How did evil begin?
We have become very used to seeing evil around us and hearing of evil things that we are almost immune to its full impact. Everywhere there is lying and cheating, fightings, guns, cruelty, disease, sadness and death. Often these themes form the story lines in books, drama and especially on social media where truth is not important. Sometimes we do not even know what is truth and do not have any means of checking out what we are told. Which images are for real? Which are faked to make a good story? Which headlines bear the truth?
If we do not see any way to verify what is presented to us, maybe the greater question we should ask is, how and where did it all begin?
It was not on this earth. Believe it or not evil began in heaven where God dwells. In heaven there was a very powerful angel who was close to God, and worked for God. He was a being of beauty and music and precious stones were his covering. He became lifted up and proud of himself and his important position. His name was Lucifer. And angels including Lucifer are spirit beings.
There are laws in heaven and he had broken them. Breaking God’s law is sin, and the wages of sin is death. Gradually he took more and more pride in himself and in his role in heaven. Soon he began a more open campaign in heaven to bring other angels to his way of thinking. He began to say I will be like God. He wanted the authority of God without the compassion. He wanted a world to rule.
He was eventually thrown out of heaven. There was war between Jesus and the good angels and Lucifer and his angels. He was overcome in this war and quarantined to our earth. He took a third of the angels of heaven with him. And now they hated God as Lucifer did. Adam and Eve had been warned of his presence. They were not to touch the tree of the knowledge of Good and evil.
Lucifer means a ‘bearer of light’, just as he was when he stood beside the throne of God and sparkled as he reflected God’s light. But he wanted to have his own light, and his own world and make his own laws. We can see his influence in the bling and sparkly clothing and jewellery, to make something of ourselves – a pale tawdry equivalent of how things were in heaven.
In heaven he was a musician. In our world he uses music as an influencer. Some is seedy, some inspires to evil. How many places are there where piped music is not being played to affect our senses?
We can see his desire to control. He wants to rule the world, to have unity among his followers here. There is nothing of care or love or compassion. He uses only force and pressure, either subtle or blatant. In fact Jesus warned us who live today, for the whole Bible is written for our understanding, that he was a murderer from the beginning and there is no truth in him. He did not stay in the truth of Jesus who said I am the way the truth and the life. Satan brings death and destruction and deceit.
Why did God not kill him immediately? Much of God’s dealings with Satan, the adversary, the enemy, is for the benefit of the angels who still remain in heaven. They had heard Satan’s campaign of subversion, and although they might have chosen for God straightaway, they did not see the great outworking. They might have wondered to themselves – what if Satan did have ideas that God could have taken into account? But when they saw Satan arranging the death of Jesus on the Cross they were completely shocked and distraught. Now they knew what Satan’s proud words were all leading to. They knew now that this fallen angel will stop at nothing to hurt Christ and be his own authority. And if we think about it, with understanding, we can see there is no excuse for evil. It cannot be explained, but it turns all goodness upside down and makes void God’s law, the Ten Commandments.
Jesus God is the Creator of all things, and in the 4th commandment Jesus points to the power of God in making something out of nothing. At the heart of the Ten Commandments is the Seventh-day Sabbath pointing to Creation week. Satan is trying to do away with this. He has introduced the theory of evolution, and instead of God’s Sabbath day, a day of unity and family activities on a Sunday. One day very soon the great showdown will take place and the Sabbath will become the sign of the those who honour God, and give glory to Him as the ruler of all, who law still stands in full force.
These are things with cosmic concerns and are what the Bible reveals little by little through its pages. The appeal from haven is for any who are dabbling with Satan’s philosophy of life and worship, to ‘Come out!’ and Come away! and stand clean on behalf of God. That is our only safety, and the only way we can show our love for God.