Is Evil a Reality or a Myth?

Tom:

Thanks, Gary.  You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to him.Our topic today is something that you don’t need tremendous discernment or wild imagination to recognize. All you have to do is pick up a paper or turn on the six o’clock news and, of course, I am referring to the reality of evil.

Dave, our first question has to do with evil as it relates to personal entities. But before we get to the first question, what do we mean by evil? Let me begin with a verse. This is Matthew:6:34Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
See All..., “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” What I am trying to get at here is when we think of evil, the knee-knocking fear that, oh, something is evil, something is wicked.But the Bible doesn’t address it in knee-knocking terms continually.

Dave: Well, Tom, I don’t know that just the abstract word evil causes any knee-knocking, people have their own ideas and so forth.Now if you’re talking about the entities, I think that’s what you must have in mind.

Tom: No, before we get to that, there’s a sense of evil, and this is really the point that I’m trying to make. That it seems to me that it’s just contrary to what’s good. That the Bible talks about you being evil. Well, there’s not a frightening aspect of that. It’s just—it seems to me that it’s something that’s contrary to good, what’s acceptable and so on.The Bible uses it many times in that way.

Dave: Yes, that’s right.So I don’t think people’s knees start to knock at that point generally.In other words, as though evil were some all pervasive force out there about to take over, but when they start talking—and I know you don’t want to get to this yet, but when they start talking about evil beings, evil spirits, then you can get frightened. In fact, that was one of the proofs; I forget the philosopher’s name that he used for a nonphysical dimension. He said if you think there’s a lion loose out in the street that might get in your house, you have one kind of fear. If you think there’s some kind of an evil being, a nonphysical being, a spirit, demon or Satan, that’s about to come after you, you have another level of fear. And he said this shows that man has an innate realization that there is a non-physical dimension that does exist. It’s in our consciousness; it’s built into us.But if we are just talking about evil—

Tom: Well again, this verse, Matthew 6: “…Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Now if that doesn’t send chills up and down my spine....

Dave: No, probably there, Tom, it means the disasters—

Tom: Troubles of the day.

Dave: Trials, tribulations, and harmful events that may occur. You get that use of the word. Often it’s translated "evil" in the Old Testament, and it comes from the Hebrew “ra”—that simply means some kind of a calamity.

Tom: Yes, now we wouldn’t use that term today. We wouldn’t say evil for calamity.

Dave: No, we would not say evil for calamity; we would say the word "calamity." But there is, of course, something else involved. There’s no evil unless there is good. Evil as you said is the opposite of good.That’s where you have that interesting verse. Remember? Back in Isaiah:45:7I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
See All...—I don’t remember whether we’ve talked about that; we probably have.

Tom: Yes we did a couple of weeks ago.

Dave: Yes, where it says, “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.” Of course, the word there in the Hebrew is “ra,” but you can look at it as real evil because God is perfect and He is our Creator. We are creatures, we are less than God, and we will come up with less-than-godly decisions. And anything that is less than God’s perfection is defined as sin. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” So some people say, "Well, there are no absolutes. Do your own thing so long as it doesn’t hurt anybody. But there is a standard which God has set and we recognize it in our conscience. Romans 2 says we recognize in our conscience that there are laws that God has given. But now we're talking about evil—

Tom: Well, before you do that, I want to give an example of a verse that seems to relate to what you are talking about.This is Matthew:7:11If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
See All..., “If ye then, being evil….”

Dave: “…know how to give good gifts unto your children….” Well, I’m sorry, but that’s a good verse for Calvinists, who talk about total depravity and that man is so depraved that he can’t do a good thing. But in fact, he can. For example, Abimelech, a pagan king, who was deceived by Isaac and chided him for it, said "I have done you nothing but good. Jesus commanded people to do good.We’re supposed to do good to all."

Tom: But how can we, if we’re evil according to this scripture?

Dave: It’s a mixed bag. There is a tendency in man to do good. To a little child, “Be a good boy.  Be a good girl.” And that kind of motivates them. They want to please their parents. They want to do what is right, very often for the teachers. Some pupils—

Tom: Not always.

Dave: Not always, but what did we call them? Teacher’s pets. "Aw, he’s the teacher’s pet because he wants to please the teacher." Well, then again, Tom, we could become really philosophical and go into this in great depth, which we don’t have time for, and we would begin to talk about the motive. Well, that little boy who "polishes the apple,"  as we would say, and brings it to the teacher—is that really out of the goodness of his heart, or is there really an evil motive there? He wants to curry her favor, so it’s a difficult topic even to talk about.

But there is a sense, I think, of evil that pervades the human personality. And Jeremiah tells us that. He says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?” And you find evil cropping up where you wouldn’t think it would be.You find someone you had great confidence in, you couldn’t believe he would do what he suddenly does. And there is a selfish nature in all of us. A husband and wife have a beautiful honeymoon, profess their undying love before witnesses and then six months later they can’t stand to live in the same apartment. And Solomon said, “Only by pride comes contention.” They’re arguing with one another. Why are they arguing? "I’m not getting a fair deal out of this." Well if you are going to try for a 50/50 deal, it will never work because you can’t agree on what’s 50/50. Real love gives everything and seeks nothing for itself, but that’s not our nature and so when you think of the murder, the crime, the horror of what goes on in this world, there is something called evil.

Tom: Yes.

Dave: And it can take hold of the human heart. In fact, Jesus said, "It is out of the heart that evil thoughts proceed: murder, adultery, fornication, and so forth." Because that was when they chided him and his disciples for not washing their hands. Now, they didn’t mean they were unsanitary—they weren’t ceremonially washing their hands before they ate, and Jesus shocked them by saying, "It’s not what goes into a man that defiles him—it’s what comes out. Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts," and so forth. And so James tells us that every man is tempted when he is led astray of his own lusts. This is what Jesus referred to in John 14 when He said that "The Prince of this world (that’s Satan) “cometh and hath nothing in me.” Tom, everything is related to something else, but there are many people who think Jesus was really tempted and had to somehow grit his teeth and overcome a temptation.

Tom: Yes, demonstrate His godliness.

Dave: No, he was tested like gold is tested in the fire to prove that it’s gold. So He was tested by having the opportunity to do every evil that would tempt man, but there was nothing in Him that responded to these temptations. So He was tested, He was not tempted. "He was tested in all points like as we are, yet without sin." There was not even a desire within Him to respond to this. But anyway, Tom, I’m rattling on. You wanted to get at something here.

Tom: Well, what I wanted to do is establish—the name of this program is “Search the Scriptures Daily.” We encourage people to get into the Word of God, and I just wanted to point out that when they see the term "evil"—I think in the KJV there are over 600 places where the term "evil" is used, and it has somewhat diverse meanings. It’s not just as we think today. Evil is something wicked—it’s Darth Vader, or the dark side, and so on.

Dave: Tom, let me say something very simple to try and get a focus here. Let’s think of it in terms of moral evil now for the moment. Obviously, you can’t decide what’s moral evil, and then I decide what’s morally evil, and somebody else decides what’s moral evil. When the Bible talks about evil, it’s not talking about one person’s opinion or another person’s opinion. In fact, we all have a pretty good idea of what it is, and evil exists because of God’s holiness and perfection and His standards that he has put in every human heart. So we are talking about something that I think is recognized by every human being, even though a person says there are no absolutes, absolutely no absolutes—and then you follow them around. A few hours later they say, "Let me tell you what’s wrong with this world." 

What do you mean “what’s wrong with this world.” I thought there were no standard by which you could measure right and wrong! Oh, you want us to go by your standard? (This is a politician now, you know: "Come on, I’ll solve your problems for you." Unless God exists, unless there is a higher standard than mankind’s selfish interests that would otherwise dictate his standards, there must be a perfect standard that God has established, because this is who He is! Perfect in holiness, righteousness, purity, justice.

So it’s in our hearts, Tom—we all recognize it, and there it is in the newspaper laid out before us every day, and it comes from the human heart.

Tom: Dave, as you started to say, there is also an evil with regard to personal entities. Let me start with a question we have, and for those of you who are new to our program, we’ve been using Dave Hunt’s book In Defense of the Faith as a source of questions. These are questions that Dave has been asked over a number of years of ministry.

Dave: Now this is not the whole program.This is just the first segment.

Tom: No, right. And the questions are terrific ones, because you put them in your book, In Defense of the Faith, and you felt that these were...

Dave: I have files full of these things.

Tom: Yes, these are opportunities to really address some issues that are important today.This first question: "The Bible blames evil on a mythological figure it calls the devil, or Satan. There is absolutely no evidence that imps and gnomes and gremlins and devils even exist. Furthermore, we don’t need that hypothesis. Everything can be explained without it. Name one evil in our world that man is not capable of committing without any help from the so-called devil or his demons!"

Dave: Well, the man or woman, whoever it was, makes some good points. In fact, the Bible never says that Satan is the source of evil.

Tom: Yes, that’s where they are off here. It isn’t so much their question.

Dave: Yes— "The devil made me do it!" No! I think I quoted it from James: “Every man is tempted when he is led astray of his own lusts and enticed.” And I quoted Jesus, who said, “It’s out of the heart.” Now, Satan, interestingly, evil is... Tom, we could spend many programs on this, which we don’t want to, but it’s a difficult philosophical problem as well as a theological problem.

For example, this person mentions Satan and doesn’t believe that Satan exists. However, the Bible tells us that Satan was, once upon a time, Lucifer, son of the morning. Isaiah 14: "the anointed cherub that covereth." I think he may have been the choir director, I don’t know, but he was the most beautiful, powerful, wisest being that God ever made. And he knew nothing but the presence of God. He grew up in the presence of God!

Now, I’m seeing a smile crossing your face. There you are, thinking Satan wasn’t raised in a dysfunctional home, can’t blame it on that.He didn’t suffer child abuse.

Wait a minute! He was in the presence of God! And there in his heart evil manifested itself. That’s something to think about. And it was self-centered. That’s evil: “I will be like the most high.”I think all evil is self-centered, isn’t it? It starts with the little kids, where you pass out a plate of cookies. Everybody’s grabbing the biggest one—they want theirs first! Well, that’s innocent stuff, but pretty soon, it grows into a selfishness that grows and that bulldozes its way over other people’s rights and even will go so far as to kill someone! To rob them and to kill them, it’s all centered in self. So Satan is the first guy I guess, not the first guy, but the first being that manifested this self. And we have five “I wills” in Isaiah 14 and the final one, “I will be like the Most High.” That’s the ultimate. We’ve often said it’s the impossible delusion! How many Most Highs can you have? I mean, it’s ridiculous, but Satan is a self-deluded egomaniac, and I guess that’s what evil really is.

Tom: Dave, this person that asked you the question—it’s rather doubtful that they were Christians, because from Genesis to Revelation you are going to find verse after verse that deals with spiritual entities, from the serpent in Genesis to demons, and Jesus dealing with Satan himself, the temptations and so on!

Dave: Tom, there is a nonphysical dimension. In fact, (I don’t know whether we talk about it in the book here, maybe we do somewhere else), but you remember Robert Jastrow? Founder and director, for many years, of the Goddard Space Institute and an evolutionist. He said that some of these beings could have evolved beyond the need of bodies. Well he’s talking about some beings could be as far beyond man on the evolutionary scale as man is beyond a worm, and when we meet them, these extraterrestrials out there will seem like gods to us. And then he said that some of them may even have evolved beyond the need of bodies, and they would be what religious people called "spirit-beings." So even materialistic scientists, now...

Tom: And that’s your point here.

Dave: ...now recognizes that the physical world is not all there is. I mean we talked about it many times. Man is not just a body. You can’t explain a sense of truth and justice and purpose and meaning in terms of chemical reactions in the brain and electrical current in the brain. We know better than that. There is a thinking personal being, a nonphysical being living within each of us. That’s our "self." That’s the person; that’s who we are that originates the thoughts. okay? So, Jastrow is saying, yes, there could be beings out there who have evolved so highly they don’t even need their bodies anymore, and they are spirit beings. So when you ridicule the idea of Satan, ridicule the idea of angels or demons, it simply is not only theologically sound, it’s not scientifically sound anymore. In fact, you could also say what a great opportunity for Satan, because we’re trying to contact these entities out there with our search for extra-terrestrial life.

Tom: Dave let me press this—we’ve only got a couple of minutes left, but I want to press this a little farther. He says there’s no evidence that imps or gnomes or gremlins or devils exist. I was thinking about a book, Passport to Magonia, by Jacque Vallee.There is somebody who studied—you know, is a rocket scientist, basically a mathematician, and he studies extra-terrestrial intelligences. But prior to writing the book Messengers of Deception,the book he wrote, one of the books was Passport to Magonia, in which he looked at all of these entities down through history. And his call—now, again, he’s not a Christian—but his take on this is that these are really spirit entities, manifestations of...

Dave: There’s something manifesting itself—

Tom: Right.

Dave: In various forms. And we wrote a book called America, the Sorcerer’s New Apprentice, now called The New Spirituality, and we deal with a lot of this. D emons will masquerade as whatever you want.You want to meet some extraterrestrials? They will come as that. You want to meet some gnomes or elves—

Tom: Leprechauns—

Dave: Or fairies? Yes, whatever they will come as that—and I think there is pretty good documentation that people have actually seen these things, but they are not what they purport to be. They are actually demons, and they are trying to lead people away from God.

Tom:  Not counting somebody’s vivid imagination.

Dave: Oh of course.

Tom: We’re talking about historical, somewhat...documentation. At least people claiming to have these experiences.

Dave: So, what would be the purpose of the demons doing this? They are taking you away from God. "Hey, we’re going to get some other entities! An angel! Angel of light, the Bible says, that Satan can transform himself into, so we don’t consult God. We don’t search the scriptures daily. We don’t go to the Word of God. We’ve got our own "guardian angel," or we’ve got our "spirit guide." Karl Jung, remember, had his own spirit guide. He got many of his revelations from this entity that was as real to him, he said, even more real than a real person! So the whole purpose of this is, you want to believe in extraterrestrials? Tom, in that book we quoted some very intelligent scientists.

Tom: Right, highly educated.

Dave: Highly educated, who believed in these things. They even said, "Oh, I believe their intentions are benevolent." They had no basis—no basis for that! So it’s an interesting topic, and I guess we didn’t get too far, but with your permission maybe we can come back at it again.

Tom: Right.