Heartrending

You know what the saddest thing is?

That "... God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16), for "we all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:6)

"... Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners..." (1 Timothy, 1:15), "He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him." (John 1:11)

It is so frustrating to hear, day in and day out, how people either cite evil as evidence of God's nonexistence, or attribute it to Him.

"The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." (2 Corinthians 4:4)

"The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is no one who does good." (Psalm 53:1)

How can one use evil as evidence against God's existence? If anything, evil should prove God's existence. For evil is simply deviance from God. You can't deviate from something that doesn't exist. Darkness cannot exist on its own; it is merely the lack of light. If light never existed, we wouldn't know what darkness was. Likewise, without some form of God's moral standards imprinted in our hearts, we wouldn't know what evil meant.

Worse yet, how can one attribute evil to God? If God is evil, then who is good? Man? It's only logical that if a God exists, He must represent pure goodness. It is impossible for created beings to have a higher moral standard than the Creator.

Yes, the world is a scary place.

"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them." (Romans 1:18-32)

"I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people — not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world." (1 Corinthians 5:9-10)

"Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips." (Colossians 3:5-8)

If it saddens me so to see these people, many of whom I've never even met, lost and wandering aimlessly through life, without Christ and without hope, and never finding the abundant life that God promised through Christ, who "[has] come that they may have life, and have it to the full" (John 10:10), how much more must God, who created each and every one of us, who knows each of us by name, who has numbered the very hairs of our heads (Matthew 10:30, Luke 12:7), who has known each of us since before we were even born (Psalm 22:9-10, 71:6, 139:13), despair at our refusal to repent and return to Him?

"The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." (Matthew 9:37-38, Luke 10:2)

"Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?'
And I said, 'Here am I. Send me!'" (Isaiah 6:8)