The Battle of Good vs. Evil

Are You Fighting the Right Enemy?

Shall we play a game?

It’s easy to play. I promise.

I just want to ask you to paint a few pictures in your mind.

If TRUE EVIL were a person, what would “Mr. Evil” look like to you?

Really. Do this with me please. It’s important.

Put a picture in your mind about what Mr. Evil looks like. There’s no right or wrong answer.

Is it a caricature of the devil? An evil clown? The face of a notorious murderer? A visual you first saw in a horror film? The grim reaper?

Whatever that picture in your mind is, set it aside for now.

Now, paint a new picture in your mind of two people facing one another. One on the left and one on the right. They’re both wearing boxing gloves, ready to fight one another. They each look focused. Determined to win their fight.

Set that picture aside for now.

And hang with me.

Next, we’re going to combine those two pictures into a kind of triangle.

Put your mind’s picture of Mr. Evil at the top of the triangle.

Now put the boxers, one on the left and one on the right, below the top picture to complete the triangle.

Finally, visually draw puppet strings from Mr. Evil to each of the boxers.

Good job.

Now I want to ask you a serious question, friend.

Are you fighting the right enemy?

Our world is FULL of folks who have been divided into two camps: the Left and the Right. Both camps believe to the depths of their souls that their beliefs are true. It doesn’t matter what nation you live in—division is happening everywhere.

For each of us, the act of digging into our convictions has come at a very high price.

Treasured friendships have ended. Families have been destroyed.

Our beloved world is being torn apart.

Why?

Because every one of us has been deceived.

We’re fighting the wrong enemy.

Our enemy is Mr. Evil.

NOT one another.

We ALL know the concept of Good versus Evil.

But as human beings, we don’t like to talk about Evil. We don’t even like to think about Evil.

What is Evil?

Get that picture of Mr. Evil back in your mind.

The dictionary says evil is “profoundly immoral and wicked.” OK.

But I love this definition by Jennifer Ping.

Evil is “the intention to manipulate, amplify, overpower, and spread fear, despair, and hopelessness. Its goal is to leave the human spirit in perpetual darkness and snuffing away any trace of love, warmth, and hope.”

Does that resonate with you?

The reality of being a human is that we are ALWAYS fighting against evil, right? We’re ALWAYS fighting to push the bad stuff away and bring more good stuff into our lives. We’re ALWAYS fighting to push the darkness away and bring more light into our lives.

New question.

Are YOU a Good person or an Evil person?

OF COURSE, you’re a GOOD person!

BUT …

Are you a Good person with the ability to do Evil?

Bad news.

Oh YES YOU ARE, my friend.

What if I told you that you were BORN evil?

Don’t believe me? Read this post from Charissa Enget on Quora.

The most important line in that post?

“ … to be kind, you must fight against human nature.”

That’s right.

Evil is baked into our human nature from the beginning.

For those of you who are Bible people, you believe that mankind’s fallen nature comes from what happened in the Garden of Eden.

But even if you’re not a Bible-believing person, that story of the toddlers shows you that we are truly born with evil tendencies. We don’t need to be taught how to be evil. It’s already there. You know it’s true.

It’s a fact: Evil exists.

Intellectually, you know that.

You just don’t want to admit it.

Evil comes in so many forms. Selfishness. Lying. Cheating. Stealing. Lust. Gluttony. Greed. Sloth. Pride. Envy. Wrath. Assault. Battery. Kidnapping. Torture. Rape. Murder. Animal cruelty. Arson. Child abuse. Bestiality. Molestation. Human trafficking and slavery. Child sex trafficking. Cannibalism. Pedophilia. Genocide.

ALL of those things and MORE are ways that Mr. Evil uses common men to execute his strategies against mankind.

Mr. Evil has become our puppet master and is pulling ALL of our strings.

Mr. Evil WANTS us divided. Because being divided keeps us deceived. Because being divided keeps our attention off Mr. Evil. We don’t pay attention to the schemes he’s plotting all around us. We mostly don’t even acknowledge that he EXISTS. Mr. Evil is crafty. He tends to stay invisible to mankind.

But Mr. Evil knows how our brains work.

Do you know what your brain’s main job is?

To keep you alive. To protect you. To keep you in your comfort zone. To not take risks. To not put yourself in danger. To keep you safe.

Your brain works hard to distract you from thinking about bad things. Your brain makes it easy to just brush thoughts of Mr. Evil away.

And our society makes it easy, too. Remember Dr. Evil?

Mike Myers’ character “normalized” Evil for our world. Made us think of Evil in a different way. Made us believe Evil wasn’t really all that bad, after all.

One of the most popular genres people “enjoy” is crime. Think of how many TV shows are focused on crime topics. And now think of how many movies. And what about video games? And millions of books every year!

All of those media are used to normalize Evil to our world.

But it’s not just movies, television, video games, and books that normalize Evil.

Think about your reaction when you hear horrific stories on your favorite news program. You’ve become numb. Just another murder, rape, kidnapping. No big deal. It’s just another day on Planet Earth. Bad stuff happens.

Unfortunately, most stories on news programming are traditionally TRUE stories, not part of a movie or TV script. REAL PEOPLE, not actors, are being attacked by Mr. Evil and his minions every single day.

But because we see chaos and violence so much on so many screens daily, it becomes no big deal for us.

Throughout our lives, we have been trained to NOT see Evil as Evil.

But that’s not all.

Throughout mankind’s history, Mr. Evil has used one his most potent weapons against all of us: DIVISION. Rich versus poor. Black versus white. Man versus woman. Educated versus uneducated. Liberal versus conservative. Gay versus straight. The list of “labels” that divide us is endless.

If Mr. Evil keeps us fighting one another, we won’t know that HE IS THE REAL ENEMY.

I have a very serious challenge for you, friends.

WE MUST STOP MR. EVIL.

He wants to DESTROY US.

He wants to KILL US.

We MUST find ways to fight back TOGETHER.

We MUST fight to get our critical thinking back, even if our brain doesn’t want us to.

We MUST fight back against Mr. Evil, even if our brain tells us not to.

We MUST learn to NOT fight one another.

We MUST fight to UNITE our world, not divide it.

We MUST stop using labels for one another and respect each other as members of the HUMAN RACE.

We MUST use all of our energy to fight Mr. Evil and his devious schemes.

When Mr. Evil rears his ugly head in our lives, RESIST.

DO NOT GIVE HIM POWER.

DO NOT GIVE HIM BREATH OR ENERGY.

Mr. Evil is shrewd. He creeps into your life with teeny, tiny EVIL assignments—then once you are listening to him, the assignments get bigger.

We MUST break Mr. Evil’s hold on us.

When Mr. Evil tempts you to steal a pen or a paper clip from work, DON’T DO IT.

When Mr. Evil tempts you to say something negative about someone else, DON’T DO IT.

When Mr. Evil tempts you to say a sharp word to a loved one, DON’T DO IT.

No matter how big or how small an assignment is from Mr. Evil, DON’T DO IT.

DO NOT GIVE AWAY YOUR POWER.

And there’s one other critical way we can fight back. One other critical way we can take Mr. Evil’s power away. One other powerful way to defeat him.

Fight Evil with Love.

In closing, please join me in this amazing prayer against Mr. Evil’s wicked ways from Amanda Grace. Prayer changes things.

“Father God, in the Name of our JESUS, we COMMAND that the enemy's schemes be FOILED! Jesus is LORD, seated at the right hand of You, God the Father, and He rules and reigns forevermore. In the Name of Jesus Christ, I ask that You set loose your holy warring angels and angels of all rankings and divisions to surround us right now. Make a hedge, a shield, and a wall of protection around us. Destroy every plot, scheme, contract, assignment, attempt, blueprint, counteroffensive, weaponry, attack, strategy of the enemy, satanic agents, dark forces, unclean spirits, agents of the enemy, and the like, in the Name of Jesus Christ—that they would be broken, cancelled, aborted, destroyed, dismantled, disabled, thwarted, disrupted, blocked, nullified, voided, and disarmed. And Father God, in the Name of Jesus Christ, let them be cast back to the dry places and the pits from which they came, to be bound there in the Name of Jesus Christ, to not return or have anything sent in their place. Father, we pray right now in the Name of Jesus Christ, by the blood of the Lamb, by the power of the One true living God, may only the truth and power of Almighty God with authority surround us today and always. The steps of the righteous are ordered by the Lord. In Jesus' matchless Name. AMEN. And AMEN.”