Just a reminder – God is in control. He put the world under the directorship of Satan (as Jesus told us), but God is ultimately in control. That means his justice reigns, even here on Earth. It might not always reign through worldly justice systems, but it reigns nevertheless. Nothing can override God’s justice.

Satan administers the world, he doesn’t override God’s justice. Satan can only do what God permits him to do. This is critically important to understand. Remember that Jesus says he has overcome the world. Yes, Satan administers the world’s systems and appoints those who serve him to positions of authority, but God is ultimately in control (Satan can do nothing without God’s permission) and Jesus has overcome even Satan. So we, as Jesus’ followers and born-again believers, have also overcome Satan. He has no power over us because he has no jurisdiction over us. We live in God’s Kingdom on Earth, which Jesus established already 2000 years ago. Satan has no authority there. Over the world, he has authority (again, restrained by God’s permission), but over us he has no authority.

Please remember that.

At the same time, God permits evil (which he created) as a just payback for thoughts and actions that are against his will or as a test (remember Job). Evil is not God’s will. He permits evil because it’s a part of his justice, but evil is not God’s will. God does not impose evil, any more than he punishes people for nothing, on a whim.

Jesus is very clear that the measure we mete is the measure we get in return. What goes around, comes around. A tit for a tat. If we show mercy, mercy will be shown to us. Treat other people as you want to be treated. This dynamic is so simple, even a child can understand it, and yet most adults still haven’t come to grips with it and still ask the age-old question: “Why is there evil in the world?”

We get the lives we’ve earned as a result of our thoughts and actions. We are also constantly tempted and tested. And keep in mind that we asked to be here, to be given a second chance. If we come into this world destitute, blind, lame, deformed, and riddled with disease, it’s because of what we did before we got here (remember the war in Heaven?). Or we’re being tested.

God is good, his justice is perfect, and the world is the way it is because of the choices people make, most of which (unfortunately) are now bad, meaning, against God’s will. People lie, cheat and steal and consider it “clever” or “reparations”. But if you lie, cheat and steal, you will pay for it one way or another, regardless if the world gives you a free pass. God won’t.

So again, evil is not God’s will. God is by nature good; Jesus says there is only one who is good, and that is God. Being good, God cannot do evil. However, he did create evil and he does permit it as a part of his justice. Everyone gets what’s coming to them as a result of their thoughts and actions. No-one escapes God’s justice, though they might avoid it for a time. But ultimately, no-one escapes God’s justice.

This should be a comfort to you. It is to me and helps me to stay on the straight and narrow rather than on the broad way. Most people have chosen to live their lives on the broad way. That’s their choice, but it’s the wrong one, and they’ll reap the rewards of that. Better to suffer now and get onto the straight and narrow than to put off suffering (as some do, by signing an oath to and serving the devil) until after death. Better to suffer now and learn right from wrong. Better to make the same choices as Jesus made, even if it means you stand alone in opposition to everything in the world, as he did. The world is on the broad way to the lake of fire. You don’t have to be.

God is not evil and does no evil. Neither should you. What others do is their business and is between them and God. You worry about your own soul and serve as an example to others of the right way forward. Don’t look to the world for justice, because you won’t find it there. Look to God.

We can only get back what we put out, so do good and you’ll be rewarded in kind, if not in this world, then in the world to come (remember Lazarus).

Just a reminder.

Now go out there and do good.