Wicked People!
Meditation for the week of June 26, 2011
Esther 7:6 And Esther said, "The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman!" So Haman was terrified before the king and queen.
Haman was wicked. The men of Sodom were wicked (Genesis 13:13). People who claim to be Christians but who persist in immorality, covetousness, worshiping idols, slander, drunkenness or extortion are called wicked in the King James Version (1 Corinthians 5:13). They are considered evil in newer versions. I have been wondering what it takes to get God to tag us “evil” or “wicked”. There are a number words that are translated wicked or evil in the Bible, but in nearly every case the person is a rejecter of the Living God.
We know that we are all sinners who sin and as such we do not do good. We are unrighteous and we are ungodly (or not like God). Thank God, the Lord came to save people like us (Romans 5:6-8). But even in our unsaved state, would the ungodly and unrighteous all be considered evil? I don’t think so. An ungodly person could be sinning without realizing the gravity of what they are doing. They might be mislead as to the truth. Paul seems to put himself in that category when he describes his life before salvation and says that he did what he did in ignorance and unbelief (1 Timothy 1:13).
An evil or wicked person rebels against God and knows that is what he is doing. In Psalm 10:13 we read, “Why do the wicked renounce God? He has said in his heart, "You will not require an account." A wicked person does not believe that there is a God in heaven to whom he will one day give an account. The men of Sodom practiced evil without restraint. They did not love their fellow human beings, they only wanted self-gratification Their end was to be suddenly destroyed.
Haman, the man in the verse we are considering, was a man who wanted t0 be exalted. He wanted wealth and the power that it brought. His power was tested by a man who would not bow down to him by the name of Mordecai. Mordecai is a picture of a spiritual man who will not bow down to the dictates of the “evil one” or Satan. Mordecai should have been destroyed, but miraculously he was saved by events that were beyond his control. While in this world, evil seems to triumph over good, but in this case good triumphed over evil.
What is scary, however, is the statement in 1 Corinthians 5 about evil people being those who consider themselves to be brothers or Christians. We are told not to associate (or have fellowship) with such people. In 1 Corinthians 5:8 we are told, “Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” In the passage, the feast is the old testament feast of unleavened bread which speaks of the life of a Christian who has been redeemed by a passover lamb. A Christian’s life should be characterized by sincerity and truth. The life of the wicked is a life of malice and wickedness. Even many unsaved people do not live like this. It is the Baalam’s of this world who know the truth and who seem to know the Lord’s mind but who sell the Lord and his people out that are really wicked (2 Peter 2:15). Many of us are reading their books and are joining with them in politics and business without realizing that we are not cleansing ourselves from evil. Instead we are being contaminated by it.
Are there evil people in this world? The answer is “Yes!” Are some of them claiming to be Christian leaders? The answer is “Yes!” Paul warned us to be careful that we aren’t destroyed by philosophy and empty lies (Colossians 2:8). Let’s be careful who we read and follow so that we don’t end up practicing the evil that is being promoted by some of these very charismatic teachers.
Bruce Collins