Why Do Bad Things Happen? Pt. 2 (The Origin of Evil)

The question of why evil exists strikes at the heart of faith for believers and skeptics alike. In this episode of the Four Walls Podcast, we uncover biblical insights that trace wickedness to its original source – not with Adam and Eve, but with Lucifer's prideful rebellion against God.

Lucifer's fall from grace presents a fascinating spiritual chronology that continues to unfold. Scripture reveals that Satan has experienced only the first of four prophesied falls, explaining why he still maintains access to heaven despite his rebellion. Through examining passages in Job, Kings, and Revelation, we discover the progressive stages of Satan's downfall and why his rage against humanity continues to intensify as his final judgment approaches.

What makes Satan's transgression particularly damning was the position from which he sinned. Unlike humans who are born into a fallen state, Lucifer stood in perfect glory before God, described as "the signet of perfection" and "blameless in your ways from the day you were created." This crucial distinction helps explain why redemption remains available to humans through Christ while Satan's destiny in the lake of fire is irreversible. Understanding this difference illuminates God's justice and mercy in profound ways.

The parallel between Satan's self-exalting ambition and how it manifests through human vessels reveals a pattern that continues today. When examining the King of Tyrus who proclaimed "I am a God," we see the same spirit of pride that originated in Lucifer. This spiritual influence explains why we see exploitation, corruption, and self-glorification repeating throughout human history – the adversary works to reproduce his rebellion through willing human instruments.

As we face troubling times, recognizing the spiritual warfare behind worldly events provides clarity and perspective. God, as a righteous judge, won't remain passive while His creation suffers. Join us next episode as we explore how divine justice responds to persistent evil and what this means for believers navigating an increasingly challenging world.

Transcript

Introduction to the Four Walls

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Good morning and welcome back to the Four Walls Podcast, where we discuss what I believe to be the four foundational areas, aka the four walls in our lives that enable us to honor God and to live successful and fulfilling lives. And these areas are our spiritual foundation, our physical health and well-being, our finances, and our relationships. On our last episode, we began an introductory series titled, Why Do Bad Things Happen? Now, this series is intended to preemptively shed some light on the days ahead that may seem dark for a short period, but have the potential to really shake our faith, shake the faith of those who are believers, while also causing those who are not Christians to shake their fists at God in judgment. But if we refuse to repent, then justice must be upheld because he is a righteous God. So in this episode, we'll take it a step back and look at how this idea of punishment for sin began. So let's get started. So we are all familiar with the story in the Garden of Eden in Genesis chapter 3, when Eve was persuaded by the serpent to take and eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And we credit Adam and Eve with the title of original sinners and the first ones to receive the punishment of God. But in reality, they were not the first ones to sin against God. They were only the first humans to sin against God. Because long before this, Lucifer, which was Satan's original name, became prideful before God and tried to exalt himself above God and was cast out of heaven and fell from his glorified place. Now, if we look at the Bible, it speaks of four falls that Satan will endure. In Luke chapter 10, verse 18, Jesus tells us that he beheld Satan fall as lightning from heaven. This is the depiction of Satan falling from his glorified place in heaven down to the earth. This is actually the only fall that has happened out of the four. Although Satan fell from heaven and lost his glorified place, he still has access to heaven. So I know this sounds confusing, but Satan no longer resides in heaven. He doesn't live there anymore, but he can still access heaven. And so let's look at some scriptures that confirm this. If we look at Job chapter 1, verse 12, it tells us, uh, and the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power only upon himself, put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord. Here we see that Satan is having a conversation with God in regards to him having access to Job. And so if Satan is in God's presence, God is in heaven. And so this just tells us that Satan does still have access to heaven because he's communing with God in regard to what's going on on the earth. If we look at 1 Kings chapter 22, and we're looking at verse 21 through 22, and this says, And there came forth a spirit and stood before the Lord and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him and prevail also. Go forth and do so. So again, we see how um things are going on in heaven, and there are conversations, and Satan is offering himself as an available resource, as God is looking for a way to bring judgment upon Ahab. Now, this is the time when Ahab was doing wicked things as a king, as the king of Israel, and um he needed he needed to be stopped. And so they were contemplating in heaven how they would do this, and Satan having still having access to heaven, offered himself as a means of making this happen. And so, if we know the story um in 1 Kings, he became a lying spirit to all of the prophets, all 400 of the prophets of Ahab, um, all saying the same thing, which were in opposition to God's word, and the one true prophet who was speaking the word of the Lord, um, they did not adhere to, and that was Micaiah. And so we see again that Satan still has access to heaven, um, even though he's fallen from his place of grace and his place of glory, he's fallen, but he still has access to heaven. So this is the first fall of Satan. Okay, so if we move on, the second fall, um, the second fall will be him losing access to heaven and being restricted to the earth. So right now he still has access to heaven and can come before the presence of the Lord. Um, but if we look in Revelation 12, verse 7 through 9, uh, this tells us, and there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels and prevailed not, neither was their place found anymore in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, the devil, called the devil, and Satan, which deceived the whole world, he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And so now we see that he has lost his place to return to heaven. He has been cast out, he has been defeated, he was at war with Michael and the angels, and lost his ability to return to heaven, and so he was cast out into the earth. The third fall of Satan comes as we look at Revelation 20 and verse 1 through 3. Uh, one through three, revelation 20, 1 through 3 says, And I saw an angel come from heaven, come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up, and set a seal upon him that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled. And after that, he must be loosed for a season. Okay, so here we see that Satan was bound by chains and then restricted to a bottomless pit for a thousand years, where he lost access even to deceive those on the earth. So he currently still has access to deceive those on the earth, and so this has not happened either. And so when we move to the fourth fall, we uh see that addressed in Revelation 20 and verse 10, and that reads, and the devil that was deceived, I'm sorry, and the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. And so this is the end, this is the final fall where Satan is cast into the lake of fire, and there he will forever remain tormented day and night forever. And so, out of the four falls of Satan, only the first one has occurred. And so, why are we discussing the fall of Satan? And what does this have to do with bad things happening in the earth? So let's kind of bring it back around. The sad truth is that misery really does love company. Satan is forever cast down from his glorified place in heaven, and even though he still currently has access to heaven, he is no longer in his place of honor and glory in the kingdom of heaven. And as we have just established with the scriptures that we read, that his destiny includes progressively worsening demotions until he finally arrives at a place where he spends all of eternity tormented in the lake of fire. He is a raging enemy that has no recourse. He will never be forgiven because what he did, he did from a place of knowledge, of glory, and of wisdom. And so he has no place for repentance. Now there are levels of responsibility in the natural world that kind of dictate our level of punishment if we think of it that way, and then we can sort of parallel that to the spiritual realm. Um, if you have a baby, if you have a um a small child that's sitting in a high chair and they knock over a glass of milk and spill it all over themselves, spill it all over the floor, you would be much less frustrated with the baby than if your 12-year-old did the same thing. They dumped over their whole gallon of milk and all over themselves, all over the all over the floor, um, because there's a higher expectation. And even as a teenager, if a teenager commits a crime, um there would be punishment. Um, but their punishment would be more lenient than if an adult commits that crime. The punishment would be different, the um the way that it's handled would be different, and maybe a child would have a record and it would get expunged as they become an adult, um, where things would be handled more severely for an adult who commits the same or similar crime. And so there is a level of responsibility that is um inherent in the way that people are punished for the things that happen. We can even carry this over into the spiritual if we see um the level of responsibility with people, even in the body of Christ. If you have a new believer, someone who has just recently converted uh to Christianity, and they commit a sin, yes, they have committed a sin against God, but God may not deal as harshly with them as someone who is a pastor, a leader who's been in the faith for 25 years and they commit the same exact sin, same exact sin that God would deal more harshly with them because the level of responsibility that they have acquired at that point because they know more. They know more about God, they have spent more time with God, they know more about his character and the things of his kingdom, and so there is a higher level of responsibility. And this is what we see with Satan slash Lucifer. Um, if we look at Ezekiel 28, 11 through 19, we see a glimpse of how God looked upon Lucifer. Um, and that word says, Thus saith the Lord God, you were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God, every precious stone was your covering, Sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle, and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created, they were prepared. You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you, you were on the holy mountain of God in the midst of the stones of fire. You walked, you were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till unrighteousness was found in you. And I believe the King James says iniquity was found in you. This is how God viewed Lucifer. Lucifer, Lucifer was a beautiful creation of God, perfect, perfect. God did not make any, he did not, there was no sin in him. This was the place that Lucifer held when he sinned against God. God speaks of Satan's position as glorified and anointed, precious stones, gold um incets. He actually had a breastplate, um, similar to the priest in uh Moses' time, the breastplate that the priest wore. Lucifer had a breastplate. Um, he stood in the presence of God, his wing covered the mercy seat. This was a place of glory um that he held. He knew God, he knew his goodness, his grace, his awesome power and magnificence. This is the place that Lucifer held when he sinned against God. There are things that we do in this earthly realm that we just don't know our sins unto God. There are things that we do that our sinful nature, um, which we were born into, leads us to make sinful decisions. And then there are sins that we commit knowingly where we know it's not right and we somehow do it anyway. But none of us have sinned from this place of perfection, this position of glory on the holy mountain of God, whom God refers to as the signet of perfection, blameless in every way, from the day that they were created until unrighteousness was found in him. This is not the place that we, any human, has sinned from. Our unrighteousness was placed on us because of the sin in the garden, and we are born into it. But Lucifer's unrighteousness was self-created. He was so enamored with his own beauty and his splendor and his power and his position that he bought himself to a prideful place that was never placed in him upon his creation. It was not put there by God. This is a position that he fell from. And from this position, there is no redemption for him. His fate is sealed. He has an adversary in God that he will never defeat, and there is a time clock ticking in his ear. And what makes it even worse for him is that he has to watch us humans make mistakes over and over again, but we have forgiveness through repentance and receiving his son. So the enemy, my friends, is raging. And because he can't do anything to change his dreadful situation, he is committed to taking as many people down with him as possible. He doesn't care how he does it either. He will lie, he will steal, he will cheat, he will deceive, whatever it takes to get us out of the grace of God so that we spend eternity with him in the fiery lake. That is what he will do. And the enemy does this by placing his agenda and his desire in the hearts and minds of men on earth so that they mimic the agenda that he has for the earth. If we look a little further into Isaiah 14, uh that would be verse 12 through 14, and Ezekiel chapter 28, we could see the parallel of how Satan manifests his agenda in the earth. Okay, so Isaiah chapter 14, verse 12 through 14 says, How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst wicket the nations? For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most high. This is Satan's plan and agenda. This is what came out of him as he stood before God. We see here that Satan is exalting his authority and his image as unto a God, as if he were a God himself. And we can see that he influences the men of this earth, causing them to sin in the manner that he did. And so when we look at the king of Tyrus, um, we see that he was influenced by the same spirit. If we look at Ezekiel 28, verse 1 through 12, um, this is the King James Version. If we look at Ezekiel 28, verse 1 through 12 in the King James Version, we can see this parallel in the King of Tyrus. If we look in Ezekiel 28, verse 1 through 12 in the King James Version, we can see this parallel between the spirit of Satan and how it is reflected in the King of Tyrus. Um, and the word says, The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, thus saith the Lord God, because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God in the midst of the seas, yet thou art a man and not God. Thou, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God, behold, thou art wiser than Daniel. There is no secret that they can hide from thee. With thy wisdom and with thine understanding, thou hast gotten these riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures. By thy great wisdom and by thy traffic hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, Behold, thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God. Behold, therefore, I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations, and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness. They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas. Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God, but thou shalt be a man and no God in the hand of him that slayeth thee. Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers, for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God. We can clearly see here the parallel between the way Satan was exalting himself before God and the way the king of Tyrus is exalting himself as a God. He's looking at the abundance of his trading and his success as a king, exalting himself as a god. The king of Tyre ran the city corruptly, focusing solely on making profits. The city was highly commercialized, and the dishonest practices of the people was reflecting the dishonesty and deception of their leader, the king. And so Satan's parallel of abundance of trading was his competitive spirit and desire to be exalted above his associates or the other angels. Um he wanted to be exalted as a God in heaven above all the other angels. He wasn't happy being in the position that he was in. He wanted to be higher. And so this comparison shows that the devil can be involved in many levels of things and in our business dealings and politics and media as well as in war and violence. And clearly this showed up in the heart of the King of Tear because he was exemplifying that same proud, um, godlike quality that Satan did in heaven that got him thrown down. And as we see, as as God is depicting the judgment that will come upon the king of tear, he's speaking a similar judgment to what Satan will receive. Um, his fall will be very public. Everyone will see the fall of Satan. It would be open for everyone to see, and his destruction will be complete. We see the direct parallels to the king of Tyrus in the heart of Satan. They were both obsessed with their own self-worth, their own success, their own power, and they sought attention and more glory unto themselves, and both yearned to be as a God unto themselves. And by the scripture, that we we can see that their end is similar. Their destruction will be before all, and their destruction will be complete. So this gives us a glimpse as to why wicked things happen in the earth, because the same spirit that rebelled against God in heaven, the same spirit that deceived Eve in the garden, the same spirit that inspired the king of Tyrus to rule corruptly and desire to be like a god unto himself, the same spirit that is raging because of his dreadful destiny is still at work today, prompting people to do evil and wicked things so he can have company in the lake of fire, and so that he can hurt the heart of God, because God loves each one of his creations and does not want any of us to be condemned. So these are the forces that we are dealing with in the earth today. You cannot see them, but they are warring against God's people, and the ramifications of their efforts can be clearly seen. This is the root of evil in this earth, and God, our righteous judge, will not sit idly by and watch his creation be victimized and destroyed. If you think about someone being exalted or elevated, a person can be elevated by God, but this results in people being blessed and encouraged and flourishing with great provision. In the Bible, we see this through the examples in the lives of David and Moses and Joseph. When God exalted someone, there was great benefit for the people and not just for that individual person. But on the other hand, Satan was trying to exalt himself in his kingdom above God for his own personal glory. And likewise, those he influences today, the driving force behind them being elevated is personal gain and power. We see this in our scripture reading of the King of Tyrus. He oppressed people, he dealt dishonestly to obtain his wealth, and the end goal was so he himself would be glorified. This is truly the root of the evil that is behind the wicked things we see happening in this earth now. This is truly the root of the evil that is behind the wicked things that we see happening in the earth. And this is the evil that God is dealing with in the heavenlies. So now that we see the root of the problem, on our next episode, we'll delve a little further and discuss the punishment that comes as a result of this evil.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

So I've enjoyed exploring what the Bible has to say about this topic with all of you. I look forward to hearing your feedback. Until the next time, stay blessed. Take care.