Why does God allow evil people to prosper?

But Zophar had no difficulty at all. That is generally the case with people who know very little; they fancy they know everything. Zophar, therefore, keeps up this — that there is the great fact, there is a righteous God above, and there are unrighteous, wicked people below, and God invariably deals with these wicked people now. That was not true. A large part of the world has always been allowed of God to apparently prosper in their evil, and the reason is that the time of judgment is not yet come. There may be judgments; there may be exceptional dealings with the wicked just as Job's case was a very exceptional dealing in the severity of his trial, and in the manner in which Satan was challenged by God to do his very worst; and God was secretly keeping up Job even when he was finding fault with God and thinking He was very hard upon him to allow all this. But he was kept up not only for his own good, but for ours. Now we have the Book, and are meant to profit by it for ourselves and for other people. "Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, and his head reach to the clouds; yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung; they which have seen him shall say, where is he?"

Many like the Psalmist are perplexed at the prosperity of the wicked (Psalm 73:3). Everything seems to go well with them in life, and even in death. It was only when the Psalmist entered the “sanctuary of God” that he understood their end (verse 17), and it is the end that matters. God in His wisdom may allow His children prosperity in present things to carry on His work, but He may allow them to know adversity and poverty, giving them a rich compensation, for “Has not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith” (James 2:5).

Job knew that “The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are secure” (Job. 12:6), though Eliphaz thought that “in prosperity the destroyer shall come upon” the wicked (Job 15:21). What Eliphaz thought was sometimes right, but it was not always right, as the writer of Psalm 73 knew, and as we know from what is all around. When we realise that God has allowed Satan to become the god and prince of this world, and that he has the authority to dispose in some way of the kingdoms of this world (Luke 4:6), we will not be perplexed at the prosperity of the wicked.

145 First see the blessed character in which the Lord visits the world. Certain truths may be learned elsewhere, such as creation and providence, but not judgment in righteousness, at least not until the end, and then it will be learned in the destruction of the wicked. This was what Job found so hard to understand — how those who did evil prospered, whilst the righteous were persecuted. This is just because the time of judgment is not come; the time of mercy is now going on, and we cannot have mercy and judgment at once. So all is a riddle now. There is too much of badness for man to be able to think that things are of God; and too much of goodness, even amidst all the ruin and wretchedness, for him to see how it is not of God. Men try to get over it, and to be indifferent to it; but there is too much even for selfishness itself not to see it. However favourable exterior circumstances may, for a few, partially remedy things, we must see that, taken as a whole, there is but ruin and wretchedness in the world.

The first sixteen verses of Psalm 73 give us a very graphic description of the way in which the wicked frequently are prospered in this life. There is nothing very surprising in the fact that in an ungodly world there should be worldly prosperity for the ungodly: it is rather surprising that the godly should so often be upset as they behold it. There was some excuse for Asaph, for he lived in a day when heavenly things were not clearly revealed, and when God did speak of blessing Israel His people in their basket and in their store. We live in a day when heavenly things are clearly revealed, and when we have been plainly told as Christians that "we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God."

"Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart" (73:1); so wrote Asaph, about to describe the temptations of a saint in times of declension. Kept as the saint had been in the midst of great inducement to him to turn aside, he can put on record the greatness of his own danger, his feet were almost gone, his steps had well nigh slipped (2). What was the snare? He describes it. It was the prosperity of the wicked, and their unabashed arrogance. Things it would seem were flourishing with them, having more than heart could wish (3-9). Direfully was all that acting on others, drawing aside into an apparently easier path those who should have withstood the temptation. The bait which ensnared them and the thoughts of their heart are both described. The bait was waters out of a full cup. Present ease preferred to faithfulness to God. It is the state of mind which will land many in a coming day in apostasy. God is shut out of their thoughts. "How does God know?" they say, "and is there knowledge in the Most High?" For a time the ungodly prosper, and increase in riches (10-12).

Zophar had spoken of the wicked being cut off, but Job has questions now that Zophar does not even attempt to answer. Sometimes wicked men are cut off, but some wicked men live and become old and become mighty in power above others (v.7). Why? Their children often get along well with hardly a setback (v.8). They seem to have nothing to fear and the discipline of God's government seems not to apply to them (v.9). "Their bull breeds without failure; their cow calves without miscarriage" (v.10), while often the righteous find just the opposite experience. Their children enjoy life with its music and dancing, spending their days in wealth, "and in a moment go down to the grave" (vv.11-12). In other words, they know nothing of the painful experiences of Job all through their life, then die without suffering. Asaph observed this also, as he records in Psalm 73:3-9, and added in verses 16-17, "It was too painful for me - until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I understood their end." He learned that God's accounts are not settled in this life: there is a future to be considered.

God allows the wicked seeming prosperity with the intention of destroying them forever. Wickedness loves to flaunt itself, but suddenly it is dashed down from its proud height of self-confidence (v. 7).

Asaph discovered that God intends to settle His accounts with the ungodly in His own time and way, and that He has unlimited time at His disposal wherein to do it. He is in no hurry, and He will do it in an hour of all hours most inconvenient for them. If we too have been troubled about this particular point, let us also lay hold of the fact that God's ways, whether with the ungodly or with His people, can only be interpreted in the light of eternity.

What a gracious time is the present! For the decree of judgment is enrolled among the immutable counsels of God, and not less sure than the exaltation of the Son as King in Zion. But His exaltation to the throne of universal dominion is delayed, and the judgment of the ungodly is held in check that the authority which the Lord Jesus has may be used in giving eternal life to those whom the Father brings to Him. Is not this patient waiting? The longsuffering of the Lord is salvation. And "salvation" is the word which gives the character of this present day, as judgment will of the coming day. For then there will be unsparing retribution upon those who have taken counsel against Him and who will be taken, as it were, red-handed in their guilt. None escape; Israel and the Gentile, the people and the heathen, all who are confederated in rebellion will feel the power of God's King when He sits on His throne in Zion. It is grace while He is on the Father's throne.

(Vv. 4, 5) This leads to the assertion of the second great principle of God in regard to judgment, namely, God invariably gives space for repentance before He executes judgment. The execution of the judgment of God will most surely come, though, in the goodness of God, it may be long delayed. In His goodness God forbears to judge and suffers long with evil. It was so in the days of Noah, when God lingered for One hundred and twenty years before executing the judgment of the flood: it was so in the history of Israel, with whose evil ways God bore long before destroying Jerusalem and scattering the nation. It is so to-day when God in grace lingers over this judgment doomed world. How then does man treat this longsuffering of God? Alas! men despise the riches of His goodness. Because of this "for-bearance" men think that God will never judge: because of His "longsuffering" men think that God is indifferent to evil. Thus men despise the goodness of God, not seeing that the reason God "forbears" and "suffers long" is to give men space for repentance. The goodness of God thus makes manifest the hardness and impenitence of man's heart. God acts in goodness, and men despise "the riches of His goodness". God gives space to repent, and men are impenitent. Men condemn one another for doing evil, but they refuse to repent of their own evil. The fact that God gives space for repentance, shows that repentance is a necessity for each man in order to be right with God, and escape the judgment of God.