The Evil One - Moments of Hope Devotional

The Evil One
By David Chadwick

There is an enemy to our soul. He hates everything that God has created.

In fact, we can know much about who God’s enemy is by the names the Bible gives him. Often, he is referred to as “the evil one”(1 John 5:19).

His nature is pure, unadulterated evil. All wickedness flows from him.

Many spiritual skeptics doubt the existence of God because of evil. They conclude that God cannot be good because there is evil. Therefore, God must either be impotent (he can’t eliminate evil) or sinister (he won’t eliminate evil).

But what doubters fail to understand is that God is not the source of evil.

The evil one was once a powerful spiritual being who rebelled against God. His rebellion inaugurated all evil.

All evil is rooted in free will. Love can’t exist unless someone can freely choose to love.

God is love. Therefore, he gave all his creatures the power to choose whether to love him or not. One of God’s most powerful angels chose not to love, but rebel. He introduced evil into God’s once-perfect created order.

This rebellious spiritual being is the evil one. He still exists today. He desires that evil, not good, rule this world.

For now, he is succeeding. Evil is everywhere.

But ultimately God is able to use evil for his purposes. In some cases, people are examining evil, choosing to fight it and pursue good. In other situations, evil is proving the decadence of the human heart and driving people to forgiveness through Jesus.

Jesus came to defeat the works of the evil one (1 John 3:8).

And Jesus’s followers join him daily in that work.

Perhaps that’s the best way that God is using evil for good.

Stand strong in the attack

God’s equipped you with exactly what you need to defend yourself from the devil when he comes creeping into your life.

David Chadwick’s CD set, The Enemy, shows you how to use the tools God has given you to resist Satan’s advances.

In it, you’ll learn how to: