Does Evil Exist? And why does God not stop it, if it does?

He does – that is the good news……..and bad! It is HOW!

 

I am currently digging through Days of Vengeance again! DoV is an exposition on the book of Revelation (BTW - It is NOT about prophecy for our day - it is about Christianity - for then, now and forever!)

 

The HOW? The curse means a shortage of the necessary staples-a measure of wheat rising to more than 1000 of its former price, consuming an entire day's wages, so that a man's entire labor is spent in obtaining food. This is God's curse on men whenever they rebel: The land itself spews them out (Lev. 18:24-28; lsa. 24). The Curse devours productivity in every area, and the ungodly culture perishes through starvation, disease, and oppression (Deut.28:15-34). This is how God controls the wicked: They must spend so much time just surviving that they are unable to exercise ungodly dominion over the earth. In the long run, this is the history of every culture that departs from God's Word.

 

If you read the book, it will answer a lot of questions you might be asking now. It sure helped my fundamental understanding of Christianity. I also recommend you download Paradise Restored.

Free download: https://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/docs/pdf/days_of_vengeance.pdf

https://www.garynorth.com/ChiltonParadise.pdf

Both books should still be available in print at American Vision: https://crushlimbraw.blogspot.com/2019/05/this-book-helped-to-precipitate-massive.html - this is just a link, not DLL store. There is no DLL store.

Here are some excerpts from DoV:

Excerpts copied from my free PDF

 

(From page 40 – print copy)

The greatest enemy of the early Church was apostate Israel,

which used the power of the pagan Roman Empire to try to

stamp out Christianity, just as it had used Rome in the crucifixion of the Lord Himself. St. John's message in Revelation was that this great obstacle to the Church's victory over the world would soon be judged and destroyed. His message was contemporary, not futuristic.

Some will complain that this interpretation makes the Revelation

"irrelevant" for our age. A more wrong-headed idea is

scarcely imaginable. Are the books of Romans and Ephesians

"irrelevant" just because they were written to believers in the

first century? Should 1 Corinthians and Galatians be dismissed

because they dealt with first-century problems? Is not all Scrip-

ture profitable for believers in every age (2 Tim. 3:16-17)? Actually, it is the futurists who have made the Revelation irrelevant - for on the futurist hypothesis the book has been inapplicable from the time it was written until the twentieth century! Only if we see the Revelation in terms of its contemporary relevance is it anything but a dead letter. From the outset, St. John stated that his book was intended for "the seven churches which are in Asia" (1:4), and we must assume that he meant what he said. He clearly expected that even the most difficult symbols in the prophecy could be understood by his first-century readers

(13:18). Not once did he imply that his book was written with the twentieth century in mind, and that Christians would be wasting their time attempting to decipher it until the Scofield Reference Bible would become a best-selling novel. The primary relevance of the Book of Revelation was for its first-century readers. It still has relevance for us today as we understand its message and apply its principles to our lives and our culture. Jesus Christ still demands of us what He demanded of the early Church: absolute faithfulness to Him.

 

(From page 43 – print copy)

The Book of Revelation is not about the Second Coming of

Christ. It is about the destruction of Israel and Christ's victory

over His enemies in the establishment of the New Covenant

Temple. In fact, as we shall see, the word coming as used in the

Book of Revelation never refers to the Second Coming. Revelation

prophesies the judgment of God on apostate Israel; and

while it does briefly point to events beyond its immediate concerns,

that is done merely as a "wrap-up," to show that the ungodly

will never prevail against Christ's Kingdom. But the main

focus of Revelation is upon events which were soon to take

place.

Third, St. John identifies certain situations as contemporary:

In 13:18, he clearly encourages his contemporary readers to

calculate the "number of the Beast" and decipher its meaning; in

17:10, one of the seven kings is currently on the throne; and St.

John tells us that the great Harlot "is [present tense] the Great

City, which reigns [present tense] over the kings of the earth"

(17:18). Again, the Revelation was meant to be understood in

terms of its contemporary significance. A futuristic interpretation

is completely opposed to the way St. John himself interprets

his own prophecy.

Fourth, we should notice carefully the words of the angel in

22:10: "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book,

for the time is near." Again, of course, we are told explicitly that

the prophecy is contemporary in nature; but there is more. The

angel's statement is in contrast to the command Daniel received

at the end of his book: "Conceal the words and seal up the book

until the time of the end" (Dan. 12:4). Daniel was specifically

ordered to seal up his prophecy, because it referred to "the end,"

in the distant future. But St. John is told not to seal up his

prophecy, because the time of which it speaks is near.

Thus, the focus of the Book of Revelation is upon the contemporary

situation of St. John and his first-century readers. It

was written to show those early Christians that Jesus is Lord,

"ruler over the kings of the earth" (Rev. 1:5). It shows that Jesus

is the key to world history - that nothing can occur apart from

His sovereign will, that He will be glorified in all things, and that

His enemies will lick the dust. The Christians of that day were

tempted to compromise with the statism and false religions of

their day, and they needed this message of Christ's absolute

dominion over all, that they might be strengthened in the warfare

to which they were called.

And we need this message also. We too are subjected daily to

the threats and seductions of Christ's enemies. We too are asked

- even by fellow Christians - to compromise with modern

Beasts and Harlots in order to save ourselves (or our jobs or

property or tax exemptions). And we too are faced with a

choice: surrender to Jesus Christ or surrender to Satan. The

Revelation speaks powerfully today, and its message to us is the

same as it was to the early Church: that "there is not a square

inch of ground in heaven or on earth or under the earth in which

there is peace between Christ and Satan"; 89 that our Lord demands

universal submission to His rule; and that He has predestined

His people to victorious conquest and dominion over all

things in His name. We must make no compromise and give no

quarter in the great battle of history. We are commanded to win.

 

(From page 189 – print)

5-6 Following on the heels of war is the third angelic rider,

on a black horse, holding a pair of scales in his hand, a symbol

of famine from the prophecy of Ezekiel, in which the starving

inhabitants of Jerusalem were forced to weigh their food carefully

(Ezek. 4:10). This Horseman brings economic hardship, a

situation described as completely chaotic. A voice from the center

of the living creatures-Le., from God's Throne-says: A

quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a

denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine. This curse thus

 

10. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ii.v.l9, Ford Lewis

Battles, trans. (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960), p. 340.

11. Flavius Josephus, The Jewish War, ii.xviii.2; to gain an accurate (and

thus horrifying) picture of how closely the prophecies in Revelation and the

Synoptic Gospels paraliel the events of Israel's Last Days, leading up to Titus's

siege of Jerusalem, it is necessary to read Books ii-iv of Josephus' history.

189

6:5-6 PART THREE: THE SEVEN SEALS

 

means a shortage of the necessary staples-a measure of wheat

rising to more than 10000/0 of its former price, consuming an entire

day's wages,12 so that a man's entire labor is spent in obtaining

food. This is God's curse on men whenever they rebel: The

land itself spews them Qut (Lev. 18:24-28; lsa. 24). The Curse

devours productivity in every area, and the ungodly culture

perishes through starvation, disease, and oppression (Deut.

28:15-34). This is how God controls the wicked: They must

spend so much time just surviving that they are unable to exercise

ungodly dominion over the earth. In the long run, this is the

history of every culture that departs from God's Word. 13

Josephus describes the frantic search for food during the

final siege: "As the famine grew worse, the frenzy of the insurgents

kept pace with it, and every day both these horrors burned

more fiercely. For, since nowhere was grain to be seen, men

would break into houses, and if they found some they mistreated

the occupants for having denied their possession of it; if

they found none, they tortured them as if they had concealed it

more carefully. Proof whether they had food or not was provided

by the physical appearance of the wretches; those still in

good condition were deemed to be well provided with food,

while those who were already wasting away were passed over,

for it seemed pointless to kill persons who would soon die of

starvation. Many secretly bartered their possessions for a single

measure of wheat if they happened to be rich, barley if they

were poor. Then they shut themselves up in the darkest corners

of their houses; in the extremity of hunger some even ate their

grain underground, while others baked it, guided by necessity

and fear. Nowhere was a table laid-the food was snatched halfcooked

from the fire and torn into pieces."14

 

(From page 192 – print copy)

Perhaps the most significant obstacle to a correct interpretation of this passage has been that commentators and preachers have been afraid and unable to see that it is God who is bringing forth these judgments upon the Land-that they are called forth from the Throne, and that the messengers of judgment are the very angels of God. 

Especially vicious and harmful is any interpretation

which seems to pit the Son of God against the court of

heaven, so that the curses recorded here are seen as somehow

beneath His character. But it is Jesus, the Lamb, who breaks the

seals of judgment, and it is Jesus, the King of kings, who rides

out in conquest, leading the angelic armies against the nations,

to destroy those who rebel against His universal rule.

It was crucial for the early Christians to understand this, for

these judgments were even then breaking loose upon their world.

In every age, Christians must face the world with confidence,

with the unshakable conviction that all events in history are predestined,

originating from the Throne of God. When we see the

world convulsed with wars, famines, plagues and natural disasters,

we must say, with the Psalmist, "Come, behold the works

of the LORD, who has wrought desolations in the earth" (Ps.

46:8). Ultimately, the Christian's attitude toward God's judgments

upon a wicked world is the same as that of the four living

creatures around the Throne, who joyfully call out to God's

messengers of judgment: "Come!" We too, in our prayers, are

to plead with God to bring down His wrath on the ungodly, to

manifest His righteousness in the earth. Faced with these awesome

revelations of judgment, what is our proper response? We

are told, in 22:17: The Spirit and the Bride say, "Come!"

 

(From page 194 – print copy)

Thus the breaking of the Fifth Seal reveals a scene in heaven,

where the souls of those who had been slain are underneath, or

around the base of, the altar. The image is taken from the Old

Testament sacrifices, in which the blood of the slain victim

would stream down the sides of the altar and form into a pool

around its base ("the soul [Heb. nepheshl of the flesh is in the

blood," Lev. 17:11).17 The blood of the martyrs has been poured

out (cf. 2 Tim. 4:6), and as it fills the trench below the altar it

cries out from the ground with a loud voice, saying, How long,

o Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our

blood upon those who dwell on the Land? The Church in

heaven agrees with the cherubim in calling forth God's judgments:

How long? is a standard phrase throughout Scripture for

invoking divine justice for the oppressed (cf. Ps. 6:3; 13:1-2;

35:17; 74:10; 79:5; 80:4; 89:46; 90:13; 94:3-4; Hab. 1:2; 2:6). The

particular background for its use here, however, is again in the

prophecy of Zechariah (1:12): After the Four Horsemen have

patrolled through the earth, the angel asks, "0 LORD of Hosts,

how long wilt Thou have no compassion for Jerusalem?" St.

John reverses this. After his Four Horsemen have been sent on

their mission, he shows the martyrs asking how long God will

continue to put up with Jerusalem. St. John's readers would not

have failed to notice another subtle point: If the martyrs' blood

is flowing around the base of the altar, it must be the priests of

Jerusalem who have spilled it. The officers of the Covenant have

slain the righteous. As Jesus and the apostles testified, Jerusalem

was the murderer of the prophets (Matt. 23:34-37; Luke 13:33;

Acts 7:51-52). The connection with "the blood of Abel" crying

out from the ground near the altar (Gen. 4:10) is another indication

that this passage as a whole refers to judgment upon Jerusalem

(cf. Matt. 23:35-37). Like Cain, the "older brothers" of

the Old Covenant envied and murdered their righteous

"younger brothers" of the New Covenant (cf. 1 John 3:11-12).

And so the blood of the righteous cries out: The saints pray that

Christ's prophecy of "the days of vengeance" (Luke 21:22) will

be fulfilled.

That this blunt cry for vengeance strikes us as strange just

shows how far our pietistic age has degenerated from the

Biblical worldview. 

If our churches were more acquainted with the foundational hymnbook of the Church, the Psalms, instead of the sugary, syrupy, sweetness-and-light choruses that characterize modem evangelical hymnals, we would understand this much easier. But we have fallen under a pagan delusion that it is somehow "unchristian" to pray for God's wrath to be poured out upon the enemies and persecutors of the Church. Yet that is what we see God's people doing, with God's approval, in both Testaments of the Holy Scriptures. 18 It is, in fact, a characteristic of the godly man that he despises the reprobate (Ps. 15:4).

The spirit expressed in the imprecatory prayers of Scripture is a necessary aspect of the Christian's attitude (cf. 2 Tim. 4:14). Much of the impotence of the churches today is directly attributable to the fact that they have become emasculated and effeminate. Such churches, unable even to confront evil- much less "overcome" it - will eventually be captured and dominated by their enemies.