Almost 50 years ago Elie Wiesel was a fifteen-year old prisoner in the Nazi death camp at Buna. A cache of arms belonging to a Dutchman had been discovered at the camp. The man was promptly shipped to Auschwitz. But he had a young servant boy, a pipel as they were called, a child with a refined and beautiful face, unheard of in the camps. He had the face of a sad angel.

The little servant, like his Dutch master, was cruelly tortured, but would not reveal any information. So the SS sentenced the child to death, along with two other prisoners who had been discovered with arms. Wiesel tells the story:

One day when we came back from work, we saw three gallows rearing up in the assembly place, three black crows. Roll call. SS all around us; machine guns trained: the traditional ceremony.

Three victims in chains--and one of them, the little servant, the sad- eyed angel.

The SS seemed more preoccupied, more disturbed than usual. To hang a young boy in front of thousands of spectators was no light matter.

The head of the camp read the verdict. All eyes were on the child. He was lividly pale, almost calm, biting his lips. The gallows threw its shadow over him.

This time the Lagercapo refused to act as executioner. Three SS replaced him. The three victims mounted together onto the chairs. The three necks were placed at the same moment within the nooses.

"Long live liberty!" cried the two adults. But the child was silent. "Where is God? Where is He?" someone behind me asked. Total silence throughout the camp. On the horizon, the sun was setting.

"Bare your heads!" yelled the head of the camp. His voice was raucous. We were weeping.

"Cover your heads!" Then the march past began. The two adults were no longer alive. Their tongues hung swollen, blue-tinged. But the third rope was still moving; being so light, the child was still alive...

For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed.

Behind me, I heard the same man asking: "Where is God now?" And I heard a voice within me answer him: "Where is He? Here He is--He is hanging here on this gallows.."

That night the soup tasted corpses. [show less]

It’s a heart wrenching story. And it makes me ask: what is evil? Where did evil like this come from? And even more – if there is a God, how could a good God allow evil to keep existing?

You’re not the only one asking this question. Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, said starkly: “We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing, all-powerful God, who creates faulty humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.

As a script for the universe, the reality of evil points against the goodness of any God. You’ve probably already recognized this. For many people, the very existence of evil is their #1 objection to God. Maybe you’ve read these before:

• If God is all good, then He is not all powerful. If God is all powerful, then He is not all good. Norman Mailer
• The world in which we live can be understood as a result of muddle and accident; but if it is the outcome of deliberate purpose, the purpose must have been that of a fiend. For my part, I find accident a less painful and more plausible hypothesis. Bertrand Russell
• It’s not that I don’t accept God—it’s the world created by Him I don’t and cannot accept. Dostoevsky
• The fact of suffering undoubtedly constitutes the single greatest challenge to the Christian faith. John Stott
• The only excuse for God is that he doesn’t exist. Friedrich Nietzsche
• The problem of evil...Why does God permit it? Or, if God is omnipotent, in which case permission and creation are the same, why did God create it? Sir William Temple

So – you have to decide:
Either God is not all-powerful—because he does not remove evil even though he can.
Or God is not all-knowing—since he cannot know or admit that evil exists.
Or God is not all-good—since he either created or permitted evil to exist.

So which is it?
Is there any other argument? Either God could end evil, and doesn’t, or He has no power, and can’t. But I happen to believe that God is good. If He is, and evil still exists, then what? Then there must be another answer. And it’s got to be deeper than“either/or.”

Imagine: You are confronted by someone who blasts your reputation. Calls you a liar, cheat, extortioner, blackmailer, attacker, thief, rapist, even murderer. How do you respond?

You defend yourself. You reject the charges. You complain that they are completely and utterly wrong. But your accuser continues to maintain your “crimes.” You protest your innocence.

And now you’re plunged into the playground game saying “’Tis so, ’tisn’t so!”

A no-win situation. The way out? Examine the evidence and demonstrate facts.

Did you know God has been the victim of slander? Called names and blasted away? We know this from the ancient scripture, in the book of Revelation. It says “there was war in heaven.” (Revelation 12:7)

Interesting! Isn’t heaven full of perfect peace and tranquility? So how could heaven, the place of perfection, have war? What went wrong—right there in paradise? What was fighting about?

There was this bloke named Lucifer. And he made a rotten choice. He was the best and brightest angel of all (Lucifer means light-bringer), and he got a bit big-headed about his social standing. In fact, he decided he could do a better job than God. He had the freedom to choose. And he chose badly.

God Gets Assaulted
Lucifer became Satan, also called the Devil. He’s the mastermind behind everything evil, nasty and heartbreaking. This guy wanted to be the most powerful creature in the universe – God. Since God threw him out of heaven, Lucifer’s shiniest weapon of rebellion is defamation.

The Devil projects his own nature onto God—evil, selfish, vindictive, cruel, severe. He says “Don’t trust God!” He wages an ongoing spiritual war, full of lies and deceptions, that is still going on today, vilifying and misrepresenting the truth about God. The Devil claims to know best—and calls God a liar.

Lucifer ended up not only deceiving others, but deluding himself into exchanging falsehood for truth. Right from the beginning, Satan has been lying about the kind of person God is.

God Talks Back
God’s authority got challenged. That, and his very nature of truth and love. So how does he respond?
By demanding obedience?
By asserting right based on divine power?
By eliminating the source of evil?
By killing Lucifer?
No.

Ultimately Lucifer left heaven, after he demonstrated his character and intentions. Jesus said: “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18 NIV). But Satan, keeps assaulting God from Earth, and we get caught in the crossfire. Which is why we get to choose what side we are on – and help God demonstrate his response.

So why is there evil and suffering? Because the Devil chose to usurp God and although his coup failed, his strategies keep going the opposite of God. .

Have you bought into the Devil’s way? Have you ever had the results of trying to go your own way? Choosing wrong instead of right has natural results – just like gravity pulls you down if you jump off a cliff.

But that’s not punitive hostility from God! You know the law of gravity exists. So if you decide to go flying without your parachute, and you fall to the ground – can you be angry at God? Of course not!

Bringing Back Trust
Lucifer did a whopper on God’s reputation. Restoring trust takes time. Lies, deception, innuendo, gossip, misrepresentation – all take time to refute. And the audience isn’t always friendly. Sometimes the world doesn’t want to hear God vindicate Himself. God couldn’t refute Lucifer’s charges by just saying “They’re not true!” It takes time to repair the slander on His character. God has to show His true nature over time, to let everyone choose who to support.

While God wants trustworthy friends, the Devil enslaves those he forces to submit to his demands. Rabindranath Tagore said, “God seeks comrades and claims love, The Devil seeks slaves and claims obedience.”

Who can be trusted? Who’s telling the truth? Who is right, and who is wrong? Is God a cold-hearted tyrant, a divine dictator? Or is God the truth, and a victim of malicious slander by a jealous competitor?

The heart of a good God aches to heal this world of evil, to wipe your tears away and be your friend. But he is God, and because he wants everyone to understand him and love him without compulsion, he waits. “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9, NIV

Think about evil for a moment. What is the alternative to suffering? Sure, God could fix every situation. Stop the car-crash, prevent the earthquake, defuse the terrorist bomb. But then you would never know evil and you could never appreciate safety. You’d never see evil for what it truly is, and you’d never be able to make a coherent choice.

Truth in Person
Why did Jesus come? So you can know and understand what is good. Lucifer’s lies blind us to God, so we can’t see life clearly. Sometimes, we even prefer the lies. God wants to make sure we understand the difference, that we don’t confuse truth and lie, so we can make a real choice. We choose either God or Lucifer.

“I am the truth,” said Jesus. God says that the truth will set you free. Seeing is believing—truth revealed. Check it out—and discover for yourself how God’s reality operates. Experiment with God, examine what He says and does. See how God makes sense, in contrast to all the lies.

Own the joy of knowing a good, all-loving, all-powerful God, who—as He proves the truth—wants to save and heal his heartbroken, deceived, and dying children. [show less]

Have you ever felt the presence of evil in your own life?
Have you wondered about the existence of God?
How does it strike you that God isn’t responsible for the world’s evil?
Does this DIALOGUE make more sense of the pain you see in the world?
Have you ever thought before about Jesus being the living answer to pain? [show less]

Have you decided who’s side you’re on in this conflict?

Dear God,
Thank you for not being the origin of everything that is evil and painful. Thank you even more that very soon you will put an end to all the suffering. I look forward to your return when you will destroy evil and replace it with your goodness. Amen.

About God
The Greek philosopher Epicurus framed it well some twenty-three centuries ago:
“The gods can either take away evil from the world and will not, or, being willing to do so, cannot; or they neither can nor will, or lastly, they are both able and willing. If they have the will to remove evil and cannot, then they are not omnipotent. If they can, but will not, than they are not benevolent. If they are neither able nor willing, then they are neither omnipotent nor benevolent. Lastly, if they are both able and willing to annihilate evil, how does it exist?”

Read Revelation 21 and 22 in the ancient Scriptures.

About Lucifer
The story of Lucifer is told briefly in the ancient book Ezekiel, under the representation of the King of Tyre: “In the pride of your heart you say, ‘I am a god…’ You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God… You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you… Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor.” Ezekiel 28:2, 12, 13-15, 17 NIV Lucifer became arrogant, and it cost him his future in heaven.

The ancient prophet Isaiah added details that explain the self-centred motivation of Lucifer’s challenge to God: “How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star [=Lucifer], son of the dawn...You said in your heart, ‘I will raise my throne above the stars of God...I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’” Isaiah 14:12 14 NIV

Lucifer even had the gall to demand worship from God himself, when God came as Jesus Christ to this world and Lucifer visited Him during the three temptations: “The devil took him [Jesus] to a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour.’ All this I will give you,’ he said, ‘if you will bow down and worship me.’” Matthew 4:8, 9 NIV [show less]