help us deal with this problem and to settle the SIN issue once and for all! As we continue our study of the book of Romans, we will discover more about God’s plan to deal with evil in the world and what it means to our daily lives!