Up Close and Evil

This morning the young lady who is the first smiling face that most visitors meet when they enter our office at Pacific Islands University, was met by another smiling face.

Experts indicate that there are two million of these reptiles on the small piece of land known as Guam (here). Because of them the bird population has been devastated. OK, maybe my prejudice is showing, but, smiling looks aside, I think this critter is a pretty good personification of evil. Actually the smile adds to that evil image.

Whether we are thinking of Brown Tree Snakes or other kinds of deadly evils, we tend to think that we are safe. In our home, in our office, in the space where the real me dwells, we assume that we are free of the influence of evil. The snake on the desk reminded me that this isn't so. Evil isn't only out there. It is in here. In Ephesians 2, the Apostle Paul described the reality of mankind's fallen-ness.
  

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest (Eph. 2:1–3). 

Note a couple of realities:

• There is a combination of forces and persons at work here.
• Some are external to us, the "prince of the power of the air," Satan, for instance.
• Others, like our basic nature and our lusts, inhabit the space that we call "myself."
• The implied reality is that we, by our own efforts, are powerless to escape the evil that surrounds and inhabits us.

As I write, some of the best and brightest are seeking to rid our island of this slithery invader. Others are helping preserve bird species that have been eliminated on Guam--often on islands where the brown tree snake has not yet arrived--so that they can be reintroduced once their reptilian enemy has been brought under control. In spite of the best efforts of these dedicated folk, the snakes may win. Evil is persistent.

In the bigger scene, though, a force far mightier than USA Department of Agriculture has promised that evil will not win in this world. Read Romans 8:18-39, and/or Revelation 21:1-22:6. For the moment, don't get hung up on figuring out the details, just rejoice in the victory.

It's Something To Think About.

Listen for the Sounds of Hope

LISTEN!

In our temporary home on, what for us, is the other side of the world, Kathy and I generally awake to the sound of roosters. You'll note that is plural. I'm not talking about one proud male welcoming the sun, or arrogantly assuming that it rises at his command. No, I'm guessing there are well over a hundred of the birds next door. Not only do we awake to their announcement, "Cock-a-doodle-I'm-cock-of-the-roost . . . the-baddest-chicken-in-this-yard!" cries, but often we go to bed to it, and for reasons, yet hidden from me in chicken psychology, all during the day there are periods of intense racket. Using human logic, I figure one of the guys, who lost his cellphone and therefore doesn't know it's the middle of the day, let's out with a crow, which then demands a response from a neighbor, and so the auditory cascade begins. I don't speak Chicken, so I really don't what they are saying, but I can provide some context. Each bird is caged, or tied to a tether, so he cannot reach his neighbors. Everyone of them live with only a few desires: They want to eat. Their owner gives them what they need. He wants them to be strong for what is ahead. They desperately want to get with a hen. As far as I know that desire is frustrated in order to sharpen their lust for the one other thing they want. Each of those birds has a marble-sized brain filled with an all-consuming desire to kill every other rooster on the place. When we look at what is ahead, we know that they will have their opportunity. The chickens next door aren't being kept for eggs (I do know that roosters don't lay eggs), nor are they being raised to eat. The fowl next door are gladiators. They will die in fights arranged for the amusement of those who watch. Another striking feature of my temporary home is the near total absence of birds other than chickens. I've told you in the past about the Brown Tree Snake. It should not be here. The progenitors of the pests who eat every bird and egg they can swallow were brought here by another group with death on their minds. Apparently, a couple of snakes hitched a ride with the military during World War 2. In this cacophonous environment, marked by the by-products of death, a world where the beautiful is consumed by the ugly, and where those bent on death announce their intentions as loudly as possible, is there any hope? Most mornings I hear the soft call of a dove. Exactly how this gentlest of birds has avoided the predation of the serpent invader, I don't know. It's soft "coo" gives me hope. That, and for the past several days I hear the sounds of hammers, saws, and grinders. A short-term missions team is here doing some projects on our little campus. Pacific Islands Universityexists to push back against the darkness. We believe that if we send out women and men who see this sin-cursed, death-infected world through a Biblical lens, that they will be agents of change. They are part of that army who knows that the battle is not won by those who crow loudest, nor by those with the most agents of death on their side. Our message is one of peace in the midst of conflict, life in the face of death, light that overcomes darkness, and hope. Hope. HOPE. It's a message and a cause that is worth our best effort. It's STTA. I think if you read the first 10 verses of Ephesians 2, you'll see that my temporary home is not all that different from the place we all live, planet earth. Find out about how the Son of God redeems our past, gives purpose in the present, and hope for the future, here. One more thing: Got any good recipes for chicken stew?

Spending Time With Evil

I can't say that I recommend it, but I found it profitable to spend a day with evil.

It's not something I sought out, or lingered over with anyinappropriate interest.  Some are interested in the kind of lust, greed, prurience, and downright meanness I saw.  I'm not.  I didn't volunteer, I was summoned.  You can draw your conclusions from that.

 

Though an experience like mine is depressing, disturbing, pity-inducing, and at times even revolting there are redeeming qualities about it.

 

I spent several hours with the human condition in its most awful state of corruption.  Some who serve us have to wade that cesspool on a daily basis.  Officers of our courts, social workers, police officers, jailers, and, I'm sad to say, many involved in our school systems deal daily with the dregs of society and those who are drug through the mire by them.  The innocent are scarred,by the guilty, who go about their wicked business with scarred consciences. The Bible speaks of those who enforce the law as "ministers of God."  After a brief excursion into their world my appreciation for what  they do is greater.

 

Literature, music, TV, and movies often glamorize evil.  The bad guys are frequently painted as beautiful, glamorous, to be envied, sometimes even noble.  What I saw was pitiful, ugly, repulsive, and markedly stupid.  The adage of an old preacher, whose name I have forgotten was born out by the sorry parade I saw:  "Sin makes you stupid."  These were folk driven by lust, blinded by evil, and made senseless by continuing lives that make no sense.

 

Too often we see laws as entities which limit freedom.  The result of the lawlessness that I saw is the complete loss of liberty. And I'm not speaking of concrete wall, tempered glass, or iron bars.  Many of these folk were so bound by fetters of their own making, that incarceration in society's jails will provide a measure of liberation for some of them.

Theologians speak of human depravity, or the totally depraved condition of people.  People who come from quite ordinary circumstances are capable of great evil.
We are fond of saying that there is a spark of greatness in every child.  If one goes God's way, I think that is so.  The evidence I saw is that the seed of evil is in each heart.  It's fruit is frightening to behold (see here).

 

It's STTA.

  

The Face of Evil

SOMETHING  TO THINK ABOUT What does the face of evil look like? We see it all around us, but most often we see it in silhouette, if you will.  In fact, often as we sort through the aftermath of grotesque wickedness, like the law-enforcement investigators in Boston, we see the horrendous aftermath, but we don't see the face that perpetrated the crime.    The fact is, evil wears different masks:  They are found all across the spectrum from the distortion of extreme righteousness, so called, as was the case with evil on that first Good Friday, all the way to the just out-and-out, unadulterated badness, that too often stalks our streets.     The Bible is clear that evil is here.  The Devil is not merely a personification; he is a real, spiritual person, Satan, Lucifer, the Dragon, and he gets around, and gets a lot done.  In the book of Job, he describes the territory he has marked with his foul scent:  "I've been 'roaming about on the earth and walking around on it.'"   (Job 1:7)  In the New Testament he is described as the "Prince of the Power of the Air."  (Ephesians 2:2)--no more localized than the air we breath.  He is not the evil opposite of God.  He lacks, for instance, the omni attributes: omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. He does get around, though, he is cunning and powerful, and he does have help.  His network is so widespread and effective that John says "The whole world lies in the power of the wicked one."  (1 John 5:19)    Not only are these spiritual entities busily spreading evil, you and I, the Bible makes clear, have evil in our core, and in the same way that the physical ecosystems of our world are degraded, the moral spiritual realm is polluted.  (Read Romans 8, and Ephesians 2:1-10 for both description and hope.  An evil tempter, tempting people with a propensity to sin, in a world that is skewed in an evil direction--there is a recipe for a mess.   Carnage, like that in Boston, gets our attention and causes us to cry out for answers:   "Who?" "Why?" "Where is God?" As to the last question, I assert that God is both here, with you, and in Boston.  The Bible teaches that He doesn't take coffee-breaks.  Look here, here, and especially here to see some things I have written after past tragedies. The face of evil is sometimes sanctimonious, at other times on fire with raw hatred.  It often is heavily colored with selfishness.  If you look around the eyes you can detect deception.  Ironically, and in a way that troubles me the mouth on the face of evil is often seen to be grinning.   I guess what troubles me most about thinking of the face of evil is I sometimes see it looking back at me from the mirror.   It's STTA.