WHY GOOD AND EVIL?       DFO1323          France, 15/9/80
--How Else Would You Know the Difference?

         1. (After watching a "Star Trek" video & before starting "Aladdin's Lamp", Maria was a little concerned about the children seeing the Evil Magician, & Dad said:)
         2. THERE HAS TO BE SOMETHING BAD OR THERE WOULDN'T BE ANY POINT TO THE STORY! In every story there's good & bad, right? There's a hero, the good guy, & there's the villain, the bad guy, & every story has to have good & evil in it!--Even the Bible! The whole idea of all Creation is the struggle between good & evil & to show the difference! If there was no evil, you wouldn't even know what good was, right? And if there was no darkness, you wouldn't appreciate the light.
         3. WHAT MAKES YOU APPRECIATE BEING WELL?--WHEN YOU'RE SICK, RIGHT? So you can only appreciate the good things by comparison with the bad things, by the difference between good & bad, see? If there was no bad, you wouldn't know what was good, because everything would be good. But you wouldn't even know it was good because you didn't know anything about any bad!
         4. SO THE LORD ALLOWED ADAM & EVE TO EAT OF THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD & EVIL SO THEY'D KNOW THE DIFFERENCE! He let'm do it! He knew they'd do it & they weren't supposed to, but He let'm. He had to let'm taste & see what evil was like, & then they'd appreciate the good!
         5. IF IT WEREN'T FOR BAD PEOPLE, YOU WOULDN'T APPRECIATE YOUR NICE FAMILY & ALL THE GOOD PEOPLE YOU LIVE WITH! But when you see how bad the World is, how wicked they are & how awful they are, then you realise how good the good people are! There always has to be a little bit of evil to make you appreciate the good.
         6. IF YOU DIDN'T HAVE A FEW TROUBLES, YOU WOULDN'T THANK THE LORD FOR ALL THE GOOD THINGS! If you didn't have a few little problems, you wouldn't appreciate the solutions. If we didn't have the Devil, we wouldn't appreciate God & Jesus! There has to be evil in order to understand good & know the difference.
         7. UNTIL THE LORD CREATED THIS GREAT ILLUSTRATION OR EXPERIMENT ON EARTH to show the whole Universe & all the angels & everyone the difference between good & evil, they didn't know the difference! Nothing was evil! There wasn't anything bad! Everything was very good--good Creation, good sun, moon, stars, planets, good World--everything was wonderful! (Ge.1:31)
         8. WHAT DID YOU DO TO YOURSELF, DAVID? (Maria: It's a mosquito bite!) Oh my! Jesus, touch & heal him, in Jesus' name. See, if you didn't have hurts & sores & things like that, you'd never know the difference or appreciate what nice smooth skin you have that has no sores. But when you get one like that, then you're thankful for all the skin that doesn't have one! There has to be a little evil to make us appreciate the good.
         9. A FEW LITTLE BAD THINGS HAVE TO HAPPEN SO YOU'RE THANKFUL THAT THEY DON'T HAPPEN ALL THE TIME! You don't always get your way & get to do everything you want to do & have everything you want to have, because if you did, you wouldn't even appreciate it.
         10. WE HAVE A TOUGH FIGHT SOMETIMES FIGHTING THE DEVIL, BUT WE WIN! Good always wins, because good is of God & God can't lose! He always wins because He's the biggest & He's the toughest & He can out-fight the Devil every time, no matter what the Devil does!
         11. BUT IF YOU DIDN'T HAVE THE FIGHT, YOU WOULDN'T APPRECIATE THE VICTORY! If you didn't have a battle, you wouldn't appreciate the winning! Without the trial there's no triumph, without a battle there's no victory, without a test there's no testimony!
         12. WE THANK YOU, LORD, WHEN WE WIN THE VICTORY & WHEN YOU ANSWER PRAYER. Even our work, Lord, is in a sense a battle! Every job that we do is a struggle at which we try to work hard to be successful & to win & to come out on top victorious! So we've got lots to be thankful for!
         13. OTHERWISE, LORD, WE MIGHT JUST GET LAZY PHYSICALLY & SPIRITUALLY! If we never had any work to do, never had any struggles in the spirit with the Enemy, we would get very lazy & very flabby physically & spiritually, & we would be in bad shape! But You give us lots of battles so we can win, & lots of struggles so we can have victories, & lots of hard work so we can be thankful that we've accomplished our tasks, in Jesus' name!
         14. SEE?--THE EVIL WORKED OUT FOR GOOD! If we hadn't had the Evil Magician, you wouldn't have got that nice little lecture from the Good Magician! (Maria: Ah, TYL!) PTL! TYL! I think I'm ready for bed!--I'm tired! That makes bed feel so good!--Amen? GBY! ILY!