5 Villains Of The Bible

Here five Villains that can be found in the Bible.

Queen Jezebel

It is hard to argue with the Old Testament queen of evil.  Queen Jezebel led her husband, Ahab, the king of Israel, into idolatry.  This woman was a priestess of the pagan, false god Baal (1 King 16:29-33) and led Ahab and Israel into abandoning the One, True God.  And the type of worship that took place there is so despicable that I won’t even mention what was involved. One of the most horrendous parts of the worship services of Baal were human sacrifices, which included sacrificing babies.

Herod the (not so) Great

I believe King Herod (or Herod the Great) might have been the most evil man of all.  Even though he was dubbed “King of Judea” by the Roman authorities, we know that he ordered all children from age 2 and below to be murdered so that he might ensure that the birth of the King that the Magi told him about would never be born (Matt 22:1-23).  This was known as the Murder of the Innocents. He was so concerned about losing his power and throne that he had his wife and two sons murdered.  He even murdered hundreds of innocent rabbis and Historians write that he wanted to increase his wealth so he murdered dozens of the richest families in Judea just so he could take their wealth for himself.

Judas Iscariot

Judas had every one of the disciples fooled and probably most of the rest of Jesus disciples too but Jesus knew that this man of betrayal, called the Son of Perdition, was going to betray Him, yet Jesus still washed his feet.  Judas betrayed the Son of God for a paltry 30 pieces of silver, about the price of a slave during his day.  Is it any wonder that after Jesus’ death, no one hardly every dared again to name their child Judas.  Try and find that name in use today.

Cain, Abel’s Brother

The story began when “Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard” (Gen 4:3-5a).  Why did God regard Abel’s sacrifice and not Cain’s?  Maybe it was because one was an animal sacrifice which required blood and satisfied God’s requirements as a covering for sin but Cain’s was only a sacrifice of produce and that apparently was not enough of a sacrifice and Cain grew angry and ended up being the first murderer in human history.

Saul of Tarsus

Saul who later became Paul was the fiercest of all persecutors of the early church.  Paul confessed that “as for zeal, persecuting the church” he was second to none (Phil 3:6) and “just as zealous for God as any of you are” (Acts 22:3) for “as the high priest and all the Council can themselves testify. I even obtained letters from them to their associates in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished” (Acts 22:4).  In the time of the early church, “Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison” (Acts 8:3) and even up until the time that Saul was struck down on the road to Damascus He was “still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). Here was the grace of God in action for who was once the greatest threat to the church (Saul) became the church’s greatest writer and missionary (in Paul) showing even a Saul can become a Paul by God’s power to save.  Please notice that I included Saul as one of the 5 greatest villains of the Bible but when he was saved, the old man Saul was gone and he became a new man…a new creature in Christ Jesus, just like every one of us who have been born again.

May God richly bless you,

Pastor Jack Wellman

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