Chaos and Charlie Kirk

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.  –Genesis 1:2 (NIV)
 
“Formless and void”. Or, if you prefer the Hebrew, “tohu wabohu”. The natural state of whatever was present before Yahweh began the process of creation was described as dark, liquid chaos. Creation, as described poetically in the book of Genesis, was the sequence of steps God enacted to bring order, symmetry, and sustainability to that environment. As the building blocks were spoken into existence, distinctions were made and organization was introduced.
 
Light and dark. Sky and waters. Land and sea. Plant life capable of reproducing according to its kind. Lights in the skies to govern days and seasons and years. Animals of every variety, by air, sea, and land. And finally, the crown jewel of His creation, image-bearers endowed with a soul, an awareness beyond the here and now, and a longing for meaning. “Male and female created He them”. He gave them the assignment to “be fruitful and multiply” for the purposes of stewarding creation and extending the order of the garden.
 
If God had wanted pre-programmed automatons, He could’ve prevented what happened next. But He desires friendship and love that grows from a freewill response to Who He Is. So He gave people a choice. Seizing the opportunity, the enemy entered the ordered world God had created and lied to the people. He cast suspicion on God’s motives and invited Adam and Eve to define good and evil on their own terms. That which had been deemed “very good” became corrupted.
 
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  –John 10:10 (NIV)
 
The desire to undo the creation order that God introduced is the essence of evil. The exercise of that desire is the definition of sin. Sin and evil are not popular topics today. Everyone is a victim; everything is an illness, a syndrome, or a lifestyle choice. It’s interesting that so many of those conditions are known as “disorders”. But most, if not all our problems spring from the urge to throw off an authoritative definition of good and devise our own, an urge as insidiously tantalizing now as it was in the garden. And anywhere you see a denial of God’s creation order, you can be sure the enemy is still at work.
 
Dishonesty, greed, cruelty, tyranny, divorce, abortion, homosexuality, gender confusion, violence for personal gain or in defense of some perverted lifestyle or twisted ideology – all these are distortions of the ordered world we were originally gifted with. The degree to which we allow such distortions to collectively rule our lives determines our ability to maintain a civilized society. John Adams expressed an idea shared by many of America’s founding fathers when he said, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
 
The world lost a good man this week. Charlie Kirk loved God, his country, his family, his friends… and his enemies. He was vocal in his faith and effective in arguing for God-ordered definitions of right and wrong as necessary to maintain a livable society. In other words, Charlie pushed back against the chaos. He recognized that evil exists and it’s evidenced whenever you see agents of the enemy introducing confusion and rebellion into God’s established order. While I am not as articulate, persuasive, courteous, or good-natured as Charlie was, I pray I speak truth as fearlessly and consistently as he did.
 
For God is not a God of disorder but of peace…. –1 Corinthians 14:33a (NIV)