The Wicked Have a Purpose

“The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.” (Pr 16:4 AV)

What does that mean?  The LORD has made the wicked for the day of evil?  I thought the LORD hated evil?  I thought the wicked were the enemies of God?  Why would the LORD create something, or someone, whom He knows would never love nor follow Him?  We see the answer to the latter question in the verse above.  The wicked are made for the evil day.  But what does that mean?  The day in which evil comes, or to which the wicked participate.  So, what is the writer referring to?  The wicked are allowed to continue on the earth for the purpose of the evil which they will produce, which works according to the plan of God.  Evil does not necessarily mean morally wrong.  It simply means circumstances not in the temporal favor of the one on whom it is afflicted.  A disease can be seen as an evil.  A storm can be seen as an evil.  In our case above, an invading army is the evil.  In other words, the LORD made Babylon, Assyria, Greece, Rome, and the kingdom of the Antichrist so that they might inflict evil on the whom the LORD wishes to chasten.  Namely, the people of God.

God is very clear these governments were the hand of God on His people for their correction.  They, the people of God that is, had wandered far from God.  They had begun to emulate their pagan neighbors.  They began to do some very ungodly things.  They went after false gods.  They sacrificed their children as human sacrifices on altars to heathen deities.   Sodomy was rampant.  Israel had become a filthy place.  So, the LORD sent Assyria and Babylon to capture Israel and Judah.  These heathen kingdoms carried away to Jewish people to live and serve in a pagan nation.  They were removed from their land and forbidden to fully follow the Old Testament ceremonial law.  Some may consider this counter productive toward God’s stated goal of a holy people.  After all, wouldn’t they simple double down on the pagan ways of the heathen once they lived among them?  The thing is, as Esther shows us, the people of God can be in the highest positions of the land and curry favor from the king, but in the end, they are still hated.  This is the conclusion Israel had to come to so that when Nehemiah desired to return and build the walls of Jerusalem, many would want to return with him.

So, what it he application?  The church had largely become nothing more than a business that pushes the gospel rather than a sacred institution that wins and disciples saints.  We have taken the ideas of the business world and incorporated them into the house of worship because we are looking for customers rather than converts.  When we devise means to attract the world, we have surrendered that which makes us what God designed us to be.  When we have Christian Schools that teach more secular subject matter than sacred, we are shocked the government seeks to enforce mandates it has for secular schools.  When we have businesses within or building and charge our patrons for those services, we wonder why the government wants to rescind our 501©3 status.  I know of a few churches that ordained every employee, so the church didn’t have to pay the employer’s portion of the social security tax.  They wished to keep separate church and state.  I whole heartedly agree.  If that is your goal, then perhaps one must develop ministry that wouldn’t open to door for government intrusion.  In short, we may not always agree with the authorities the LORD has in place, but they are often the arm of God’s correction.  It could be the LORD brings persecution from the powers that be because the church needs a deep revival.  We need to focus on the gospel itself and not the wall street methods of propagating it.  We need cleansing.  We need to throw out the world’s methods of building a work and get back to what makes the church unique!  When we stop trying to entertain people into the pews and start attracting them by lifting Christ up, then maybe the wicked need not bring the evil.