What Is the Daily Evil and Who Is Responsible for It?

“Therefore don’t be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Each day’s own evil is sufficient.” (Matthew 6:34 WEB)

What is the daily evil?

Who is responsible for it?

How do we overcome it?

Jesus said that each day has “sufficient” evil. By saying that it is “sufficient,” he means that we each have enough of it to overcome in any given day to occupy us fully for that day. We certainly don’t need to be fighting tomorrow’s battle; it can wait. If we succeed in overcoming today’s evil, then we have done what God requires of us for today. On the other hand, if we try to go ahead of ourselves and deal with tomorrow’s evil, we will either be overloaded, unprepared, or neglect our God-given assignment for today.

Next, to be absolutely sure we know who our enemy is in this “overcoming,” we need to investigate what Jesus means when he says the word, “evil.” To find out, we begin by looking at the meaning of the original Greek word from which our English word, “evil,” was translated. (If you want to skip all the definitions, please move on to the next section.)

In Strongs Concordance, we read that evil means: Badness, depravity, active malignity, or trouble:—evil, naughtiness, wickedness. Apparently, it’s a primary word meaning: worthless, that is, depraved, or injurious:—bad, evil, harm, ill, wicked.

In this definition, we read that part of the meaning of evil is “active malignity.” To be sure we know what this means, we consult Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary of American English (as it will explain what the word meant when Strong wrote his dictionary):

Malignity means: Extreme enmity, or evil dispositions of heart towards another; malice without provocation, or malevolence with baseness of heart; deep-rooted spite. Also, virulence, destructive tendency; extreme evilness of nature, and extreme sinfulness; enormity or heinousness.

Wow! That definition uses just about every bad, negative word in existence. And we need this lengthy list to even begin to understand just how evil the enemy’s daily evil is. Therefore, we see that the evil that Jesus says we have to overcome each day could be thought of as:

Destructive tendency

Extreme evilness of nature

Extreme sinfulness—enormity of heinousness

Ill-will; desire to injure

A wickedness that is not ashamed to break laws

Intrinsically worthless

It’s objective is to injure

Of a bad nature

Injurious, pernicious, destructive, baneful

Depraved badness

Who Is Responsible For this Daily Evil?

(Matthew 6:9-13 DKJV) “So pray like this: Our Father in heaven, Sanctify your name; (10) Let your kingdom come; Let your will be done—as it is in heaven, so also on earth; (11) Give us this day our daily bread; (12) release us from our debts, as we release those in debt to us; (13) do not lead us into tests, but rescue us from evil—for yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.”

This part of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount has come to be known as, “The Lord’s Prayer.” In it, he asks his heavenly Father to “rescue us from evil” (verse 13). This evil is not from God: Jesus wouldn’t ask God to rescue us from his own will. In fact, Jesus prayed, “Let your will be done.” If evil was God’s will, Jesus would have contradicted himself to ask God to deliver us from it. On the contrary, God wants us delivered from evil. In the Berea Study Bible Version of the Lord’s Prayer, we see that the translators personalize the evil as “the evil one”:

(Matthew 6:13 BSB) “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”

Who is this “evil one”? Who is this who is responsible for the daily evil that we must overcome? The Apostle Paul helps us here as he clearly spells out the answer. He says that the source of the evil we have to overcome is definitely not “flesh and blood”; it is spiritual in origin. What’s more, he reveals that the spirits behind the daily evil are extremely wicked:

(Ephesians 6:10-12 NKJV) Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. (11) Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. (12) For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Despite hitting us with the shocking news that an extremely evil enemy has us in his sights, Paul does give us some very good news: we can overcome him. God has supplied us with weapon and armor with which to fight back—God’s own weapon and armor:

(Ephesians 6:13-18 EMTV) Because of this, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having accomplished all things, to stand. (14) Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, (15) and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; (16) above all, taking up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. (17) And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; (18) through every prayer and petition, praying in every season in the Spirit, being watchful to this same thing with all perseverance and petition concerning all the saints.

Through Paul, the Holy Spirit assures us that if we apply God’s weapon and armor, we can win our battle with the daily evil; we can be overcomers and receive rewards.

In another of his letters, the Apostle Paul clearly states that in Jesus’s name, victory is possible in every skirmish with our unseen enemy:

(Philippians 2:9-11 NKJV) Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, (10) that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, (11) and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Today, let’s prayerfully face the reality of our deadly, malicious enemy; let’s fully realise that this is personal, and that we must overcome him. According to the definitions, he needs no reason to attack, slander, accuse, deceive, injure, intimidate, or worry us. He does all of this and more because he is just plain evil. To put it simply, this is just a fact of Christian life; it comes with the territory; none of us escape the need to contend with him. The good news is that Just as Jesus overcame him, we can too in Jesus’s name—by his blood, covenant, word, righteousness, armour, weapon, shield, name, and because …

(Revelation 12:11 NKJV) “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.”