The Problem of Evil

Psalm 51 reflects the writer's desire to be clean before God:
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from Your presence, And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.

The Bible says in Jeremiah 17:  9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? 10 I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings.   As humans, we were born with a propensity to sin.   It's in our spiritual DNA, and the curse can only be reversed through an injection of the presence of Christ.   He is our redeemer and He will enable us to walk in victory over the power of sin.   We also have to be careful not to allow sins to build up within our souls - since God wants us to be clean and has provided us the tools to do so, we can release the power of confession in order to experience His cleansing power. 

Out of almost 7 million visits, the King James Bible Online determined the most viewed Bible verse of 2012.  And, it just might surprise you.

It's not Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."  That was number 2.

Or, John 3:16 - that placed third.

The most popular Bible passage is Psalm 23:4, which reads: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

God certainly doesn't want us to walk in fear of evil, or anything else - the Bible tells us that He has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.   So, how do we deal with the problem of evil?

For one thing, we have to recognize that evil exists.  In a relativistic, "anything goes", culture, that can be a problem for some people.

We also have to call evil what God calls evil.   The Bible is full of references to what displeases God.   Evil is external, in the fallen world around us.   We resist the external evil, without fear.  

And, evil is internal, within us - within our hearts and minds - and we have to deal with the sin nature by appropriating the resources of Christ, who died and rose again to defeat the power of sin.   And, the Bible tells us to confess our past sins, realizing He is faithful and just to forgive us.   God wants us to be clean before Him and to walk in holiness.

That was apparently a desire of Sir Isaac Newton, a scientist whose personal journey at the age of 19 reveals 57 wrongdoings - Newton's "secret sins", if you will, found in what is called the Fitzwilliam notebook.
Some examples, from the MentalFloss.com website:

• “Eating an apple at Thy house.”

• “Peevishness at Master Clarks for a piece of bread and butter.”

 • “Stealing cherry cobs from Eduard Storer” and

• “Denying that I did so.”

• “Threat[e]ning my father and mother Smith to burne them and the house over them.”

• “Wishing death and hoping it to some.”

• “Striking many.”

Newton had a high regard for the Sabbath at this stage of his life, too, confessing these sins:

• “Making a feather while on Thy day.”

• “Denying that I made it.”

• “Making a mousetrap on Thy day.”

You could say that Newton was a bit, persnickety, about keeping clean before the Lord, but in this age where sin is redefined or relegated to second-tier status, and the pendulum has swung toward grace, we can be challenged to integrate a healthy view of sin into our consciousness.   We can go to extremes and concentrate too much on our sinfulness OR concentrate too little, and allow sin to separate us from the fulness that God wants to bring in our lives.   Sin is evil, evil within us, and God wants us to experience His freedom and forgiveness.