We have asked the question, “If God’s so good, why does evil exist?”

Last week, having determined that God is all good and all powerful, yet evil exists, we sought to understand why our good and powerful God allows evil to exist in our world.

We looked at four profound realities:
1. God did not create evil, but He created the potential for evil.
2. Evil is a corruption of what is good.
3. God could eliminate SOME evil, but the problem would still remain.
4. God could destroy ALL evil, but that would include you and me.

Then, we turned briefly to two positive assertions:

1. God has provided a future without evil for those who choose Him now.
2. God has provided peace and hope in the face of evil.

I want to explore these truths in more depth this week as we try to understand how to cope with evil and suffering.

Let me remind you what I said last time and then add more thought regarding the first assertion.

1. God has provided a future without evil for those who choose Him now.

I want us to reexamine 2 Timothy 4:18 (ESV) “The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.”

As I said last time, “this is not some promise that evil will never touch us or hurt us in this world. It is a conviction that no matter what happens to us on this earth, our ultimate rescue into heaven is guaranteed.”

Now, I want to add some thoughts to this verse.

Here we have one of the clearest passages of Scripture regarding what happens when our souls leave their bodies at death: we shall at once enter the heavenly kingdom, that is, heaven, where the heavenly King is enthroned.

Paul reinforces this understand when speaking of his readiness to die and be with Christ: In Philippians 1:23 he says, “ …My desire is to depart and be with Christ…”

There is no intermediate place for the soul, no “paradise” for the righteous.

One of my favorite commentators, Lenski, writes, “Those who invent this fiction which darkens the true Christian hope contradict all the clear passages of Scripture. The body shall, indeed, sleep in the grave, but the soul shall be where Stephen’s soul went at death, where Moses and Elijah are (the latter even with his body), in the very presence of God and Christ. The souls of the damned go to hell at once. At the time of the resurrection the body will be raised from the dust, will be glorified like the soul, will be joined to it, thereafter also to partake of all the bliss of that heavenly kingdom.’

So, even if our life is cut short by the evil inflicted upon us by death, we are immediately with Christ.

Can you praise the Lord for such a truth?