Introduction
It goes without saying that evil is everywhere. We have all sorts of sufferings, varying degrees of hurt and various types of hurt: extreme poverty for those in much poorer countries; broken marriages in most societies; health issues; loss of a parent since young; parental neglect; being abused; getting betrayed; getting hurt deeply. Some evil was inflicted by other people you do not know. Some evil was inflicted by people you trust. Some evil was inflicted by disasters or diseases. There are premature deaths. There are fatal accidents. No matter how wealthy you are you are not exempted from these things. Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash on a routine trip. Two young sons in a Christian family died in a car because a tree fell on them as they stopped at the red light.
In the 2004 tsunami that took over 200,000 lives and wrecked thousands of homes led people to question the existence of God. “Where was God when the tsunami came?” was a trending theme then. This is the problem of evil.
There is natural evil which is impersonal, external, physical, temporal. It can be caused by diseases, disasters and catastrophes. There is also moral evil which is personal, internal, inside of us, spiritual as well, which are wickedness, sin and transgression. There is also supernatural evil as experienced by Job who was a target of the devil. Others experienced demonic attacks, likely for dabbling in the occult. Finally, there is the evil of eternal punishment in the lake of fire. It is evil not because it is immoral. It is evil because it is bad for you.
The problem of evil has profound impact on people, especially those who have suffered. They question God, they question their faith, they question the purpose of living. There are also lifelong consequences for some. This is not to paint a morbid or fatalistic tragedies of life. It is to identify that it happens and it is around us. It is also to acknowledge the deep hurt you have experienced. It can be so deep and traumatising that you no longer trust anyone. You became defensive and wear a mask (figuratively) everywhere you go. You want to avoid being hurt again. Then when it comes to the things of God, you are not able to trust God. The promises of God are like fairy tales. God promises to take care of you, yet you suffered. Others may react in another way. They start to live in debauchery. It is as according to Job’s wife’s, “Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God and die” (Job 2:9). Nothing matters anymore. Just eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die (cf. 1 Cor. 15:32). “God doesn’t care. So I don’t care,” you may say.
In the past, philosophers came up with some propositions to undermine God because evil exists. So they came up with, (1) if God exists, then God is all powerful, and all good; (2) if God is all powerful, yet evil exists, then God is not all good (omnibenevolent) because God has the power, and He did not prevent evil; (3) if God is all good, yet evil exists, then God is not all powerful because He cannot prevent evil. (4) if God is all good, all powerful, yet evil exists, then God does not exist. They presuppose that God and evil cannot coexist or that there is a logical contradiction between the existence of God and the existence of evil. This is the problem of evil for philosophy. Somehow, some of us may in this way too. If God is really good, why did He allow me to suffer?
But God and evil are not necessarily a contradiction. That evil exists does not mean that God is weak or not good. God has His purpose for evil to exist.
Is there any profit in God as evil abounds in this sin cursed world? It is as though everything is chaotic. We do not know how much more evil awaits us. At times we ourselves contribute to the problem of evil. We sinned against others. We stumbled others. We have caused painful experience to others. We are the cause of evil to others, so much so that they prefer to have us dead. We are a source of evil too. If I have stumbled you or caused an unpleasant experience to you, I am sorry.
We only have God and His word. Some of the saints have been through difficult times. We can learn from them too. “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope” (Rom. 15:4). We will consider the suffering of Joseph.
The Suffering of Joseph
From Genesis 37, we have Joseph the son of Jacob.[1] He was an obedient boy but He was hated by his brothers because of their father’s favouritism. As if that was not enough, he received two dreams from God to signify that he would be superior to his brothers and then to all of them including his parents (Jacob and his stepmother). Instead of being happy for him, his brothers became more jealous of him. When the opportunity arose, in a remote place away from home they wanted to kill him. What kind of family is that when your siblings wanted to kill you! By God’s providence, instead of killing him, they sold him as a slave and reported to their father that he was killed by a wild animal.
At this point in time, if you were Joseph, how would you feel? To make matters worse, they are supposed to be covenant family of God. While they did not worship idols, they behaved like bullies. For many of us, we would have curse and swear at God and be bitter at Him for the rest of our lives. But Joseph did not respond in this way. Instead, he maintained a good testimony and was a steadfast believer as a slave in Potiphar’s house. He mentioned the LORD’s name whenever he could and gave God the glory. Things were going well for him because God was with him. Whatever he did he prospered and he was promoted to sort of like a CEO in the house.
Good times hardly came by and supposing these times would last, another opposition surfaced. Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce him and she disturbed him almost every day. In the golden moment, she thought she would have got him, Joseph responded that he would not want to sin against God even in private. It is a great wickedness to commit adultery. The testing was not an easy one. Usually when men are elevated to a high position, they tend to relax and be careless with their lives. Sometimes, because of an inflated mind, they think they can get away with anything. What’s more it is “free sex” being offered. If Joseph were bitter against God for all his misery up to this point, he could have hit back at God with this scandal. But Joseph resisted the temptation of Potiphar’s wife over and over again. Imagine the among of longsuffering and patience one must have to be meek and gentle every day in an oppressive culture? When the situation became worse, he had no choice but to flee out of the house.
To save himself from the embarrassment because of his loose wife, Potiphar had no choice but to put Joseph in jail. Once again, a further descent, from a slave to a prisoner, Joseph’s freedom was further reduced, and his public reputation hit rock bottom. More than a stranger in a strange land, Joseph was demoted from a foreign slave to a foreign prisoner. He got all of this not by his own undoing. His life was like a rollercoaster ride with ups and downs, and with every increase, there will be a decrease. How would you feel if you were in his shoes?
It is most likely that his years of imprisonment hurt him the most. After Pharaoh promoted Joseph to be the Prime Minister of Egypt, he was given an Egyptian woman to wife. He had two sons from her. After naming his firstborn, Manasseh, he said “For God … hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house” (Gen. 41:51). And after naming the second son, Ephraim, he said “For God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction” (Gen. 41:52). You may be strong in certain ways, but you are definitely not strong in every way. Joseph suffered at home from his family. He continued to suffer as a slave and then as a prisoner. There is a range of hurt: emotional hurt due to family relationships, environmental hurt due to confinement for years in prison, social hurt due to the esteem of a slave and then a prisoner if he cared about how others think of him. There is also hurt in the conscious because there was no just cause to be sold as a slave and to be imprisoned. At least one of this things would have hit badly. This is why he calls Egypt the land of his affliction! Could you take the heat if you were Joseph? This fire of affliction is multifaceted. God might have ordained him to position of prominence, but the path to get there was not pleasant.
Finally, after the death of his father, his brothers were fearful thinking that Joseph might seize the chance to take revenge on them. If you were Joseph, would you take revenge? “Finally, I am gonna teach them a lesson! I will show them who’s the boss!” It is natural to say such things, but Joseph knew God’s purpose on hindsight for the evil he suffered. So, when his brothers came to apologise to Joseph and offered themselves to be his slaves, “Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive” (Gen. 50:19–20).
In this whole account spanning across 13 chapters, we see that (1) God is not the author of evil; (2) the source of moral evil is in the sinner himself, that is why Joseph’s brothers were guilty; (3) God is greater than evil and He is in control of evil; (4) God uses evil to accomplish His purposes which may be unknown to us in the present. Some of these purposes are for the salvation of others, for the repentance of his brothers, for the sanctification of Joseph (cf. Ps. 119:71). Ultimately, I posit that Christ might have the preeminence in all things (Col. 1:18).
If you view yourself as an instrument for the Most High God in your suffering, you may be strengthened and motivated to endure cheerfully, for who are you, who am I to be used by God, to have a part in accomplish His good purpose?
Perhaps you may be thinking along the lines that Joseph did not deserve to suffer being innocent, and you may include yourself that it is not fair for you to suffer, think of Jesus, the just for the unjust. Jesus is the only person who has been unjustly treated in the absolute sense. Jesus does not deserve to suffer even for a split second, yet He willingly went through the suffering of incarnation from cradle to the cross for unworthy sinners such as us (cf. Rom. 5:7–8).
God Is Sovereign and Supreme
There are a few other verses that I want to bring to mind to tell us of God’s authority and also of our position before God. In Job 2:10, Job said, “shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” He also said in Job 1:21“Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return thither: The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD.” These verses speak of God’s right as sovereign to determine who gets what. God is not a debtor. He owes no one anything. His relation to all His creatures is really by pure grace and mercy. “He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). Psalm 115:3 says, “But our God is in the heavens: He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.” Isaiah 45:9–10 declares this truth using absurdity, “Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? Or thy work, He hath no hands? Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? Or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth?” So, if we strive with God thinking that He has no right to do whatever He wants even at our disposal, then we are insane.
This is a good starting point. We need to know our place before God. I do not deny the hurt you suffered, the abuse you tolerated, the scars you have in your hearts. I do not take those away from you. But healing and comfort begins with an accurate view of who God is and who we are. Only then, we will realise that it is all of grace.
God Controls Evil
Next, a few verses regarding God’s control of evil. For this point, we must maintain that God is not the author of sin. Psalm 5:4 says, “For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: Neither shall evil dwell with thee.” 1 John 1:5b declares, “that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” We must not think of God as a tyrant or a big bully even though He controls and wields evil as an instrument to accomplish His good purpose.
Isaiah 45:5–7 declares, “I am the LORD, and there is none else, There is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, That there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.” Deuteronomy 32:39, “See now that I, even I, am he, And there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: Neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.”
The testimony of king Nebuchadnezzar after he recovered from his insanity, “And at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation: And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?” (Dan. 4:34–35). Psalm 76:10 says, “Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: The remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.” Romans 8:28 speaks of God’s good purpose in His sovereign control over all things, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
Concluding Application
Evil is definitely unpleasant and uneasy to bear. If you turn the table and asked, what about goodness? You will realise that we seldom praise God and give thanks to Him for the goodness we enjoyed. Besides doxology, an application of goodness is to repent, “Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” (Rom. 2:4). Think of the much God has “tolerated” to let us live? He could have struck us dead the moment we sinned. God is patient to us. He wants us to return to Him. If you are not a believer, please entrust your life to God who controls evil. He sent His Son to die for your sins that you might be saved.
Finally, I will close with a quote from the late R. C. Sproul. “When I think I’m unfairly hated, I try to remember that I’m unfairly loved.”
[1] A narrative is fitting to draw attention away from ourselves, our problems to focus on the story of others.