Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.”
Some of the Pharisees near him heard this, and they said to him, “Are we also blind?”
Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, `We see,’ your guilt remains.”
(John 9:39-41)The fourth angel poured his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch men with fire; men were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues, and they did not repent and give him glory.
(Revelation 16:8-9)“The ancient masters of religion began with the fact of sin– a fact as practical as potatoes.
Certain theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.
Some admit divine sinlessness, which they cannot see even in their dreams.
But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street.
The strongest saints and the strongest sceptics alike took positive evil as the starting-point of their argument.” (G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy)
We have been considering the source of evil in ourselves and in the world.
God has revealed that our suffering began when our race rebelled against him.
Our culture is in a state of deep denial.
Society makes war on the effects of our Fall, but refuses to address the source of them.
We will not admit that we need to repent, change, and put faith in Christ who frees us from the devil’s grip.
Instead, we claim that there is nothing wrong with us, while we rail against evil and injustice around us.
We view the sources of evil as external to ourselves, and we are convinced that we can fix everything by our own efforts.
As a result, we are not only grieved by suffering, but offended and angered by it.
We become outraged by injustice as if it were an abnormal occurrence, forgetting that we are a fallen race.
We concoct utopian schemes for the perfection of the world, blaming the world’s problems on a particular segment of humanity: a racial or ethnic group, or an economic or political class, or the followers of a particular creed.
Perhaps most tellingly, we are tormented and surprised by our own imperfections and sins, and we think ourselves entitled to a life of peace and goodness as the natural state of things.
This is to be lost in profound illusion.
Thus, our world is involved in a kind of double rebellion.
It not only rebels against God; it rebels against the consequences of our rebellion.
It refuses to honor God, and then it refuses to accept the inevitable consequences of that act.
We are becoming like those sad people in the passage from the Book of Revelation who refused to repent, and instead cursed God for their pains and sufferings.
Brothers, we need to opt out of the double rebellion that surrounds us.
We need to recognize the truth that the darkness of the world comes from the wound within ourselves.
We need to accept our true state, not because we like it or hope to remain in it, but because we know that we will find a path forward only by admitting the truth, the way a seriously ill person recognizes the reality of his disease in order to have it treated and cured.
Christ has shown us the right way to view suffering, both in the world and in ourselves.
Our next step will be to look to him and see how he dealt with the experience of evil and suffering.
But for today, let us acknowledge the areas of our life where we regularly fall to instances of double rebellion.
Then let us plead Christ to free us from our habit of doing so.
