Right from Wrong

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who exchange darkness for light, and light for darkness; who exchange bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

— Isaiah 5:20

Many times, we find that our modern society has things exactly backwards. They do what Isaiah decried—they call evil good, and they call good evil.

Let me indulge in a bit of sarcasm to illustrate this phenomenon. We have a problem today in sexual matters. The problem is that we have so many of you who are “homophobes.” Ah, that is the problem. No doubt homophobes have caused the plague of AIDS. Our problem is not perversion. Our problem is not homosexuality. Our problem is you, the homophobes.

Are you he that troubles Israel?” asked the wicked King Ahab of the righteous Elijah. But Elijah would have none of this, and armed with the power of God, he said, “I have not troubled Israel, but you and your father’s house, in that you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord” (1 Kings 18:18).

We have people who won’t take responsibility for their sins, but, instead, redefine illicit behavior so that they’re no longer sinning. For example, there was a politician who was pulled over for a DUI. He said that it wasn’t his fault: “I was overserved.”

Despite the attempts of Hollywood or a sinful world to redefine good and evil, God’s Word stands firm. As President Lincoln once said when he received a copy of the Bible. “But for it, we could not know right from wrong.”

Question to ponder:
Can you think of a few examples where someone has called evil good and good evil?