In The Face Of Evil Series

Luke 23:1-5 [ESV]

1Then the whole company of them arose and brought him before Pilate. 2And they began to accuse him, saying, "We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute [TAXES] to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king." 3And Pilate asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" And he answered him, "You have said so." 4Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, "I find no guilt in this man." 5But they were urgent, saying, "He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee even to this place."

This just stinks, doesn’t it? How can this be happening to Jesus? It is just NOT right! What did He do? Why would they lie? Why does it seem that bad guys get away with hurting the innocent all the time? Have you ever thought that… about how the bad guy seems to gets away with everything here in our world?

We all know that in the movies, bad guys do bad things to good people or to innocent people but we don’t fret much because we KNOW that in the end the good guy is going to stop the bad guy and the bad guy is going to get what is coming to him or her.

But in life, it doesn’t work that way does it? We see the bad doing what they want, and the good suffering because of it… and there is NOTHING done about it! Many of us want to cry out to God, “God! That’s not right! That’s NOT fair!”… don’t you? But is this something new? When we look at Scripture… we can see that this has been something believers have dealt with for a long, long time… look what the psalmist wrote thousands of years ago: Ps 73:2-17 [ESV] [read aloud…]

2But as for me, my feet almost slipped; my steps nearly went astray. 3For I envied the arrogant; I saw the prosperity of the wicked. 4They have an easy time until they die, and their bodies are well-fed. 5They are not in trouble like others; they are not afflicted like most people. 6Therefore, pride is their necklace, and violence covers them like a garment. 7Their eyes bulge out from fatness; the imaginations of their hearts run wild. 8They mock, and they speak maliciously; they arrogantly threaten oppression. 9They set their mouths against heaven, and their tongues strut across the earth. 10Therefore His people turn to them and drink in their overflowing waters. 11They say, "How can God know? Does the Most High know everything?" 12Look at them, the wicked! They are always at ease, and they increase their wealth. 13Did I purify my heart and wash my hands in innocence for nothing? 14For I am afflicted all day long, and punished every morning. 15If I had decided to say these things [aloud], I would have betrayed Your people. 16When I tried to understand all this, it seemed hopeless 17until I entered God's sanctuary. Then I understood their destiny.

To be totally honest with you, I get so frustrated with seeing what I see in life and who gets away with what… but what I have found is that our problem with this particular situation is one of perspective! We cannot see the entire picture… we don’t know the backstory, and we certainly don’t know what eternity holds for these people…

From our perspective, we want what we want… we have to understand our limitations. You see, we tend to want everything wrapped up in a tidy little package where we can SEE everything and understand everything… but it just doesn’t work that way, does it?

We can know that everything is NOT going to be wrapped up in an hour or in a couple of hours…like the TV or the movies. In life, it seems to us a lot of the time that evil is winning, and NOTHING we do matters. So what’s the use? Well the psalmist felt that same way and until He entered the Sanctuary of God…and he realized the destination of the evil.

You know when we think about the EVIL in this world and how it SEEMS to us that EVIL is winning, and how many innocent and good people have been hurt and are continually being hurt by bad people…we get mad! Especially when one of those ‘good’ people is US… We want Jesus to ride in like the cavalry… like the good guys in white hats… we want Him to come in and just wipe EVIL out… we want God to obliterate EVIL and all the bad people who hurt innocent and good people…

But when we think like that, our perspective is off and we need to go BACK to this chapter in Luke… and we need to see what Jesus dealt with… and we need to realize that God is in control. We may not SEE God’s hand, we may not feel like God is in control, but we have to learn to trust that God is in control… we have to learn to trust the Father as Jesus trusted Him…