A Cruel and Terrible Being

Frank was a teenager when he decided how cruel and terrible his father was. His father would yell at him all of the time, shake his head, make Frank feel truly bad about himself. Frank remembered that even when he was younger, his father would be angry and spank him. He despised his father for it. Eventually, Frank just moved out and had nothing to do with that horrible man ever again.

Frank's father remembered when Frank was a teenager. He loved him very much, but was very disappointed when Frank would bully his siblings, steal their stuff, lie, start fights in the family, and curse out his parents. His father would yell at him only when Frank would do these things, but it seemed like Frank did them a lot. He really hurt his family. When he was a boy, his father would have to spank him for hitting and throwing rocks at his sisters. He would often hit them in the head with rocks and they would end up in the ER. His father just could not understand why Frank hated him so much merely because he stood against his bad behavior. Frank moved out, of course, and landed in prison for his numerous crimes commited outside the home.

The story above can best be illustrated in our modern day when criminals get angry at the police for arresting them. Murderers, thieves, drug dealers, prostitutes, etc., they all act as though the police are the bad guys because they're just trying to stop them from making a living and doing what they want in life. 

So it is with the wicked. God is a monster to them. How cruel that God would stand against their evil, condemn their chaotic ways, and ulimately remove them from His creation they so desire to destroy with their "good intentions" ("good" according to a rebellious worldview that denies the reality God has revealed). They suppress that reality by hating Him, putting another in His place, and sinning all the more. They destroy His creation, His family, their families, their children, strangers and friends alike. They are murderers, liars, adulterers, slanderers, haters of God and His true images, but somehow, in some warped way, as the wicked child, as the criminal, it is God who is the cruel and terrible being, not them. They're just trying to live as they wish, and their living just happens to curse God and harm others. Why would God care so much about that? Why is He always raining on their black parade? (A My Chemical Romance reference for you there.)

The truth of the matter is that the true God, i.e., the One who actually exists, is a cruel and terrible Being in the eyes of cruel and terrible beings because He stands against them, condemns them, and will forever remove them from His good, created order. Good is always evil in the eyes of the evil because they must always see themselves as good and what is contrary to themselves as wrong. Like Frank, they're the heroes in their own eyes, even though they've destroyed the town, murdered its mayor, and defraud its citizens. God is the mean, awful Justice of the Peace who has come to destroy them and take that all away from them. He's the bad guy in a world where bad guys consider themselves great people.

Imagine that. One who is truly a cruel and terrible person and then acting as though the God who calls him on it is cruel and terrible for doing so. I can't think of a more cruel and terrible being than that.