Does God Want Us to Defy Evil?

Many believers truly seem to think it is part of the New Testament paradigm for the Church to be non-resistant to all evil. They impose Jesus' principle of turning the other cheek (Matthew 5:38-42)--a principle He was applying to person-to-person encounters--onto all institutions, bureaucracies, governments, and organizations. We have influence as we encounter our fellows person to person--our fellow living souls. Therefore, if we are ever to demonstrate nonretaliation, it makes sense that we should do it during those moments. He did not say this principle applied to devilish and worldly forces of evil which embody impersonal corporations. He also taught that we were to use our Kingdom authority to bind and to loose (Matthew 16:19)--and, crucially, He did not limit our binding and loosing. That is, if we fail to bind evil, are we not loosing it upon our lives and cultures?

I cannot shake the thought that when those corporate bodies--bloated with the sense of their wealth and power--are not resisted, they usually grow stronger. If the Church does not possess the virtues of this world (including its material wealth), will the enemies of God leave them be? Or will they help themselves to whatever is here and transform virtue into vice? Is this God's will for us, to just let them have whatever they will? --including everything the enemy steals from us, because Jesus made it clear he would when he had chances to do so. It is in his nature to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). What I say is this: there is a difference between defying evil and defying God's will for us as nonviolent believers living in peace with our fellow human souls.

Is God's will for us ever evil? If not, then how can the enemy's evil schemes ever be part of God's will for us? So when evil comes, we should just acquiesce to its destructive forces as though they were God's hand working His will in our lives? How does this make sense? In the very same verse wherein Jesus instructs us as to what the enemy comes to do (John 10:10), He also declares that He came to bring us life and life more abundant. Where does evil factor into this and His many other statements about the Father's loving care of His children?

That God can bring good out of both good and evil is to me undeniable (and it is the declaration of Romans 8:28). But does this mean it is His will that evil should wax stronger and then come against us before His will is able to be worked out in our favor? That He can transform both good and evil into blessings for us--does this mean He has to have evil incorporated into the building blocks? This is like saying healthy food will only work to our advantage when it is also mixed with poisons. What nonsense.

I believe it is not defying God's will for us when we defy evil. Evil does not come from God for those not under His judgment. Even if it did, I would rather suffer at His hands than the enemy's. I would rather fight for and take back what the enemy stole from me according to the principle of binding and loosing Jesus clearly wanted us to apply, than to complacently leave the enemy's hands strong and his resources many. Then if God bids me place what I have recovered on His altar, I will. Even if I lose something by His hand, as Abraham risked his beloved son by placing him on an altar by God's command, I would rather God took it than the enemy, who always uses our blessings for his nefarious purposes.

I no longer believe God works through destructive forces for those whose attention and obedience He already has. He leaves us to be affected by evil because we have either opened a door to its ability to work in our life (even if only because we forgot to close and lock with our keys of the Kingdom (Isaiah 22:22) a door someone else near us opened), or the enemy is just doing what he does and God wants us to be built up by our battle against his efforts to take from us, or because we would not be moved to grow in Christ or toward God by any lesser means (like Pharaoh in the Exodus account).

I would rather something be gone from my life because I placed it on God's altar and He took it, than that the enemy got hold of it and used it for evil. The former I do as a conscious act of my own free will; the latter occurs without my consent and as much as possible without my foreknowledge. I may not immediately understand why God took something away He gave for my blessing, but I know I can trust He Who has proven trustworthy to use for good what I have devoted to Him. The other I know I cannot.

So yes, I believe God wants us to defy evil when it comes to battling those non-human forces that seek to destroy us, our families, His Church, and godly culture. And I believe this defiance is His will for our lives.

We have believed so many lies.