GOD IS NOT THE AUTHOR OF SIN.
If it be remembered that sin is simply rebellion against God, in act, or word, or motive, it would not seem that men, possessed with reason, would ever make God the author of this wicked thing. But men love sin. Moreover, they do not love to repent. That they may quiet their consciences while persisting in sin, they resort to the Bible, notwithstanding its awful denunciations of this abominable thing which God hates, and they attempt to prove from its sacred pages that sin proceeds from God. Here is the text which they produce for this purpose: Isa. xlv, 7: “I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all things well.” Surely this text need not be perverted. The evil which God creates is not moral evil. It is something which stands in contrast with the place which he makes. It represents trouble and calamity which is the certain fruit of wrong doing. There is peace to the man of God. There is no peace, but distress, calamity and evil to the wicked. No man can justly excuse himself for confounding the evil of sin with the evil which God sends upon men in punishment for that sin. Here is a text that mentions both these kinds of evil, and clearly distinguishes between them: Jer. xxvi, 3: “If so be they will hearken, and turn every man from his EVIL WAY, that I may repent me of the EVIL, which I purpose to do unto them because of the EVIL of their doings.” The reader cannot fail to distinguish between the evil which originates with man and that which proceeds from God. The evil ways of men are wicked acts of rebellion against God. The evil which God creates is simply just retribution for the evil doings of men. God is not the author of murder, theft, nor blasphemy, but he will bring terrible evil upon men in the day of his wrath, who have dared to commit these evil deeds. And if men will commit sin against God, let them at least beware how they charge upon him the guilt of their evil ways, lest he justly inflict upon them greater damnation as their portion.