Watering Down Wickedness

Watering Down Wickedness

“Wicked” is a descriptive word that you don’t hear used much anymore; at least not in its originally intended sense. Currently there’s a popular play out there by that name, but we don’t really identify people as wicked these days, as in “the wicked witch of the west.”

The term—like many others—has been hijacked as slang, to refer to something appealing, cool or impressive. In fact, the word wicked now includes such a definition in the dictionary. The example “He plays a wicked game of tennis” is used to help define the term in the Encarta Dictionary. Ironically, the word righteous is used in a similar way. The end result is that the gap between wickedness and righteousness has been reduced in people’s minds and wicked no longer carries the gravity it carries in the biblical sense.

Proverbs distinguishes the foolish from the wise, but it also draws a clear line between the righteous and the wicked. The book is full of comparisons and contrasts between the two. In fact, when you consider these comparisons, it becomes painfully clear that we all may have some wickedness in us. Some of that stuff looks familiar. I’ve seen it in me! But does that make me a wicked person?

At what point does one cross over the line from having some wickedness in his or her life to being truly wicked? Well, apart from Christ, we’re all wicked. But, today it’s hard to tell who is in Christ since virtually everything that defines a wicked person is acceptable behavior in our culture. Add to that the fact that the worst thing you can do is call anything “wicked” (even though God calls it “wicked”), unless you want to be labeled judgmental. And being judgmental carries a far higher “scorn factor” from the general public than being wicked today.

Proverbs seems to specifically caution our culture when Solomon writes, “He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 17:15).

People like Hugh Hefner, the founder of the Playboy soft-porn empire, are treated as cultural icons, and celebrated as heroes in our morally up-side-down society. Television shows in prime time, that promote topics once considered shameful to even mention, garner millions of viewers. Some award-winning shows today would have once been hits only in Sodom. At the same time, with rare exception, outspoken Christian leaders who have the audacity to promote biblical truth and morality are denounced and treated with contempt in the media. The Christian Right is a label that has become nearly universally negative in the minds of average Americans, even many Christians.

The first time we see the term wicked in Scripture is in reference to the men of Sodom. And God destroyed Sodom. From that point forward there’s no denying that being wicked is a serious thing. It is also a disappointingly common thing, appearing 348 times in the New King James Version of the Bible.

The final time we see the term wicked in the Bible serves to summarize the situation: “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one” (1 John 5:19). Though the world may water down wickedness, the distinction between the righteous and the wicked remains to the end.

Is the distinction obvious in your life? Though God has and will punish wickedness, He does not call you and me to go out and eradicate wickedness from the world. The weight of wickedness on our planet would be greatly reduced if Christians would stop taking wickedness lightly by supporting the kinds of entertainment, media and ideas that can only be described as, you guessed it, wicked. Let’s take it seriously and remember that “He who justifies the wicked [is] an abomination to the Lord.”

“The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but He loves him who follows righteousness” ─Proverbs 15:9 nkjv