Day Eighteen = The Source of Evil

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. (1 John 5:4)

The next piece of the armor of God that we come to is the Shield. The shield traditionally is thought of as a defensive tool, however in God’s armor it is a method of offense. “In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one” (Eph. 6:16).

To quench the arrows of evil aimed at the church, we need to know what the source of evil is. Where did evil come from? In whom or what does it exist? In the beginning of creation, when God created Adam, He commanded him saying “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat” (Gen. 2:16, 17). This commandment reveals what God desires from mankind; faith. A Faith that trusts Him explicitly for the knowledge of what is good and what is evil. A faith that depends on God for what is right and what is wrong. We were never created to have this ingrained distinction. God was simply stating ‘in this garden, you don’t need to know right from wrong. I know right from wrong and I will never lead you astray. Do you trust me?’

Evil entered into human nature when Adam and Eve displaced their trust in God. They believed the deception that God is a liar; He does not have their best interest in mind; He is simply untrustworthy and must have an ulterior motive. Evil is not the presence of the devil, it is the absence of a trusting faith in God. Therefore, to dissolve the power of evil in the world we live in, takes a people full of faith in Christ. This is why the devil hates the church and attacks it at every turn. It is full of people who trust God.

But the church has nothing to fear. For Christ declared that “on this rock [faith in Christ] I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Mat. 16:18)