Evil

Psalm 21:6-10

Verse 6 — “For thou makest him most blessed forever,” a conjunction ki plus the verb shith in the qal imperfect. It should be translated, ‘For you will appoint him’; “blessed” should be translated “blessings.” This is the construct plural of berachah; “forever” — this is paragraph SG³ or surpassing grace.

“Thou hast made him” — the piel imperfect of chadah, to make happy.

The entire verse says: “For you will appoint him blessings forever: You have made him happy with happiness of your face.”

It should be noticed in this particular verse the contrast between the imperfect tense of shith used for future blessings and the imperfect tense of chadah used for present blessings. The verse adds up to the fact that there is no excuse for any member of the royal family today not having blessing and happiness as a part of his experience. But if this blessing and happiness is not related to doctrine it is totally without any content as far as we are concerned.

Verse 7 — “For the king keeps trusting in Jehovah,” batach is the qal active participle, and remember that the qal active participle very frequently has linear aktionsart. Batach is one of the five basic Hebrew words for faith which is derived from wrestling, the wrestler’s body slam, and it means to slam your problems and your troubles on the Lord and to trust in the sense of having content in the soul. Faith must always have an object to be workable and the object of batach is always the doctrine, the promises, the principles which are located in one’s soul.

The word “mercy” is one of the worst translations in all of the Authorised Version because “mercy” is chesed which really means grace. And it should be translated “because of grace.” It should be translated “Therefore because of the grace of the Most High God he (David) shall not be moved (or waver).” This has to do with the fact that David will not be influenced by evil. This is the stability factor. For the mature believer the stability always has a negative side, total rejection of evil. God’s grace is the basis for stability in time and doctrine is the manifestation of God’s grace. Remember that grace is the expression of the genius of God just as evil is the expression of the genius of Satan. God’s grace is manifest through doctrine.

When it says “Because of the grace of the Most High God he shall not waver” it is a way of expressing stability — the constant application of doctrine in the use of batach plus the principle of grace [the super-grace life] meaning stability. The believer who has this stability has capacity for life and is not influenced by evil. He is only influenced by doctrine. So this verse says that David will be influenced by doctrine rather than evil and that David understands the issue of phase two that the most important thing in his life is doctrine, and that doctrine in the soul is more important than air in the lungs.

Verse 8 — “Your hand shall discover all of your enemies.” David as a great ruler had many enemies. The enemies on the outside were the hostile nations and David’s whole rule would be made up of fighting the nations round about. It would take them about thirty three years to learn that you cannot attack Israel with impunity and, therefore, Solomon would have a reign of forty years without even so much as having to use weapons. And it will be five years into the reign of David’s grandson, Rehoboam, before there will be a national crisis again in the area of invasion. So it is a very strong principle that having good intelligence is a part of the battle.

Verse 9 — “You will make them like a furnace of fire at the time of your presence [not anger].” We have here an analogy to a furnace indicating that the reign of David would defeat these nations as well as revolutions within.

“The Lord shall destroy them in his anger, And the fire of the Lord’s judgement shall devour them.” The point is that no rule of any kind succeeds if enemies are unchecked. The same thing is true by way of application in your local church. You cannot survive when revolts become strong.

Verse 10 — “Their progeny you will destroy from the earth, Their seed from the human race.” This doesn’t seem to be compatible with “brotherly love” .But it is highly compatible with love because David has a kingdom and there comes a time when something disrupts and becomes a major problem of dissension or disruption. Then it is time to remove the problem. The “fiery furnace” of history (vv9-10) is God actually fulfilling this from heaven itself. Jesus Christ controls history and God does what might be called “grace pruning.” He prunes the human race. There are certain nations like the Assyrians in the ancient world, certain races, certain groups, and in order for the angelic conflict to continue and in order for human history to move in its course God does some pruning from time to time.

These two verses have some principles of application. The first application is from divine righteousness and justice, called the holiness of God. The holiness of God demands the perpetuation of the human race during the course of history and during the course of the angelic conflict. One of the concepts of evil is the concept that life must be preserved, that we must try to stop dying. Both birth and death are very normal functions and since the fall of man and the sovereignty of Satan replacing man as the ruler of this world, both doctrine and evil have remained in the world as absolutes. And doctrine and evil are the only absolutes. Doctrine portrays the grace plan of God; evil portrays the genius of Satan trying to rule the world and bring about perfect environment before the second advent and the Millennium. So both evil and doctrine were here before we came and as absolutes they will be here after we are gone. Doctrine was here before we came as an absolute and as the manifestation of the genius of God. Evil is the manifestation of the genius of Satan. Man was created in order to resolve the angelic conflict. Man’s fall did not in any way cause any disaster in this field but man’s fall actually extended the angelic conflict beautifully.

Now the whole concept is a very important one. When man fell the first thing he did was to sin ad sin caused the birth of the old sin nature so that all sin after that comes from the old sin nature. As a demonstration of grace the old sin nature’s were judged on the cross by Jesus Christ who at the same time propitiated the righteousness and justice of the Father, making it possible for those who passed the point of salvation [propitiation] to be under maximum love. God cannot love the world unless His righteousness is satisfied. All true love is based on righteousness and righteousness and justice must be free from compromise before God can love anyone. All great love is based upon righteousness and justice. Therefore, once that particular problem is solved then the issue remains what it was before man’s creation — the issue is God’s plan versus Satan’s plan or doctrine versus evil.

And the cross is not only the way of salvation but the cross is the means by which the true issue of the angelic conflict remains firm in human history. And personal sin is not the major issue and sin and evil are not the same. And the real issue is in the soul — what you think, doctrine versus evil. To think socialism is evil, to think gun legislation is evil, to cut the budget on the military is evil, altruism becomes evil therefore. The do-gooders, the bleeding hearts, the women’s libs, all of it is evil. So many things that are called good become evil.

After we accept Jesus Christ as saviour we are still going to sin, but we have rebound. But if we get one little ounce of evil in the soul then that becomes a terrible, terrible thing. Evil breeds evil in the soul and evil cannot be eradicated or removed by rebound. And when a person can rebound and be filled with the Spirit he still has evil in his soul. It is the evil in his soul that ruins him. Because there are two types of genius in the world. There is the genius of God which is absolute and infinitely superior to any other genius. And there is the genius of the highest creature God ever created — Lucifer the son of the morning. All human genius is of no consequence. And grace is the manifestation of God’s genius; evil is the manifestation of Satan’s genius. When you compare Satan’s genius with God’s then evil becomes the vocabulary, the nomenclature. Much of the good in the world and many of the greatest epigrams which display good are simply evil. So when a saturation of evil jeopardises the course of the angelic conflict and the existence of the human race, that saturation is removed and David’s “furnace” here tells us about that.

For this reason races, nations, families, individuals and their progenies are destroyed as a part of God’s grace pruning. And if it were not for God’s grace pruning there would be no 20th century and you and I would not be here to perpetuate the angelic conflict.

Verse 11 — “For they intended.” We have that particle ki again used as an explanatory conjunction, plus the qal perfect of natah, to stretch out. It should be translated “For they stretched out evil upon you.” The word for “evil” is ra’a. David was a grace product and therefore evil must attack where grace is the greatest. That’s why when you become grace oriented as a pastor and you begin to teach the Word of God correctly so that grace is correctly understood, then it is inevitable that Satan will attack in your direction. And the counter attack isn’t a lot of demon nonsense — that is for unbelievers. When there is demonism around it is usually hooked up with idolatry. Demonism isn’t the big problem, the big problem is evil. And evil can be one little thought.

The doctrine of evil

1. Definition:

a. Evil is the modus operandi of Satan as the ruler of this world. It is the policy of Satan; it is the genius of Satan in ruling the world.

b. Evil and sin are different. They overlap in certain cases. Evil includes certain sins but it is much more than sin; evil includes a phenomenal amount of good.

c. Evil includes human good — every attempt to solve the problems of life apart from God and apart from doctrine and every attempt to destroy man’s true freedom. Man’s freedom must be limited only by the laws of divine establishment but man’s freedom must never be limited by laws that try to solve his problems. Law is not a problem-solver, law is a protection for the volition of all members of the human race, making evangelism possible.

d. Therefore, evil includes altruism, humanitarianism, philanthropy, socialism, sociology, public welfare.

e. Evil includes the social gospel, called today social action, the restriction of human freedom for the greater good, the distortion of law to solve social and economic problems — allegedly.

f. Evil is religion, legalism, reversionism, apostasy, every deviation from Bible doctrine and the laws of divine establishment.

g. Sin and evil both originated with Satan but in the human race they split. And sin in your life originates in the old sin nature; evil originates from your right lobe. Therefore they are dealt with differently and on the cross Jesus Christ did not and could not die for evil. (To be judged for evil would be to be judged for Satan’s policy/modus operandi. And there would be no angelic conflict.)

h. Sin is handled by rebound; evil can only be handled by growth to spiritual maturity. Doctrinal saturation is the only way to exclude evil from the soul.

And why was David the greatest king who ever lived even though he went out and “shacked up” with Bathsheba and killed the husband, etc.? Why wasn’t he dumped like King Saul who was moral? Saul was full of evil and David was not.

2. There is a vocabulary difference. We have quite a few Hebrew words, like awen which means nothingness, vanity, or evil, and the whole book of Ecclesiastes is a dissertation on evil. Then we have an adjective ra which means bad, evil, or worthless. Then we have the feminine raa. Then we have the badness or evil as a quality — roa. Then we have the verb in the Old Testament to be evil, raa.

In the New Testament we have a number of words, one of the most prominent adjectives, bad, evil, worthless — kakoj. Then we have off of this by changing the suffix, kake (long “e”).Then by changing the suffix again we have kakia, depravity wickedness. There is also another set of words, ponhroj which is both a noun and an adjective. As a noun it means evil intentioned or the evil one (Satan), as the adjective it simply means evil, worthless and so on. Then you change the suffix, put an ia suffix and you have evil in the sense of maliciousness. Then there is another set based on fauloj, and again this has the concept of evil in the sense of worthlessness.

So evil is well documented from the standpoint of nomenclature, vocabulary, etymology.

3. The super-grace believer is protected from evil by virtue of being in super-grace. He is protected because he has maximum doctrine in the soul. He is protected because with this maximum doctrine in the soul he is not only protected but he is alert and he knows what is evil and what is not, and he knows how to avoid it.

Psalm 21:11 — “For they stretched out evil upon you: they devised a conspiracy which they are not able to carry out.”

Proverbs 12:12 — “The evil desire the plunder of evil men: but the root of the righteous produces.”

Verse 20 — “Deceit is in the right lobe of those who devise evil: but counsellors of prosperity [or establishment] have happiness in their right lobe.”

Verse 21 — “No evil happens to the righteous: but the evil are filled with trouble.”

Psalm 23:4 — “Ye, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil;” Only super-grace believers have dying grace and here is “I will fear no evil” going through the valley of the shadow. This is a picture of dying grace. Evil even attacks at the point of death or dying.

Genesis 50:20 — Joseph was speaking to his brethren: “As for you, you intended evil against me; but God meant it for good.” Here again is the great power of God. He can take evil and convert it into good — “in order to bring about this present result [the preservation of many people alive].”

Genesis 48:16 — where Jacob was blessing the two sons of Joseph: “The angel of the Lord [Jesus Christ] who redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads.” Notice here it is not redemption from sin, he is not talking about salvation, he is talking about being delivered from evil.

Psalm 37:16-19 — “Better is a little of the righteous than the abundance of many evil ones,

For the arms of the evil will be broken [discipline from reversionism]: but the Lord sustains the righteous.

The Lord knows the days of the mature believer: and their inheritance will be forever.

They will not be ashamed in time of evil [historical reversionism]: and in the days of famine [depression] they will have abundance.”

Psalm 91:10 — “No evil will befall you.”

Psalm 97:10 — “You who love the Lord, hate evil: the Lord who preserves the souls of the godly ones; he delivers them from the hand of the evil ones.”

Psalm 119:101 — “I have restrained my feet from every evil way, that I may keep your doctrine.”

Psalm 121:7 — “The Lord will protect you from all evil; he will guard your soul.” Evil attacks the soul; evil is human viewpoint thinking.

Proverbs 1:33 — “But he who listens to me [doctrine] shall live in security, and shall be at ease from the dread of evil.”

Proverbs 2:10-14 — “For wisdom [doctrine] will enter your right lobe, and knowledge of doctrine will be pleasant to your soul;

Application will guard you, understanding will watch over you:

To deliver you from the way of evil, from the person who speaks distorted things;

From those who leave the paths of righteousness [reversionist], to walk in the ways of darkness [blackout of the soul];

Who delight in doing evil, and find happiness in the distortion of evil.”

4. The issue in the royal family: Are you influenced by doctrine or are you influenced by evil? Proverbs 11:18,19 — “The wicked [reversionist] earns deceptive wages: but he who sows righteousness [super-grace] a true reward. He who is persistent in righteousness [maintain super-grace] to life: But he who pursues evil [reversionism] pursues his own death.”

The reversionist, the believer influenced by evil is pushing himself to the sin unto death.

Proverbs 14:22 — “Will they not go astray who devise evil? But grace and doctrine to those who devise good.”

Proverbs 15:3 — “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, watching the evil, watching the absolute good.”

In other words, divine omnipresence is the factor in providing discipline for the reversionist and providing blessing for the believer under doctrine. If you are influenced by doctrine you have great blessing for life and for eternity. If you are influenced by evil, the antithesis, there is no blessing in time and you will be a peon in heaven.

Proverbs 16:6 — “By grace and doctrine one recovers from reversionism: and by occupation with the Lord one keeps away from evil.” It is very clear from scripture that we can keep away from evil and then we can live a life free from evil. It is very clear from scripture that we do not live a life free from sin and never will in this life. There is no such thing as sinless perfection but there is freedom from evil.

Proverbs 22:3 — “The wise [the super-grace believer] sees the evil, and hides himself: but the stupid [negative believer] goes on and is punished for it.”

It is amazing how many have forgotten the fact that no matter how smart they are there is always someone smarter, and that always someone who is smarter is the greatest genius creature, Satan himself. Evil is his policy; evil is his system; evil includes his objective. And there never was a time when any of us could outsmart Satan. He is much smarter than we could ever dream to be. His approach to us with evil is in the name of good and sincerity and sweetness and light. Therefore it is a very subtle thing. Doctrine is our only protection from evil; and only doctrine in the soul, not doctrine in the Bible! Doctrine in the soul insulates the super-grace believer from evil and you must be insulated from evil. And that means none of us can have doctrine in the soul apart from someone teaching us, our right pastor.

6. Doctrine, therefore, neutralises evil — Psalm 54:5, “The evil will return to those who lie down and wait for me; put them to silence with your doctrine.” Here is David recognising the fact that he is not strong enough in himself, that his human talent was not enough to cope with evil. None of us can cope with evil. We can cope with sin by saying, No and by rebound, but we cannot cope with evil. Evil is greater than we are. Romans 12:21 says: “Be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with (the absolute) good.” The absolute good being, in context, doctrine.

7. Evil distorts grace, Psalm 38:19-20: “But my enemies are vigorous and numerous: and many are those who hate me wrongfully. And they who repay evil for good, they oppose me because I pursue the good (absolute good).”

Psalm 52:1 — “Why do you boast in evil, O mighty man?” [Note: The great, the human celebrities, boast in evil. They are boasting about the greater good for the greater number, about their system of providing great and good things and using their power wrongfully to destroy freedom in terms of the greatest good for the greatest number] “The grace of God endures all day long.”

Grace was here before evil; grace existed in God’s essence long before Satan was a creature. Grace will exist long after Satan and all fallen angels and all unbelievers are assigned to the Lake of Fire. Grace came first and grace will be here last. Grace, therefore, is the only way to take a ride on the plan of God in time. And the only way that you can understand the genius of God in grace is to have maximum doctrine in the soul.

So, 1 Corinthians 15:33 — “Do not be deceived: Evil company corrupts good morals [or good establishment].”

8. Evil distorts establishment — Psalm 50:16-21, “But to the evil God says, What right do you have to distort my laws and to take my contract in your mouth? [Evil often uses God as a front] For you hate authority [Evil despises the authority of establishment], you cast your words behind you. When you see a thief you are pleased with him [sympathy], and you socialise with adulteresses. You send your mouth loose on evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son.

These things you have done, and I have kept silent; You thought I was just like you: I will reprove you, and state the case in order [a little at a time] before your eyes.”

9. Reversionists are influenced by evil — Psalm 36:1-4, “Transgression speaks to the ungodly within his right lobe, There is no respect of God before his eyes. For he flatters himself in his own eyes, concerning the discovery of his iniquity to hate it. The words of his mouth are evil and deceit: he has ceased to be wise to do the absolute good. He plans evil on his bed; he sets himself in a path not good; He does not despise evil.”

John 3:19 — “And this is the judgement, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light; because their deeds in life are evil.” Their deeds, not because they are sinners or sinful, but because they are evil.

10. Evil rationalises. The rationalisation of evil is found in Isaiah 5:20 — “Woe to them who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light, and light for darkness; who substitute bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” Anyone who is mixed up and not able to distinguish evil from good is going to have a miserable life.

11. Conspiracy and revolution is evil — Proverbs 17:11, “A revolutionist seeks only evil.”

12. Evil is destructive, evil is self-destructive — Psalm 34:21, “Evil shall slay the wicked: And those who hate the righteous will be condemned.”

Proverbs 24:19-20 — “Do not fret yourselves because of evildoers; or be jealous of the wicked: for there will be no future for the evil one; the lamp of the wicked will be put out” .That is the whole story of history. The lamp of the wicked is put out in every generation. And to the extent that you hook up with evil the lamp of the evil will be put out.

13. Evil seeks to build happiness on someone else’s unhappiness — Psalm 35:12, “They will repay me evil for good, to the bereavement of my soul.

14. The laws of divine establishment protect the human race from evil. The laws of divine establishment are for believer and unbeliever. They set up systems of authority and function in life so that the human race can be perpetuated generation after generation, so that history can run its course and so the angelic conflict can be completed with man’s role in the angelic conflict. Romans 13:3,4 — “For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behaviour, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise of the same: For it [the laws of divine establishment] is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing [capital punishment]: for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings judgement on the ones who practice evil.” Here evil is used in the sense of lawlessness.

15. There is no evil in God. Psalm 5:4 — “For thou art not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness: no evil dwells in thee.” James 1:13 —"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God: for God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself does not tempt anyone.” The perfection of God, the essence of God, makes Him totally free from evil. God created free will in angelic creatures and from that free will came sin and evil in angelic creatures. God created free will in human creatures and that free will became the basis for sin and evil in the human race. God has always tested free will because free will must be tested. That is why in the garden there was one tree which was forbidden as a test for free will. And the only way in which man could fail God is to partake of that one tree. That was the beginning of sin as well as the beginning of evil.

16. God judges evil — Psalm 3:16, “The face of the Lord is against evildoers, to cut off their memory from the earth.” Isaiah 13:11, “Thus I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud, and abase the pride of the dictator.” Arrogance is the one sin always related to evil.

17. So in spite of this evil, this genius of Satan, this policy of Satan, Jesus Christ controls history.

Proverbs 16:3,4, “Commit your works to the Lord, and your plans will be established. The Lord has made everything for his own purpose: even the wicked for the day of evil.”

Isaiah 45:7, “I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I the Lord do all these things.” Here is a verse that apparently says that God creates evil. Therefore it is a good place to stop and analyse exegetically.

We begin with the words “I form the light.” “I form” is the qal active participle of the verb jatsar, one of four creation verbs. The first verb is bara, to create out of nothing and it is used for the creation of man’s soul out of nothing. It is so used in Genesis 1:27; 5:1,2; Isaiah 43:7. The second word is asah which is used for creating man’s soul resulting in his personality. From the definite points of the soul — self-consciousness, mentality, volition, emotion — comes a definite personality, and asah is used for a personality manufactured from the essence of the soul. The third word [the one we have in our context] is jatsar which means to form, to mould, and was used for the creation of the male body in Genesis 2:7. The final word is banah which was used for the creation of the woman’s body. Banah means to build. The body of the woman was built. The body of the man as fashioned or formed. The soul of both the male and the female was created out of nothing — bara. From that comes a definite personality — asah. And jatsar, which is one of the four creation words, is obviously used in a passage where light seems to be the subject.

“I fashioned, I formed, I sculpted, the light.” The Hebrew word for light is simple but the concept in the Hebrew is complex. “I am the lord and there is no other, forming light and creating darkness.” Creating darkness is a qal active participle of bara, to form something out of nothing. It should be translated “creating darkness.” The darkness which is created is choshek which refers to darkness which is caused by the fall of Satan — Genesis 1:1-3: “And Elohim said, Light be.”

What does it mean, creating darkness? First of all, darkness was caused by the fall of Satan and the angelic revolt. In preparation of the earth for man’s habitation God had to correct the situation by the use of light. In this verse, Isaiah 45:7, it says that God created the darkness. The use of bara refers to the fact that God created Satan, the prince of darkness. Satan is a creature; God is the creator. Satan as a creature can never triumph over God the creator even though his greatest genius is expressed in his greatest weapon which is evil. Now you have to remember that sin is as embarrassing to Satan as it is to the average person. Satan does not want to rule a world with sin. It is Satan’s objective to avoid it but because of the imperfection of Satan and his genius sin in inevitable. Therefore, Satan, as the ruler of the world would like to eliminate sin and when the Christian begins to understand this he will understand that he and Satan have something in common — that both are opposed to sin. But Satan’s genius, as great as it is, cannot eliminate sin which is merely an embarrassment. And the negative side of Satan’s plan is to eliminate sin.

The positive side of Satan’s plan is to rule the world through a policy of his own genius — evil. Once again, evil and sin are not the same. Sin is man’s failure to comply with God’s plan. Sin on the part of the angels is the angelic failure to comply with God’s plan. When you think of sin in angels or when you think of sin in mankind, think of their failure, their inability to comply with divine standards. But when you think of evil you must think of the genius of Satan. And God has countered the genius of Satan [evil] with His own genius which is grace. And the great struggle is not sin versus anything but it is grace versus evil, or evil versus grace, and doctrine the manifestation of grace. So that sin is not incidental but it must be clearly understood that the genius of Satan has not found a way to eliminate sin. Therefore this manifests his own weakness and failure. And the only solution to the sin problem is found in the human race, which is the greatest insult Satan ever received. A member of the human race, the Lord Jesus Christ, solved the sin problem on the cross. But sin was rampant, uncontrolled, apart from the genius of God, for Satan himself cannot control sin, though he would like to. In seeking to defeat the Lord Jesus Christ and to establish a Millennium prior to the second advent of Christ, Satan has tried to eliminate sin.

Now darkness is used in connection with Satan. Satan is called the prince of darkness. Those under the influence of Satan in the human race — “men loved darkness", which means that they love a policy created by a creature, by the super creature genius, Satan himself. So the use of the verb bara refers to the fact that God did create Satan, but He created him a perfect creature. All angels were created without sin, without evil. So the creature angel was created by God perfect, even as the creature man. And the only potential for failure to meet the standards of God, sin, or in seeking to substitute something else for the plan of God, evil, the failure could only come in free will. Every system of theology which ignores free will, first in angels and then in man, is going to be inevitably erroneous and its applications are going to fall apart.

Why would it say in Isaiah 45:7 that the Lord created darkness. For the simplest reason in the world. It is to point out that God is infinitely greater than Satan, and that God will ultimately and completely and totally triumph using man’s volition, not bypassing it. He will triumph in the angelic conflict because God as the creator is infinitely smarter than the greatest creature genius, Satan. So with the fact that God is the creator here and Satan is a creature, the whole reason is to give us confidence and assurance that Satan as a creature cannot triumph over God. And that God has a simple plan called grace whereby using man’s volition He completely and totally conquers the super creature.

“I make peace” — the qal active participle of asah, to manufacture something out of existing material. What is said to be manufactured here is shalom. Shalom’s basic meaning is not even peace. It means prosperity. It should be translated here, “The Lord is the one manufacturing prosperity.” God not only found a way to use the volition of the born-again believer to defeat Satan’s genius plan of evil but He found a way while doing it to provide prosperity for the believer whose volition is so involved. In other words, if you are involved with doctrine on a day by day basis, then while your volition is taking in doctrine there is along the way another beautiful picture: God takes the believer who GAPs it daily and provides for him all kinds of prosperity — every kind of prosperity that can exist in the devil’s world. And He does this to remind Satan that Satan cannot win and that God’s plan of grace is infinitely greater than Satan’s brilliant plan of evil. So He is the one manufacturing prosperity and that explains David. Remember Saul? Saul was a moral man, a lovely person, a clean living type. But his sins were the sins of the mental attitude. He was jealous, he was bitter, he was vindictive, he was implacable. He went into reversionism, he neglected his kingdom, he was totally under the influence of evil.

By contrast there was David, a hell-raiser. But he was not influenced by evil — except on two occasions. And he prospered. He was the wealthiest man in the world in his day. Saul was not one of the obvious sinning types but he was influenced by evil. Evil is the great enemy of the believer.

One thing has been found to be true: A believer who stays with doctrine on a day by day basis and takes it in is going to have all kinds of blessing. And every time he gets blessed it just tears Satan apart. Grace has found a way to bless man in time and in eternity, and that glorifies God. The believer influenced by doctrine is blessed; the believer influenced by evil is cursed.

“and create evil” — the qal active participle of bara plus the adjective for evil ra. Ordinarily we have the feminine adjective for evil, raa. But the masculine adjective is very important here because ra and choshek go together. They refer to the evil one, Satan. And it should be translated: “and the one creating the evil one.” It forms the same concept as the Greek ponhroj which can be evil or the evil one. Satan is a creature of God. No creature can successfully revolt against the creator. That is the principle found in this passage. And it is a very wonderful thing because it is carried into the spiritual realm. Reversionism is the individual spiritual revolt against grace and against the Lord, and no reversionist can succeed in this revolt against the Lord. That is why reversionists have such terrible discipline. Jesus Christ not only controls history but He also controls His own family, and to attempt such a revolt is evil.

When the believer rejects Bible doctrine there is only one way he can go. He must inevitably be influenced by evil. And to be influenced by evil means to become evil. You can be moral and be evil, you can be legalistic and be evil, you can be very self-righteous and be evil. And so smart is Satan and by comparison so dumb are we that we must have something from that One who is smarter than Satan. We must have information whereby we are defended against this and our volition must be involved. Therefore, the daily function of GAP is the only answer for protection against evil. So when the believer rejects doctrine he becomes evil.

Now the final phrase: “I the Lord do all these things.” We have the qal active participle of asah [to manufacture something out of something]. “I Jehovah am the one manufacturing all these” .The manufacture of these comes from His perfect essence. Asah means from the perfect essence of God. This is the material from which the plan is manufactured.

Light was formed, darkness was created, this verse says. Light was good and Satan couldn’t corrupt light. The only thing he could do was set up something antagonistic. He could not corrupt the light which God had created but he could set up a counter to it. Darkness is a counter to light but it cannot corrupt light. Therefore, this is the whole point in bringing this in. Light was formed, darkness was created. Prosperity was manufactured from His essence by means of doctrine resident in the soul. The evil one was created by God and therefore he sets up something contrary to prosperity.

So the evil one, Satan, was created by God. Therefore, he is a creature and controllable. When it says that He created the evil one it means what God created with its free will can go in the wrong direction but anything that God created God can control. That is important. That is why we are on the winning side and that is why we can’t lose.

18. The saturation of evil means national disaster. Divine determination in administration of the fifth cycle of discipline is related to the evil factor, the percentage of evil or some similar factor.

Isaiah 47:10 — “For thou hast trusted,” the qal imperfect of batach [the faith-rest type of trust]. It should be translated “Because you have trusted.” This is the pseudo faith-rest, the satanic faith-rest. It means to depend on evil.

Trusting in evil

a. Nations not influenced by doctrine and the laws of divine establishment have a tendency to be influenced by one or more forms of evil.

b. Remember that evil is the policy of Satan as the ruler of this world.

c. While both evil and sin originate from Satan their source in mankind is different.

d. Sin comes from the old sin nature in mankind while evil originates from his heart, the thoughts of his right lobe. Therefore, evil is in the frame of reference, evil is in the memory centre, evil is in the vocabulary and the categories, evil is in the norms and standards and evil is on the launching pad.

e. Evil includes human good, social and economic panaceas, trying to solve the problems of life through legislation, social gospel, social action, socialism, anthropocentric altruism, humanitarianism, religion, legalism, any form of reversionism, “victorious life” panaceas.

f. Sin was solved in salvation but evil can only be resolved by spiritual growth resulting in maturity or super-grace status.

g. The sins of humanity were judged on the cross but evil was not solved on the cross. Evil continues as the policy of Satan until the Millennium, and then at the end of the Millennium at the Gog revolution.

h. In the meantime the believer’s sin is handled by rebound, relating it to the cross. The reason you can name a sin and be forgiven is because it was previously judged on the cross — rebound means prior judgement. Evil will not be solved until Satan is removed from rulership of this world.

i. In the meantime the believer’s sin is handled by rebound relating to the cross, and evil can only be avoided by establishing a command post in the soul, maximum doctrine.

j. Any time a believer is legalistic, reversionistic or apostate, involved in whitewashing the devil’s world with the social gospel, he is trusting in evil. Only the daily function of GAP can protect him from evil.

The Chaldean empire had become a satanic stronghold and the Chaldean empire is the background for Isaiah chapter 47. They had been saturated with evil in the days of Nebuchadnezzar. After his salvation they had a great spiritual revival. In the third generation from Nebuchadnezzar they went down and the Persian empire administered the fifth cycle of discipline.

“Thou hast said” — the qal perfect of amar, “you have said.” “None seeth me” — the qal active participle of ra’a has here a first person singular suffix and it refers to the individual Chaldean reversionist who rationalises using ra’a plus the negative in the qal participle, indicating the fact that he assumes that because he calls his evil good he has approbation. “No one sees me” is a little bit stronger in the Hebrew. It means “no one disapproves.” It is an idiom.

“perverted” — shub plus the second feminine singular suffix referring to the Chaldean nation. It means to seduce.

“your wisdom” — your human wisdom and human knowledge have seduced you, literally. They were rationalising and calling evil good. Good is one of the greatest of all Satanic fronts. This is his greatest barrage, evil classified as good — morality, involvement in various civic and public activities, the attempt to improve the devil’s world in whatever form it takes is called good but in reality it is perversion or seduction.

What does it mean — “your wisdom and your knowledge have seduced you” ?First of all, wisdom and knowledge here is a rationalisation, which Isaiah calls “calling evil good.” It is anthropocentric knowledge, it is human viewpoint. Evil is a thought in the soul. It is often a humanitarian thought, a sincere thought, a desire to help humanity thought.

Who do you think wants to have a chicken in every pot today? Satan! Who do you think wants to have a guaranteed income for every person in the country? Satan! He wants it; it is his world; he wants to improve it.

Evil is a thought, often a sweet thought, a kind thought, a loving thought, a sincere thought. A thought in the right lobe can make or break you for if that one thought going through is evil you have had it. To be influenced by evil is to be seduced by evil. To be influenced by doctrine is not only spiritual maturity and divine blessing but it is freedom from evil. We as believers will never stop sinning in this life but we can live a life entirely free from evil. That is what doctrine does. So it is imperative to remember that your great enemy is evil.

“and” — an inferential waw, “therefore.” “thou hast said in thine heart.” The imperfect tense this time. Because this is also a conversive waw it is going to be translated like a perfect. It should be translated: “therefore you have said in your right lobe.”

“I am and none else beside me,” says the King James. The Hebrew says: “I, There is no one like me.” Not “I am,” there is no verb because this is arrogance speaking.

What is this verse all about? This is the standard thinking of evil. It is the phrase of arrogance. Arrogance is a sin, a mental attitude sin. It was the original sin of Satan and it was used in the tempting of man and it definitely played an important part in the fall of man. So arrogance is a basic mental attitude sin as well as one of the seven great sins in God’s standard. Arrogance is always a sin related to evil. Arrogance always spawns evil. Satan’s original sin was arrogance or pride from which Satan’s policy of evil originated. Evil originates from the arrogance and genius of Satan. The principle of his plan is arrogance, pride.

Corrected translation: “Because you trusted in your evil: and you have said, No one sees me; your wisdom and your knowledge have seduced you: therefore you have said in your right lobe, I, and there is no one beside me.”

Verse 11 — “Therefore shall evil come upon thee; and you shall not understand its origin [that is the great genius of Satan. His ability to put something over on you and you never understood where it came from]: and mischief … “

The word “mischief” is a feminine singular noun howah and it means disaster, national disaster, fifth cycle of discipline.

“thou shalt not be able to put it off” — the hophal perfect of the verb jakal plus the negative. Plus the piel infinitive of chaphir which means to avert. You will not be able to avert the disaster.

Once a nation is controlled by evil they are not able to avert the fifth cycle of discipline. The very fact that they are under the control of evil means that they have destroyed themselves.

Next we have “desolation.” That is shoah, destruction of the entire political structure of that nation. Reference to the fifth cycle of discipline administered to the Chaldean empire by Cyrus the Great. Now the fifth cycle of discipline or the total destruction of a nation not only represents Jesus Christ as controlling history but Jesus Christ protecting the human race from saturation of evil. When there is a saturation of evil in a nation Jesus Christ removes it. That is how we got to the 20th century. Evil destroys the human race.

“you will not understand” — that is because evil is so blinding to the soul that not only the origin of evil is not understood but the whole progress of evil is not understood. Evil cannot interpret history or understand life. And that is why we have such ridiculous interpretations of history, both academically and in life in general today. The interpretations of history today are ludicrous.

Now the verse says: “Therefore evil shall come upon you; and you will not understand its origin: consequently disaster shall fall on you; and you will not be able to avert it: and suddenly destruction [5th cycle] shall come to you, and you will not understand it.”

19. Evil never understands grace function. And what people cannot understand they have a tendency to be antagonistic toward it. That is why there is so much antagonism toward grace in fundamentalist circles, because evil cannot understand grace.

Matthew 20:15 is the perfect illustration. It is at the end of a great parable, the parable of capitalism. Remember that the Lord Jesus Christ always stood by His own laws, the laws of divine establishment. One of these laws was free enterprise and under the law of divine establishment the capitalist, the man who puts the money into the business, has the right to declare the policy about everything related to the business. Labour has no right to be a policy-maker. And Jesus gave a parable on this.

Jesus asked: “Is your eye evil because I am good?” In other words they couldn’t understand how the employer could give the people who worked one hour the same wage as those who worked twelve hours. Why? Because the eye is the key to the soul and they were evil. He was good. And he made the policy on the basis of his good, not their evil. He had the right to make the policy, he was the capitalist he was the boss.

In the context we have the parable of capitalism. The owner of the vineyard paid a day’s wages to those who came to work regardless of the time they came to work or the time they put in — because he contracted each one separately. This was his privilege. So everyone had the same wage and, of course, the early workers complained. They couldn’t understand what he was doing, they couldn’t understand grace.

Now, Jesus calls the capitalist a)gaqoj, absolute and intrinsic good. The capitalist was a)gaqoj. He represented the grace principle, he represented the laws of divine establishment, he made a separate contract with each group and he kept his part of the contract as they kept theirs. That is all the principle you need. Now with the people who didn’t like it there was arrogance there was jealousy there was implacability there was bitterness — mental attitude sins which were the manifestation of evil in this case. The evil was they had agreed to a contract so they had no right to intrude upon the privacy of someone else. Evil is nosy and is always intruding upon privacy.

In Matthew 20:30-34 those who understood grace, the blind men, are set up by way of contrast with the workers. Jesus walked by and the blind men couldn’t see Him, but they found out who was there. So they called to Him: “Lord [Kurioj, deity], have mercy [grace in action] on us [we don’t have any claim to your attention but you are Kurioj], thou Son of David [Humanity].” The whole hypostatic union was there. Here were two blind men, they had no evil, they had nothing but doctrine, so they made a doctrinal appeal. So the doctrinal appeal obviously touches with grace and, therefore, Jesus healed them. They were free from evil and their sight was restored. Whereas the workers could see what others were getting but they were blind in their souls. And they remained blind in their souls.

This a fascinating passage which illustrates that evil never understands grace.

20. Evil is distinguished from other categories. Evil is distinguished from war and disease. War is not evil; disease is not evil. Evil must be distinguished from sin and evil must be distinguished from evil.

Translation of Psalm 21

This is David’s promotional Psalm.

Verse 1 — “O Jehovah, in your omnipotence the king will express his happiness.”

[It is always amazing how many times the writers of Scripture emphasise the righteousness of God and the power of God whereas the mixed-up lib, the apostate, is always talking about the love of God without knowing what he is talking about. All great lovers have to have character and all great love comes from character, integrity.]

“And in your victory how greatly will he rejoice.”

Verse 2 — “You have given to him the desire of his right lobe,

You have not held back the request of his lips.”

Verse 3 — “For you have preceded him with blessings of good [paragraph SG²]:

You have placed on his head a crown of fine gold.”

David started out as a believer. He followed the colours to the high ground and became a mature believer in entering super-grace. He received his paragraph SG². And in the first category he had the spiritual blessings — occupation with the Person of Christ, sharing the happiness of God, the inner residency of Bible doctrine, the establishing of a command post of doctrine in the soul. There was no tragedy, no disaster, no heartache in life for which David was not perfectly prepared by the inner residency of Bible doctrine.

In addition to the spiritual blessings he had fantastic temporal blessings. First of all God made him the wealthiest man in the world. Then he was blessed with great leadership and technical dynamics in the work of a professional soldier. He had social prosperity, sexual prosperity, materialistic prosperity, technical prosperity, he had the works under temporal blessing. Then later on he had dying grace. The Davidic covenant is a manifestation of the high decoration which he received. Verse 4 — “He asked you for prosperity, you have given it to him; extension of days forever and ever [SG³],

Verse 5 — “Great is his glory in your deliverance: you have bestowed on him majesty and honour.

Verse 6 — “For you will appoint him blessings forever [SG3]: you have made him happy with the happiness of your face.

Verse 7 — “For the king keeps trusting in Jehovah, Therefore because of the grace of the Most High God he shall not waver.

Verse 8 — “Your hand shall discover all your enemies [foreign]: your right hand shall discover the ones hating you [domestic].

Verse 9 — “You [David] will make them [your enemies] like a furnace of fire at the time of your presence. The Lord shall destroy them in his anger, The fire of the Lord’s judgement shall devour them.

Verse 10 — “Their progeny you will destroy from the earth, Their seed [the human race] from the son of Adam.

Verse 11 — “For they [David’s critics] stretch out evil upon you: … ”

20. Evil is distinguished from other categories of life.

a. Evil must be distinguished from war and disease. And in Jeremiah 28:8 it is distinguished. “The prophets who were before me and before you from ancient times prophesied against many lands and many kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of disease.” War is not evil, though there is evil in war. War is the means by which nationalism continues. And nationalism is the order of the day until the Millennium and even in the Millennium God still divides planet earth and the human population into nations.

The same thing is true of disease; disease is not evil. This is the contention of the healers, those who are mixed up about healing in the atonement, etc. Jeremiah 28:8 indicates that evil must be distinguished from war and that neither warfare nor disease is classified as evil. Warfare is therefore the means of maintaining national freedom. The only evil things in war come from evil people; sinful things in war come from sinful people. Disease is not evil. It may be punishment for sin or evil but it is not evil in itself.

b. Evil is distinguished from sin — 1 Chronicles 21:17, “And David said to God, Is it not I who ordered the numbering of the people? Indeed I am the one who has sinned [the qal perfect of chata] and done evil [the verb raa twice. And we have the hiphil stem of raa. The verb is doubled].”

Note: “and done evil” should be translated “in doing evil I have caused evil.”

The last half of the verse teaches that sin and evil are not the same, though both were involved in David’s numbering of the people. The sin of David was arrogance, pride of prosperity. But the evil of David was checking up on God. And in 1 Chronicles 21:1 it says: “And Satan stood up against Israel, and motivated David to number the people.” And when you have a passage like that you know that it will involve evil as well was sin. But both sin and evil being involved they are still distinguished and the fact that David mentions both and discerns between them indicated that he knew that he had sinned. But more than that he was aware of evil and its consequences, and consequently he states this fact.

c. Evil is distinguished from evil and the administration of the 5th cycle of discipline. This is the different distinction which is found in Jonah 3:10, “When God saw their deeds [the Assyrians], that they turned from their way of evil; then God repented of the evil which he had declared that he would do to them.”

In other words we have the same vocabulary words but we have a distinction. Evil is the 5th cycle of discipline, the destruction of a nation when God administers it. But He administers it because there is a saturation of evil in that nation. So God uses an evil to punish an evil. This a manifestation of the divine justice in the essence box.

21. Evil is often mistaken for good, Micah 1:12, “For the citizens of Maroth became weak waiting for good: but evil came down from the Lord to the gate of Jerusalem [they were taken in by the fifth cycle of discipline and destroyed].”

In this case the real evil is called good. They were waiting for the good. The Hebrew word is tobh which is used for real good and pseudo good. The citizens of Maroth became “weak.” This is the qal perfect from the Hebrew verb chalah which means the practising of pseudo-good which is evil and really leads to the weakening of a nation.

22. Evil provides false security for reversionism — Micah 3:11, “Her leaders pronounce judgement for a bribe, hers priests instruct for a price, her prophets divine for money: yet they lean on the Lord , saying, Is not the Lord in our midst? No evil can come upon us.”

In other words they were practising evil and saying that evil couldn’t come. They were like the ostrich, their head was in the sand.

Verse 12 — “Therefore, [on account of you evil types] Zion will be plowed up as a field, and Jerusalem will become a heap of ruin.” So the practice of evil leads to the destruction of a national entity.

23. Evil national leadership is opposed to God. They talk about God, they use God where they can as a political expediency, but actually they are opposed to God. Nahum 1:11 — “From you has advanced one who plots evil against the Lord, a wicked counsellor.” Plotting evil against the Lord, an evil counsellor, the qal active participle from jaatz meaning to counsel or decree. As a participle it should be a policy-maker — of Belial. Now Belial is maximum evil. Son of Belial means a very evil person. Evil national leadership is opposed to God, says this passage. A policy-maker of Belial is the national leader.

24. Evil will be eliminated in the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ. The perfect environment of the Millennium will include the fact that evil will be eliminated. Evil is the policy of Satan and Satan is incarcerated for 1000 years during the Millennium. Zephaniah 3:14,15, “Shout for joy, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; rejoice and be happy with your right lobe, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord has removed his judgement against you [5th cycle], he has mopped up your enemy: the Lord is King of Israel in your midst: you will not see evil any more.”

25. Evil is located in the soul — Matthew 6:23, “But if your eye is evil, your whole body is full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” This is our Lord’s dissertation on the blackout of the soul. Evil in the eye simply means perceptive concepts are related to the principle of evil. Cf. Matthew 15:19.

26. Evil is also altruistic. Luke 11:13 — “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? [This was in the Age of Israel. You can’t ask for the Holy Spirit today].

Parents are evil but they give good things to their children. So altruism is evil. Many an evil parent provides some very nice things for his children. So the principle is that evil is altruistic.

27. Evil is related to Satan in five different areas. a. Satan’s angels are called evil spirits in Luke 7:21; 8:2; Acts 19:12-16; b. Satan’s domain is called an evil world — Galatians 1:4; c. Satan’s policy is called evil in Thessalonians 5:22; 2 Thessalonians 3:3; d. Those under Satanic policy and influence by evil are called evil men — 2 Timothy 3:13; Job 35:12; Matthew 12:35; e. Satan’s administrators are called inventors of evil things in Romans 1:30.

Psalm 21:11 — “For they stretched out evil upon you: they devise a conspiracy which they are not able to carry out.”

“They imagined” — AV. Should be ‘they devised’ — “an evil device.” AV. mezimah means a conspiracy or a revolution. Literally: ‘they devised a conspiracy.’

Principles

1. God promotes a prepared man. There is no substitute for preparation.

2. God protects the prepared man. David was promoted and he was protected from evil.

3. Many conspiracies were planned by evil persons against David. All of these conspiracies were frustrated.

4. The grace plan protects the super-grace believer.

5. One of the greatest blessings of the super-grace life is divine protection from evil, both in the angelic and human realms. This is also a blessing which the believer takes for granted. Many many times we have been protected from evil and we have been totally unaware of it.