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RIGHTEOUSNESS Vs EVILNESS. By F. M. Perry, 9/22/01
Today I was surfing the internet reading some
of the myriads of articles about the atrocities committed in four airliners, in
the World Trade Center, and in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. I found an
extremely wise and insightful article by a young man named Glenn M. Miller. Here, I want to make note of some quotations from Mr. Miller's
article, illustrate his points with scriptural quotations, and make a few
comments of my own.
Let us start with the almost universal question
springing from people's lips today concerning the unspeakable atrocities that
occurred on September 11, 2001: WHY DID THIS HAPPEN, GOD? From scripture we read, "For this is the
message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one
another; not as Cain, who was of the evil one, and slew his brother. And for
what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother's were
righteous." (1st John 3:11,12).
The Holy Spirit speaking here through the Apostle John puts forth the reason why
atrocities of this nature happen. They are the "to be expected" deeds of those
under the influence of evil against those deemed to have righteous deeds. As far
as I know, there is no other "reason" put forward in Holy Scripture why man
murders man. At the time of the creation, before Adam committed sin against God,
"God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good." (Genesis 1:31).
After Adam sinned, by the time of Noah, "the Lord saw that the wickedness of man
was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart were
evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and
He was grieved in His heart." (Genesis 6:5,6). Our conclusion must be that the
possibility of such atrocity comes with the human nature which we all have
inherited as the progeny of Adam, the sinner and father of sinners.
"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is
from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does
not love does not know God, for God is love." (1st John 4:7,8). "If someone says, 'I love
God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his
brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen." (1st John 4:30). The remedy for the evilness
and hate which lies beneath the surface in the nature of man lies in the
righteousness and love which is characteristic of God. God offers His love, His
righteousness, and even Himself so that man can be free of evilness and hate.
Simply through faith, which prompts man to trust and obey God, man again can be
"born of God," can "know God," and can through "love" conquer the evilness which
lies below the surface in his nature. EMPTINESS OF SOUL BRINGS MEN TO
TERRORISM. Mr. Miller, in his wise article, says that the
answer to the question of why this atrocity happened is either greed or
emptiness. But he dismisses greed for the likelihood that the main reason is
emptiness of soul. He says, "In terrorism, it is emptiness of soul that seems to
be at work. Those who feel insignificant and petty and unimportant must find a
way to be taken seriously! They are often those who fail to achieve any status,
significance, and recognition from their peers and society (which others achieve
through normal healthy means of hard work, compromise, learning, and
cooperation), or they may be those who do have wealth, but whose heart is so
empty that nothing can help their feelings of smallness. ... And so, they have
to hurt someone to get attention." Mr. Miller continues, "To be sure, the
terrorist has a 'cause,' but this is nothing more than the same self-delusional
virtues of the greedy. They become holy warriors, or martyrs for righteousness,
or punishers of the wicked. It's always the same-treachery masquerading as
truth; Satan disguising himself as an angel of light; humans believing
themselves to be more worthy of respect than God; Godless nations, pretending to
'represent' God's will in their expansion; small minded vandalism, trying to
sell itself as high minded 'holy war.'" "But it's all a lie," Mr. Miller says. "They
are only little men, doing little things, to little purpose. Will this heal
their heart? No, the heart will get more empty and dead, and so the ideological
rhetoric will have to be shouted a little more loudly tomorrow-to drown out the
now louder self-witness to sub-human character: 'They were right about you all
along-You are not adequate enough to be accepted as human.' They cannot win the
war on their hearts at all this way. Their atrocities are-at best- anesthesia
for hearts that need replacing, for they certainly do not accomplish their
ideological aims. Who did they hurt with this act? Only innocent lives. Was
(what they believed to be) the 'evil system' hurt at all? Of course not. In
fact, it will only increase the resolve of the 'system,' engender greater
support for the system's organized activities against them, and galvanize
further cultural support for the system's values and textures. ... Do terrorists
know anything about how the world actually works? ... But the terrorists, no
doubt, are ignorantly celebrating the damage caused by (what they consider to
be) their righteous, noble, and sacrificial actions. They have been able to
drown out the cries of their own personal insignificance and pettiness, by
making noise in the world." Mr. Miller's remarks about the danger of
"emptiness of soul" remind us of the remarks of our Savior concerning the
emptiness of those who do not have God's Spirit within them: "Now when the
unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places, seeking
rest, and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which
I came'; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order.
Then it goes, and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than
itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes
worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil
generation." (Words of Jesus in Matthew 12:43-45). FOR WHAT PURPOSE IS GOD USING THIS WORLD
CATASTROPHE? Some may feel that this is an inane or an
insensitive question to ask. As we have already discussed, some people question
how God can have allowed this to happen. To not a few, this catastrophe probably
has been taken as indication that there is no God all, or that, if there is a
God, He has no special care for human beings. But many of us believe what God
tells us in His word, that He "causes all things to work together for good to
those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." (Romans
8:28). God does have a purpose involving the advancement of "good" to each one
of mankind personally, and He uses "all things," even world catastrophes, to
advance that purpose. For one thing, God's influence for "good"
toward mankind is made evident in the preponderance of "good" in the earth. Mr.
Miller, in his article about the World Trade Center atrocity, points out, "The
same capabilities inherent in our world can be leveraged by good for good, or by
evil for evil. Fortunately for us, the scales are somehow heavily tipped by God
toward the good. ... In fact, it is the sheer preponderance of good that creates
the shock and atrocity force of this act. If things like this happened everyday,
we would not be so traumatized by it. ... Indeed, it is only in a community of
persons trusting one another, and believing in one another's practical
'goodness' that treachery and betrayal can operate." Mr. Miller puts forward what may well be some
classic axioms that describe the existence of evil influence in our world.
"Treachery is parasitic on trust. Evil is parasitic on the good. Pain is
parasitic on joy. And grief is parasitic on intimacy." He continues, "But the
loss is staggering, I personally have learned-the painful way-that the amount of
grief at losing a loved one is directly related to the amount of love and joy
shared with that person. The pain-as great as it is-is never greater than the
amount of love shared and joy experienced. One always says 'Yes, I would do it
over again...even if I knew it would end the same.'... It is sometimes only in
the aftermath of tragedy that we see the landscape of beauty and goodness, in
which this tragedy occurs." The Word of God, the Bible, takes note of the
presence of both good and evil on earth. The good is provided by God, our
Creator, the evil by Satan, an angel rebellious against God. God has created
mankind with free will, equipped for life in the environment of good and evil on
earth. Thus man has the capability of choosing either the good or the evil, of
choosing either allegiance to God or Satan. God reminds us what mankind's
initial choice always has been. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of
God." (Romans 3:23). This is alarming "for the wages of sin is death." (Romans
6:23). And this "death" is a "spiritual death", an "eternal separation from
God." But the gospel of Jesus Christ invites each and every man to reverse his
choice, and with a man's acceptance of the gospel, "the free gift of God is
eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23). As long as a man has
fleshly life there is hope that he will heed the gospel of Jesus Christ and gain
the eternal salvation God offers. If a man dies without the forgiveness of his
sins which God has offered him, hope is gone, for "it is appointed for men to
die once and after this comes judgement." (Hebrews 9:27). The Judge is God, and
Holy Scripture reveals God's wrath is reserved for those who die unrepentant and
therefore unforgiven of their sins. "For the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." (Romans 1:18).
More than 6,000 of God's human creatures have
died in the horrible events of September
11, 2001 in the United States. In the light of the revelations of the Holy
Bible, what has happened to those who have died? The bible reveals that God has
created humans as triune (three-in-one) beings, spirit and soul and body, as in
His own triune image. "May your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete."
(1Thessalonians 5:23). So let us examine God's revelation with respect to
"bodies" first. The fleshly bodies of the dead have reverted
temporarily to the dust of the earth from whence God created them. (Genesis 2:7;
3:19; Ecclesiastes 3:20). The reversion of the flesh to dust is temporary for
God has promised there will be a resurrection of each human body just as there
was a resurrection of the body of Jesus Christ. (1st Corinthians 15:12-19). The temporary
nature of the "death" of the fleshly body is emphasized by the fact that the
Holy Spirit speaks (through the Bible) of the dead as merely being "asleep."
(1st Corinthians 15:18;
1st Thessalonians 4:13-18). The
body that is raised in the resurrection will be changed to what the Holy Spirit
calls an "imperishable" or a "spiritual" body. (1st Corinthians 15:42-44). But the promised
day of the resurrection of bodies has not yet occurred. Today the bodies of the
dead are still "asleep." The non-material spiritual "inner man" or
"heart" of the human, consisting of the soul and the spirit, does not die with
the body. (Matthew 10:28; Acts 7:59). Since the inner man is not composed of
matter, it continues to live after the death of the body in an invisible
spiritual realm referred to in the Bible as Hades (the unseen realm). The Bible
speaks of human souls which have departed the confines of life on earth as
having a kind of spiritual consciousness. This is especially brought out in
Luke's Gospel when Jesus recounted the story of the rich man and Lazarus. "Now
it came about that the poor man (Lazarus) died and he was carried away by the
angels to Abraham's bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. And in
Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment,. and saw Abraham far away, and
Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on
me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off
my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.' But Abraham said, 'Child, remember
that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad
things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony. And besides
all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, in order that those
who wish to come over from here to you may not be able, and that none may cross
over from there to us.'" (Luke 16:22-26). We must conclude that the souls of
those departed in the September 11 disasters are now experiencing something of
that which either the rich man or Lazarus were said by our Lord to be
experiencing. Some are being comforted in "Abraham's bosom" (also called
"Paradise" in Luke 23:43), and some, it is reasonable to say, are in torment.
Although only God can be the final Judge, it
seems reasonable to conclude, because of the warnings of God's word, that the
wicked terrorists who killed themselves and thousands of others in the September
11 atrocities are experiencing at this moment the fires of torment as is the
rich man about whom Jesus spoke. Those who know the terrorists' beliefs tell us
that the terrorists expected to be delivered to "Abraham's bosom" after
sacrificing their lives in their so-called "just cause." However, the Holy
Spirit, through the Bible, reveals that they are now in torment, seeing only a
"great chasm fixed" between them and their expected eternal rest. In all
likelihood at this time they are saying something similar to what the rich man
said, "'Then I beg you, Father, that you send him (Lazarus) to my father's
house-for I have five brothers- that he may warn them, lest they also come to
this place of torment.' But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the Prophets, let
them hear them.' But he said, 'No, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them
from the dead, they will repent!' But he said to him, 'If they do not listen to
Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the
dead..'" Nevertheless, Jesus, the Son of God, not long
after telling us this true story, did rise from the dead. He showed God's power
over death and, in a sense, answered the rich man's plea that someone return
from the dead to warn mankind. But God's resurrection of the body of Jesus from
the dead was far more than just a last chance warning to mankind, it was the
delivery of a gift promised by God to mankind since their creation, the gift of
eternal life in His presence to everyone of faith. "The righteousness of God is
revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, 'But the righteous man shall
live by faith.'" (Romans 1:17). Not only must a terrorist understand he cannot
attain eternal life with God through the commission of murderous atrocity, but
also any one who may become a victim of an atrocity must understand that he
cannot attain eternal life with God merely through the chance fact of becoming a
victim. "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men." (Romans 1:18). We are warned in Scripture that the just
God has His angels pour out His righteous wrath upon evil men at times when He
deems it necessary. "And I heard a loud voice from the temple, saying to the
seven angels, 'Go and pour out the seven bowls of the wrath of God upon the
earth.'" (Revelation 16:1). Is there not indication that the September 11
atrocities are, in the final analysis, a "bowl of God's wrath?" Do not
misunderstand, God is not a terrorist nor is He a terrorist sympathizer. The
terrorist atrocity is an evil work of men manipulated by Satan. But in the final
analysis, in terms of eternity, God allows only what is good and just to issue
from Satan's atrocities. In simple terms, God saves the righteous victims in His
eternal spiritual Kingdom and God renders a righteous judgement of condemnation
to all the evil victims. This is the answer as to the outcome for the more than
6,000 people who died. For the rest of us who remain alive, the
September 11 atrocities are used by God as a "trumpet of warning." Before the
symbolic visions of the "bowls of God's wrath" were presented in the Book of
Revelation, seven "trumpets of warning" were sounded to the world by seven of
God's angels, ushering in symbolic catastrophes much like the "bowls of wrath."
Evil catastrophes like those of September 11 God also uses as warnings to
mankind that Satan is trying to thwart God's plan to save as many of them as
possible. (The symbolic trumpets are sounded in Revelation Chapter 12).
Catastrophes which are "bowls of wrath" to those who perish are "trumpets of
warning" to the rest of us. "The present heaven and earth by His word are being
reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one
day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not
slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not
wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." (2nd Peter 3:7-9). With love, F. M. Perry.
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