“This world is a dangerous place,” I said. “But not for the reasons you might think.”

John was there with Sofi this time and my wife had joined us for our weekly get together after the Alpha Course session. We were all sitting on the sofa and chairs in the living room with hot coffee in our hands. We were starting to get to know each other quite well. Sofi was no fool either. She could think. Her background was Catholic but she knew her Bible.

“What kind of danger are you talking about?” John asked. “Wars and famine and stuff like that?”

“Well, yes, but there is an even greater danger that is mostly God’s fault.”

“God’s fault?” Sofi said. “You want to blame God for all the evil in the world?”

“No, not for the evil,” I said, giving a dramatic pause. “Just for the danger.”

“Ok, spill it already,” my wife said, giving me a look.

I laughed.

“Ok, ok,” I said. “What I am saying is that God had to create a truce of sorts, putting off his final judgment of death for Adam and Eve in order to provide a context for the battle with the Evil One for the souls of man.”

“A context?” John said.

“Yes. A time and place for God to fight back. Ultimately, every man and woman must make an accounting for their lives but, in the meantime, certain things must be accomplished. God’s Master Plan must go forward and the Evil One must be defeated. God would not give up his creation or his people to the Evil One without a fight.”

“Maybe they didn’t die right away,” Sofi said, “but we still all got cursed.“

“Even the serpent was cursed by God,” my wife said.

“Let me read that to you from the Book of Genesis,” I said. “Because you have done this, ‘Cursed are you above all livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:14,15 NIV).

“Our first parents created an unholy alliance with the Evil One,” I said. “They traded faith and trust in God for doubt and unbelief. It was safer to decide things for themselves than to trust in the love of a Father who, according to the serpent, was holding back good things from them. Although they had not intended to choose the serpent over their Father, they chose the same path as the Evil One and so created the unholy alliance with him that would be their downfall.”

“Not good,” John said.

“That unholy alliance was not broken with the setting up of this truce but it was made difficult to maintain. It would be constantly challenged. The Devil knows that he has no authority on the earth that he cannot deceive man into giving to him. Therefore, the curse upon the serpent was to create enmity or friction between the two allies and predict his final doom at the hands of one of the offspring of the very woman he had deceived.”

“You mean Jesus?” John said.

“Exactly.”

“But why is this truce so dangerous?” John asked. “I think I missed something.”

I looked at John carefully.

“Do you remember the first question you asked me about God?” I said.

John just shook his head.

“You asked me how could a good God allow so much evil in the world.”

“Yeah, I remember,” John said. “And you gave me this crazy answer. You said because God loves us.”

I just looked at him and he stared back his mind working. I could almost see the moment when he worked it out.

“The truce,” John said. “God had to institute a truce in order to save us but he couldn’t get rid of evil at the same time.”

“Exactly. God has to put up with evil in order to save us. That’s why the truce is so dangerous.”

“But I still don’t get it,” Sofi said. “You said that God created the danger which I suppose is the truce, but not the evil. I see why evil is dangerous but not why the truce is dangerous.”

“Because everybody thinks that the truce is normal,” I said.

Sofi and John just sat there thinking.

“What’s the greatest barrier to people coming to know God and learning about Jesus?” I didn’t wait for an answer. “This conviction that everything is normal and that everything is as it should be. Godlessness is normal, in fact, most people consider religion to be old-fashioned. Evil is put up with and death is considered natural. Nothing is further from the truth.”

“So the truce allows wickedness and evil on the one hand and on the other it kinda lulls people to sleep thinking that everything is fine,” John said.

“Right. When, in fact, this world is abnormal and even downright absurd. Humans are not dust in the wind, but rather the most valuable possession of a God who is determined to save them.”

“Once you see it from that point of view, it starts to make sense,” Sofi said.

“Jesus basically broke that alliance and relationship we have with the Devil and gave us the chance for a new relationship with God,” I said. “Sort of like an opportunity to go back to the way things were, with some differences of course.”

John was amazed. His eyes were opened and he saw things in a way he never thought about before. I could see it on his face.

“And our job is to tell more people about it,” he said. “Like you guys are doing with us.”

“Right,” I said. “And make new friends along the way.”

We all laughed at that. That was one thing that was certainly coming true.