A Hypothetical Dialogue on Good and
Evil
By
Fred Pruitt
Q: How is it that you can say "everything
is God manifesting Himself" and "everything is His
perfection" when that is obviously not the case, since evil
and death are rampant in the world? Do you just choose not
to see what is before your eyes?
A: I do see what is before my eyes, which
is God. Only His love. There is nothing else happening. His
love manifests in Freedom; therefore there are vessels of
honor and vessels of dishonor. The vessels of honor are
those who freely live in the flow of His outgoing love, and
the vessels of dishonor those who turn His love in them into
an unquenchable fire of self-gratification, which is the
devil. In the time of this world it seems as if these two
are in contention with one another, and so they are, but
that contention is orchestrated by the Lord, in that all
things, including the interaction of light and darkness,
work together for good to those who are the elect. Again, HE
works all things after the counsel of His own will.
Therefore, since His will is only Love towards us, and all
things are worked according to His will of Love, I cannot
see for the life of me that anything else is happening
except that, and that whatever comes into my vision, good or
evil, bitter or sweet, is nothing else but that, first and
foremost. He is the Ground of All, whatever it becomes in
its freedom.
Q: Then you're saying there really is no
evil?
A: No, there is evil. It exists in the
freedom of the creatures who turn God's light in them into
darkness and thus manifest that darkness, which is only
self-seeking.
Q: Then how can everything be "love" if
there is evil?
A: Because the Father turns it to His own
ends. There are not two rival Deities in the universe, one
Good, one Evil. There is only One God. He is Above all,
through all, and in all. The Scriptures plainly say this.
Therefore when in freedom He allows evil to have its way, it
is not outside His own plan being manifest. Evil thinks it
is its "own thing," alone in its rebellion. It thinks it is
a power unto itself. It thinks it accomplishes its goals.
Like Joseph's brothers. Joseph was a pest to them, too
favored of Jacob for their self-seeking jealousy. They
thought they had taken care of the problem when they sold
him off into slavery, never to be heard from again. But
years later, they found themselves unwittingly bowing before
him, even as his dream all those years ago had predicted. By
this time they'd been kicked around a little more by life &
were repentant and humble. So when the truth came out, they
expected retribution at Joseph's hand, yet Joseph said the
most remarkable thing: "Ye thought evil against me; but God
meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to
save much people alive." God turned their evil, even to go
so far as he MEANT it, in order to, on-down-the-line, "save
much people alive." The sons of Israel
certainly reaped the rewards all those years of their sin,
and were not excused from what they had done. But in their
repentance they were by grace allowed to see that even their
"sin" had brought about the plan of God. So, what must've
seemed the farthest possible thing from love to Joseph,
being put into a pit by his jealous brothers and sold off as
a slave, proved to be the Love of God, not just for Joseph,
but for the entire human race, because by that God took
Jacob & his sons down to Egypt to make a people out of them.
And such is everything in life.
Q: So you're saying it doesn't matter
whether you're a vessel of honor or a vessel of dishonor?
A: Each has its proper reward and end. The
one life, the other death. Which do you prefer?
Q: Well, then, how do you deal with evil?
Do you just pretend it's not there?
A: The Sons of God are free in their
dealings with evil, in whatever form it comes. The
Love-Force that is within us, "the Holy Ghost which is shed
abroad in our hearts," has one function only, to restore the
Kingdom of God
in its fulness, by means of us. We are not our own, nor do
we seek our own ends. We recognize that the Father's will is
the only will operative in us, and know that the Word of
God, which we are and which we speak, is the one weapon of
our warfare. Where sin abounds, we see grace much more
abounding. When the enemy comes "in like a flood, the Spirit
of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him." What form
it takes is the Lord's business. It may be to turn the other
cheek. It may be to disagree, argue, exhort and preach. It
may be to help the wounded. It may be to walk away quietly.
It may be to cast out demons. It may be to raise the dead.
There is no law for this or that situation. As the next part
of the verse says: "And the Redeemer shall come to
Zion." Always in every situation the
Redeemer is there, to shine light in darkness. All the earth
is subdued to Him in us. "Arise, shine; for thy light is
come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. For,
behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross
darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and
his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall
come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy
rising."
Q: Why don't you talk about Satan more?
A. First of all, I don't like saying his name. He gets
enough press already. Secondly, though I see him lurking
around here and there, he has nothing in me, no foothold in
who I really am. He's a griper, a complainer, an accuser, an
"I-want-my-rights" kind of guy and in the Cross of the Lord
Jesus his ties have been severed with me in that I am dead
in Christ, and my life is hidden in God. Christ has arisen
as the Daystar in my heart, and His light has driven out all
darkness. I live simultaneously at the foot of the Cross and
in Heaven in the bosom of the Father and His Lamb. What more
do I have to do with this liar? Whatever his attempts at
dealings with me are in the Father's hand, even as the
victory has already been won by the Son. I simply declare
him null and void. We have nothing to do with his supposed
kingdom of ruin and degradation, having been translated out
of it and into the fulness of the
Kingdom
of Light. And
likewise, standing now on firm ground and firm foundation
ourselves, we can reach out our hands and pull our brothers
and sisters out of the quicksand and quagmire, who are
falsely held captive by his illusory bondage. Since Christ's
death and resurrection redeemed the whole world, he is a
liar who pretends he has power to bind. But Christ has come
that all men might be free, and He gave His life in Love to
secure that freedom, to break the bonds. We only declare
what has already been done, and men's chains drop off one by
one as they see and receive the Truth, which is Him. When
you live in the Kingdom
of Light,
you only see light. It is said of God that He is of too pure
eyes to behold evil. Yet we know the Lord sees and knows all
things. Nothing gets past His sight. How, then, can He not
"behold evil"? In that He sees His own love being worked out
through it. "He that sits in the heavens shall laugh."
Q: How can you say you're that pure?
A: I confess to no purity of my own. HE is
the purity, and He is the whole of my life. "For me to live
is Christ." "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall
see God." By faith I look in every direction -- up, down,
left, right, in, out -- and see only God manifesting Himself
in perfection, ordering everything after the counsel of His
own will. He knows when a sparrow falls and the number of
hairs on our heads individually. Imagine that if you can.
Think on it. If He is that involved with the minutest
details of existence, then even evil and the devil the
author of evil are His servants. The scriptures are rampant
with this. Isaiah 45:5-8 is but one of many passages which
declare He is all there is, that He has brought into being
all that is, and that EVEN NOW He is All in all! When God
has given us such a vision, we cannot see anything else,
though all day long we are barraged by false visions and
thoughts that attempt to wrench us away from the purity of
seeing God only. But by His grace alone, by which we ARE
CAUSED to walk in His ways, and see only by His vision, we
continue to see only God. Where is evil? Where is the devil?
I don't see them, because the Light that lights everything
has blotted them out in the brightness of His glory. The
best example of the devil is the Roadrunner cartoon. He is
like Wile E. Coyote -- who every day tries to destroy the
roadrunner, only to have every machination he dreams up
backfire on him. The greatest thing the devil ever did was
to engineer the murder of the Son of God -- by which his
unholy princedom has been forever thwarted and destroyed.
God is in charge, and NOTHING thwarts His will. Therefore we
live in rest, without fear, seeing only life -- even in the
midst of the greatest suffering, the greatest hardships, or
even the greatest injustices. All works to the good of the
saints -- everything! Rejoice, for He that will come HAS
come, and even now lives in us to will and to do of His good
pleasure!