Author: Elvis Welber
The Lord Creates Evil
Isaiah 45: 7 I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things.
It is clearly noticeable in the text above that God is the creator of evil. The word evil comes from the Hebrew ra'râ'âh and applies both to moral evil and to calamities. Nothing that exists in the world came by chance, everything was determined and decreed by God to happen. The LORD has made all things for his own ends, even the wicked, for the day of evil. Proverbs 16: 4.
The Bible clearly shows several passages where God exercises active and sovereign control over ungodly deeds committed by men, let us look at some: 2 Samuel 12.11-12 Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will raise up evil out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives and I will give it to your neighbor, who will lie down with your wives before this sun.
12 For thou didst it in secret, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun. We see here the punishment of God over David for the sin of murder and adultery that he had committed. A son of David would lie down to bed with his women. In verse 12 God says: I will do this thing. What this means? God would sovereignly control Absalom to do such a sinful act as a punishment upon David. The fact that God hardens the heart of the wicked to sin, does not mean that God is in favor of this attitude. God condemns all moral evil in His holy law. But the Bible is clear in showing that God is the one who creates and controls all evil. Evil exists because God has directly and actively decreed its existence. God sovereignly controls all creatures that there are so many just as ungodly.
Deuteronomy 2:30 And Sihon the king of Heshbon would not suffer us to pass through him, because the LORD thy God hardened his spirit, and hardened his heart to give it into thine hand, as it is this day.
But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and will multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. Ex. 7: 3.
For what? What Israel sought did not reach him; but the elect overtook him, and the rest were hardened.
8 As it is written, God gave them a spirit of deep sleep, eyes not to see, and ears to hear, to this day. Romans 11: 7,8.