Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

The so-called Problem of Evil, which remains a debate today among and even between philosophers and theologians, is one that is still today cited by “atheists” as a main reason for objecting to God’s existence. It is a weak challenge posed by non-believers that suggests that because there are evils in the world (say, political tyranny or sickness), that there must not be a God or at least not an “all-good God,” because if there was an omniscient and omnipotent God then He would or could stop it, but He doesn’t. 

Some of the responses by theologians have been unsatisfactory over the centuries. Some have dismissed the prevalence of evil as more or less unexplainable and beyond our comprehension for how it fits into God’s plans, a sort of “God’s ways are bigger than ours” approach. This response has been called “inscrutability,” which one article explains is the idea that “we just cannot grasp God’s knowledge, the complexity of his plans, or the deep nature of the good he aims at in providence.” Some have given in and said that maybe God isn’t all-powerful after all, but He still exists. Some have conceded too much, saying that, “When I ponder both the extent and depth of suffering in the world, whether due to man’s inhumanity to man or to natural disasters, then I must confess that I find it hard to believe that God exists.” 

If either the atheists or the professing Christians realized that God gave men the liberty to defy Him, though not the freedom to escape the consequences of such rebellion, then it would be more difficult to see where there’s a problem. We can readily concede that there is evil in the world, but that it is mostly of man’s own doing and not of God’s will or His inability to prevent it. 

It is thus no coincidence that overt and unrepentant sinners, such as men who identify as atheists, would present this “problem” as an excuse for not serving their Creator. They are just the type of people who don’t want to confess their own sin and complicity in the evils of the world. They want to play the victim and blame others for all their problems. So they blame them on God instead or use it as a case against His existence. Moreover, we can see how this “problem” is generated by people who do not know God’s warnings of judgment for sin in the Bible. Those who know the Lord are not surprised by the existence of evil, but can rather expect it and explain it, given the sins of man (idolatry, voting, taking government benefits, failing to seek God’s Kingdom). They can easily see that taxation and slavery is divine retribution for the sin of refusing to be ruled by God, that tyrannical police states are what result when men trust in men to rule over them rather than the Lord exclusively.

Man’s responsibility in societal evils 

If those who think that the existence of evil is either proof of God’s non-existence or of God’s evil were familiar with the Bible, they would see that we live in a cause and effect universe and that most of the evils in the world—the indeed lamentable wars, famines, mass incarceration, labor camps, surveillance and police states, perversions of law and justice—are the result of turning away from the Lord as our King, who in return has cursed us with a corrupt society for these sins of seeking men to rule over and “protect and serve” us. 

Not only are we not pressured into a position of denying the existence of evil or political occupation over a people, but we can even readily concede that God has allowed it to come upon us or even sent it. As God says, “I form the light and create the darkness; I bring prosperity and create calamity. I, the LORD, do all these things” (Isaiah 45:7). God is behind both the blessings and curses that come upon a people who are either obedient to His was or who reject them, not just the good things.

However, when we look at how divine judgment plays out in scripture, it’s always clear that even though God can be said to be the one delivering it, that it is ultimately the people who bring it upon themselves through their own sinful actions. And these sins were not hidden faults either, such that it could be argued that God was unjust to allow judgment to come upon an entirely ignorant people who didn’t know any better, but often sins that men are quite proud of and even openly embrace and celebrate, like patriotic displays of bloodstained flags or their vocal support of presidents, congressmen, police, and military. While we may say that it is undeniably “God’s hand” at work when judgment comes upon a people, the real party responsible for this judgment is always the people themselves who practiced these sins. 

“For Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen because they spoke and acted against the LORD, defying His glorious presence. The expression on their faces testifies against them, and like Sodom they flaunt their sin; they do not conceal it. Woe to them, for they have brought disaster upon themselves” (Isaiah 3:8-9). 

In all the instances of divine judgment in the Bible, it is clear that these people had brought it upon themselves, that they had defied God by trusting in human kings and their armies, and that God had cursed them by allowing them to be dominated by these men or others like them. Why should God stop the evils that a people beg to have come upon them? Why should God not punish sin? Why should we think the people of our world and its systems today are undeserving of punishment? There are no innocent people in a statist society. There are no victims of human government. If there is a government of the world that rules over a people, it is because these people have failed to be ruled by God, whether through their positive idolatry of human rulers, their willingness to use these socialist systems to covet their neighbors property for welfare benefits, or simply through their slothfulness to seek God’s Kingdom.

The judgment of tyranny and sickness 

All these moral evils in the world are then easily traceable to man’s political rebellion against God. When men seek human kings and protectors rather than trust in God alone to protect them, God allows them to get plundered and destroyed by these people who they thought were “necessary” to their “collective defense” or “national security.”

“But what about children dying of cancer?,” the atheist might reply. “What about the physical sicknesses of the body? Why doesn’t God care about that? What has this to do with political rebellion?”

This is some sort of attempt to isolate judgments against health or wellness from judgment upon sin in general. But it is never just that God sends a people into political bondage who wanted to chase after human rulers and their worldly kingdoms. The punishment for this great sin of seeking other rulers than the Lord has also entailed curses upon the health of a people, showing that ill-health and the evils of statism come together as a package deal. 

“If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name—the LORD your God—He will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary disasters, severe and lasting plagues, and terrible and chronic sicknesses. He will afflict you again with all the diseases you dreaded in Egypt, and they will cling to you. The LORD will also bring upon you every sickness and plague not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed. You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left few in number, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God. Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and multiply, so also it will please Him to annihilate you and destroy you. And you will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess” (Deuteronomy 28:58-63). 

Still, this does not show that God is arbitrary or bent only on destroying a people. These are the effects, after all, of disobedience to His Law (eg., raising up human rulers when the Lord has commanded men to have no other gods). We would only be looking at one side of the equation to take our current world of mass, political disobedience to God and present God as a one-sided tyrant. For just as sickness and disease are part of the curses from God, so is health part of His blessings upon an obedient people. All throughout Scripture, these things are tied together. As much as God promises to bring a people who seek to live under Him out of captivity to man made law systems, so He tells people, “I will restore your health and heal your wounds” (Jeremiah 30:17). Health and wellness were always part of God’s promises of blessings to a people who sought His ways. 

“If you will listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God, and do what is right in His eyes, and pay attention to His commands, and keep all His statutes, then I will not bring on you any of the diseases I inflicted on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you” (Exodus 15:26). 

Whichever way men choose, whether to live under the Lord as their King or deny Him and pursue human kings, God sends either blessings or curses, which (respectively) encompass freedom, prosperity, and health, or slavery, impoverishment, and sickness and disease. It wasn’t just Babylonian invaders who God had used to mete out judgment against a statist people who deserved to go into bondage for their sin. In the Bible, God has always included sickness and disease alongside the sword as a method of bringing judgment against a people.

“This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem My four dire judgments—sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague” (Ezekiel 14:21). 

These plagues of Egypt, as most people loosely familiar with the Bible might be able to recall, were not just a one-off event either but a repeated method of judgment that served as a reminder to a people who would act like Egyptians in the future. 

“I sent plagues among you like those of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD” (Amos 4:10). 

The Psalmists were also making such acknowledgments of ill-health as part of God’s judgment on their own sin.

“There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation; there is no health in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. My wounds stink and fester because of my foolishness, I am utterly bowed down and prostrate; all the day I go about mourning. For my sides are filled with burning, and there is no soundness in my flesh. I am feeble and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart” (Psalm 38:3-8). 

The causal connection between righteousness and health and wellness is often implied in many instances of judgment in the Bible, while the other side of the coin of evil and destruction are linked together. As the prophet was sent to warn, 

“Tell the righteous it will be well with them, for they will enjoy the fruit of their labor. Woe to the wicked; disaster is upon them! For they will be repaid with what their hands have done” (Isaiah 3:10-11). 

It is not that “God has done this to us” or that “God didn’t care to intervene and stop our ill-health,” as the “Problem of Evil” contends. On the contrary, all these things are a result of a people having turned away from God. It isn’t that God doesn’t care about the health and wealth of our people, which supposedly must mean that He is either evil or doesn’t exist at all, but that a statist people are a people who are “eating the fruit of their own way and filled with their own devices” (Proverbs 1:31). The evils—premature death as much so as taxes and tyrants—are part of the general curses that come upon men who do not wish to be ruled by God, but who want to make “presidents” and “health czars” their kings and physicians. 

Jesus Christ and healing the sick 

In his book On Civil Government, David Lipscomb makes an interesting and pertinent argument for our case here that sickness and disease are just another thing that, like injustices and tyranny, had their origins in man’s statist rebellion against God, where men sought human rulers to “govern” them and others rather than to be under God’s care. As he wrote,

“All disease, sickness, mortality and death came upon man as the result of transferred allegiance of man and the world from God to the devil” (Lipscomb, On Civil Government, p. 60). 

Whereas God created the world free of sin and evil, men handed over their God-given heritage—their duty to keep the Dominion Mandate and tend to their own gardens and to the needs of their neighbors directly—over to human government as their protector and provider, which is where men not only introduced political evils but also all the ailments of the body into Creation. As Lipscomb says.  

“The result of this treason and transfer was that God ceased to be the ruler and the devil became the god of this world. The Spirit of God refused to dwell in the defiled temple on the polluted earth and withdrew in grief to the home of God in Heaven. The devil as the Prince of this world infused his subtitle spirit and poison of death into the fountains of waters and into every breeze that floated over land and sea. This earth was changed from a nursery of life and joy into a charnel house of death and sorrow, a whited sepulcher without, ‘within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness’ (Matt. 23:27). Briars, thistles and thorns grew spontaneously from this garden of God. The paradise of God became a dried and parched waste — a desert of noxious weeds. Toil, pain, sickness, anxiety, care, sorrow, mortality and death became the heritage of humanity” (Lipscomb, On Civil Government, p. 55). 

When men don’t wish to be ruled, saved, protected, and healed by God, but wish to trust in presidents, militaries, and health departments to upkeep “public safety” and “public health,” so all evils—both political tyranny and sickness—enter into the social sphere. As Lipscomb says, 

“[All of this] is given as the result of man’s transfer of allegiance from God to the devil with this torpor of the soul and stupor of the mind and reign of lust, the body is enfeebled, diseases preyed upon the body, and plagues and pestilences swept the human family from the earth. War, with its desolation and bleached and bitter cruelty, was the normal condition of humanity, thus distorted and perverted by the spirit of the devil” (p. 57). 

The sickness and health cited by atheists as either proof for God’s non-existence or His evil thus fails, given that men have handed over God’s rule to human rulers in their sinful erection of human government, which is of the devil, whose reign brought not only political evils but also sicknesses of the body. Responding to this line of criticism that comes from those who propose the Problem of Evil to either deny or blame God, Lipscomb says,

“It is a slander upon the Almighty God to say His rule and Dominion of the world brought this condition of affairs. The Devil‘s rule and dominion brought these terrible evils to man and to all that is subject to him” (p. 57).

Lipscomb also makes an interesting connection between the prevalence of evil that has come into the world and the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ, who came to liberate man from the dominion of man over man and call them to seek the Kingdom of God and repent of their service to the worldly kingdoms of the devil. Though most people might argue that Christ casting out demons or performing miracles was just proof of His divinity or compassion or something like that, Lipscomb connects it to Jesus’s general work of having come to abolish human government, which, like sickness, has been part of the devil’s work on earth. 

“Christ, in healing the maladies and afflictions of humanity, and in restoring life to the dead, manifested His power over the devil” (p. 60). 

Lipscomb’s explanation of Jesus Christ’s miracles and healings is essentially that the sicknesses that were being healed were originally a result of the devil’s reign that came about when men sought human government rather than God’s Kingdom, and that His healing of them was demonstrative of Christ’s definitive reclamation of dominion over the earth too, where the devil’s government—the statist kingdoms of the world—would also be abolished. To do away with these things—to reverse both sickness and abolish the evil of human government—is thus part of the explanation for Christ’s miracles. He goes on,

“To deliver the world from the rule of the devil and from this terrible condition produced by this role was the end and purpose of the mission of Christ Jesus into this earth…He came to rescue and redeem the world and to destroy the Devil and all his works” (p. 57). 

The progression of sickness and statism 

Arguably, physical curses to health have accompanied curses such as tyranny, perversions of law and justice, and taxation, which are a judgment upon a people who have pursued the statist route of political organization of society as opposed to the righteous route commanded by God of living and serving people directly and freely rather than ensnaring them into the bondage of tax-funded welfare and protection schemes. Moreover, they appear only to be getting worse as the statist rebellion of the world progresses. There appears to be greater incidences of known diseases and even new ones popping up. How many people died of cancer centuries ago? How many people had peanut or dairy allergies? How many people had autism? Are not most of these things a part of modern medicine and modern diet, which is nothing but turning away from the Lord as our Healer? Are not many of them due to departing from the Dominion Mandate of a life on the homestead to moving into polluted cities that are created by governments? Are not most of these things part of the general divine curses upon mankind that come upon a people who deviate from God’s Law by seeking systems of human government? 

It should not be surprising that sickness and disease proliferate in a statist society like ours that has turned away from God’s rulership and thereby brought about curses that are not limited to political bondage but also extend to curses of the body. As we read in Scripture, “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). This does not just mean death by the sword, as scripture could also teach us is the case for those who live by it. It does not just mean eternal death in hell or the failure to get to heaven when we die, either. It also applies to those whose bodies may prematurely perish in sickness and disease as part of the curse for going under human government and inviting the reign of the evil one into social life. Many of the specific instances of judgment in scripture include evils that have come upon the very lives of men, women, and children, which some may consider to be unjust but which were really only the result of their own evils that had taken their people into bondage through idolatry, theft, covetousness, and failure to seek God’s Kingdom. 

“You have plowed wickedness and reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your own way and in the multitude of your mighty men, the roar of battle will rise against your people, so that all your fortresses will be demolished as Shalman devastated Beth-arbel in the day of battle, when mothers were dashed to pieces along with their children” (Hosea 10:13-14). 

The blessings of liberty, wealth, and health

If all these things—physical illness as much as political bondage—have come upon us for having turned away from God as our only King, then it stands to reason that if we turned back to the Lord as our Great Physician just as much as having Him as our one and only King and Lawgiver, we would be blessed not only with liberty but with physical health, too. Scripture often speaks of blessings of health accompanying general blessings of freedom and prosperity for those who seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. 

“The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God. In old age they will still bear fruit; healthy and green they will remain” (Psalm 92:12-14). 

Scripture often speaks of the very extension of life—health and wellness is implied here—as being part of the blessings God promises to bestow upon those who are obedient to Him. 

“Thou shalt keep therefore his statutes, and his commandments, which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the LORD thy God giveth thee, forever” (Deuteronomy 4:40). 

In fact, in the “New Earth” spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, physical health, material blessings, and security from the domination by human rulers were all listed together, suggesting that childhood death or adult lives shortened by sickness have also been part and parcel of the curses of political bondage that have come upon men due to their deviation from God’s anarchistic rule.   

“No longer will a nursing infant live but a few days, or an old man fail to live out his years. For the youth will die at a hundred years, and he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed. They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses for others to inhabit, nor plant for others to eat. For as is the lifetime of a tree, so will be the days of My people, and My chosen ones will fully enjoy the work of their hands. 23They will not labor in vain or bear children doomed to disaster; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD— they and their descendants with them” (Isaiah 65:20-23).

If men want to recover both their freedom and their health, the lack thereof which is illegitimately either blamed on God or cited as proof of His non-existence, then they must turn back to the Lord again as their only King. I don’t believe God was speaking metaphorically when He instructed us to “fear the Lord and shun evil” and said that “this will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones” (Proverbs 3:7-8). When men don’t fear the Lord, they set up systems of human government, which thereby introduce divine curses into both the socio-political order and the human body itself. 

Conclusion

There is really no “problem of evil.” The Christian can even concede that the evils that have been introduced into our world have come at the hand of God, so to speak, albeit for our own deviation from His commands to live as a free people under the Lord’s exclusive kingship. The way to reverse them and discover blessings is then to repent of our support for the governments of the devil and seek the Kingdom of God. Just as much as sickness and poor health may be seen as curses upon a disobedient people who went the way of Egypt and Babylon to pursue worldly political saviors, so part of God’s salvation from these systems contains promises of physical, bodily health.  

“If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your ancestors. He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land—your grain, new wine and olive oil—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you. You will be blessed more than any other people; none of your men or women will be childless, nor will any of your livestock be without young. The Lord will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you” (Deuteronomy 7:12-15). 

In summary, human disease presents no more of a “problem of evil” that suggests God’s non-existence or His lack of mercy and action than does political bondage. In fact, they demonstrate that God is real, and that all these things have come upon us for our own decision to sinfully walk away from God and erect and support systems of human government that substitute man-gods for the Lord our God. The premature death and taxation today doesn’t disprove God, but, in fact, shows that He is active in dealing out punishments—both sickness and the sword—to those who disobey Him. 

We should have no trouble conceding that God is Sovereign over both health, wealth, and human freedom. It’s all in His hands. This does not present to us a reason to reject God, as if He evilly and arbitrarily dishes out undeserved punishment. Rather, it presents us with a case of getting right with the Lord. Just as much as we may submit that God gives statist rebels and idolaters over to a reprobate mind to continue in all their fallacious thinking which leads to their destruction (Romans 1:21-32), so we should have no trouble charging that God will allow a people to fall into physical sickness and disease too who refuse to be ruled by Him. Just as much as God gives men failing law systems when they pursue these worldly kingdoms, so He gives them failing physical bodies. In fact, the price men pay for abandoning God as their King will even include man-made diseases, bioweapons, or fake pandemics like Operation Covid 19, where the judgment tasked to tyrants’ to dish out upon a people blends both political force and sickness together.

What we really have is the Non-Problem of Evil: these evils, from the prevalence of political tyranny to disease, are the result of man’s statist rebellion against God, where human rulers have been substituted for the Lord as our King. There is no logical incompatibility between God and the existence of evil. Rather, the latter proves the former by showing that all the tyrannies in the world developed just the way God said they would for those who set up kings to rule over them (1 Samuel 8). The existence of evil is then, if anything, a proof for God: that He brings judgment upon all those who refuse to be ruled by Him. The existence of evil is a cause to repent, not deny the Lord, which was the very action that has contributed to the lamentable evils we face today.