Sunday April 1
If the cosmic controversy forms the background biblical worldview, this leads to a number of questions. An important one is, How did it all get started? Because a loving God created the universe, it’s reasonable to assume that evil, violence, and conflict were certainly not built into the creation from the beginning. The controversy must have arisen separate from the original creation and was definitely not a necessary result of it. Nevertheless, the controversy is here, it’s real, and we are all involved.
Read Ezekiel 28:1, 2, 11-17 and Isaiah 14:12-14. What do these texts teach us about the fall of Lucifer and the rise of evil?
Lucifer was a perfect being living in heaven. How could iniquity have arisen in him, especially in an environment like that? We don’t know. Perhaps that’s one reason why the Bible talks about “the mystery of iniquity” (2 Thessalonians 2:7).
Outside the reality of the free will that God has given all His intelligent creatures, no reason exists for the fall of Lucifer. As Ellen G. White so profoundly stated it: “It is impossible to explain the origin of sin so as to give a reason for its existence. … Sin is an intruder, for whose presence no reason can be given. It is mysterious, unaccountable; to excuse it is to defend it. Could excuse for it be found, or cause be shown for its existence, it would cease to be sin”. — The Great Controversy, pp. 492, 493.
Replace the word sin with evil, and the statement works just as well. It is impossible to explain the origin of evil so as to give a reason for its existence. … Evil is an intruder, for whose presence no reason can be given. It is mysterious, unaccountable; to excuse it is to defend it. Could excuse for it be found, or cause be shown for its existence, it would cease to be evil.
Think about your own experiences with the reality of free will. Why, then, should we prayerfully and carefully think about the choices we make using our free will?
