If We’ve Only Got One Life…

Superheroes Fighting Evil?

I was talking to one of my pastors the other day.  He just took over preaching at the evening service at Black Rock a few months ago.  It seems one of his big themes is that we’re supposed to be “fighting evil” (and yes, he did use the word “superheroes” during one service).

That’s fine, right?   Romans 12:9 says, “Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.”  Creation has been subjected to futility, and evil such as poverty, hunger, pain, suffering, loneliness, etc., abounds.

The only problem comes when we place the focus on fighting that external evil and miss the evil in our own hearts.  When “acting justly” and “loving mercy” trump “walking humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)  As Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.”

So when we’re fighting evil, it must first be the evil in our own hearts.   Romans 3:10 says, “None is righteous, no, not one.”  To overlook our own sin for the rest of the evil in the world is a very dangerous thing.  Luke 9:25 – “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?”  It is possible to go about fighting evil all across the world, in the name of God, in the name of “selflessness”, and still not know God.

“The fear of the Lord is the hatred of evil.  Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.” – Proverbs 8:13

Hating, and “fighting”, evil is good.  We just need to look Biblically at what about evil we should hate and what it means to fight it.  Here we see, first and foremost, pride and arrogance.  Thinking we’re better than God.  Preferring ourselves, our own comfort, our own opinions, over God.  Looking for satisfaction in our view of ourselves and in others’ view of ourselves, instead of in God.  From Romans 12:9, perhaps we see some of how to fight evil: “hold fast to what is good.”  Latch on to the truth of who God is, the promises that he has for us, the work that he’s done for us and called us to do.

We need to set ourselves about killing our own sin before we set ourselves about killing natural evil.  We are called to act justly, and to love mercy, but apart from the regeneration of the Holy Spirit we won’t know how to do that.  It is far too easy to idolize what we see as “mercy” and “justice” without actually acting and loving.

And the heart of the matter is, it’s far too easy to forget the Gospel in all of this.  When we say, “Christ died to save sinners,” we mean, chiefly,  “Christ died to save sinners from hell for eternal life with Him.”  Yes, we’re all sinners.  Yes, we all deserve hell.  And hell really is the worst thing that could happen to us.  For those that don’t follow Christ, this world, no matter how much you are suffering in it, is the best you’ll ever know.  And heaven really is the best thing that could happen to us, because that’s where God is, and God is “the best thing.”  For those that do follow Christ, this world, no matter how joyful and happy we are now, is the worst we’ll ever know.

The most loving thing you can do for a person isn’t to feed them or to clothe them, but to tell them about Jesus.  Feeding and clothing them is loving – it shows them Christ’s love and compassion and shows that you treasure that more than yourself and are willing to place their own comfort above your own.  But withholding Christ from them is cruel. You’ve misled them into thinking that what they need most in this world is food (false!) and that what is most valuable in this world is food (false again!) and that you care more about their ability to survive the next few days than their eternal soul (tragic!).

Of course, I’m oversimplifying things here.  There’s much more to expound and explain than I have space or time for.  And it should go without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) that I’m by no means an expert on any of these things – fighting sin, fighting natural/social/moral evil in the world, “walking humbly”, etc.  To paraphrase some wise men I respect, “I’m just a proud man pursuing humility by the grace of God.”

-Ben