3299.- Create Evil

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 6, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 48.

3299.— Create Evil

I would be glad to have you explain Isa. 45:7, especially that clause that says, “I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.” A. L. B.

The term is not used in the sense of sin, but in the sense of judgment, as in Amos 3:6: “Shall evil befall a city, and Jehovah hath not done it?” The text will be plainer if you will take into consideration the context. The Lord is talking concerning Cyrus the Persian. The Persian believes in a god of light and a god of darkness, two opposing deities. Sometimes one triumphs, sometimes another. The Lord would have Cyrus, whose name He had mentioned 150 years before he was born, understand that God formed the light and God created the darkness. God makes peace to those who yield to Him, and God brings evil or judgment upon those who are in rebellion against Him. This evil may come, and generally does come, as the consequence of the sin, but in all cases it is in harmony with God’s great law. Even tho His righteousness is life, yet if that way is perverted, death and evil are bound to ensue in consequence.