Calling Evil Good: The Problem Isn't "Them," It's Us! -- Isaiah 5:13, 20

Isaiah 5:13, 20


"Therefore my people have gone into captivity,
Because they have no knowledge;
Their honorable men are famished,
And their multitude dried up with thirst. (v. 13)

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" (v. 20) (NKJV)

It seems, these days, that I’m hearing a lot of pastors talk more and more about how our society is naming what is evil good and what is good evil. And, I think all of us would have to admit, that American social norms and morals have changed significantly in the last 75-100 years. There is a reality that what wasn’t acceptable behavior in the 1950s is often now more than acceptable; it’s considered to be best practice.

But I’m wondering if we’re not looking in the wrong direction when we apply this scripture to what’s happening. I wonder if the problem, rather than being with society in general, isn’t centered first and foremost with the Church, with God’s people.

In the last few years, in a rather public display, Christians (or at least those professing to be Christians) have begun to refuse to provide retail and professional services to the LGBT community, particularly in the way of wedding and family services. Several bakers across the country refused to bake wedding cakes. A florist or two refused to provide flowers for weddings. Most recently a pediatrician refused to accept a new baby into her practice when she learned that the parents were married lesbians. All of these incidents were directly related to the issue of civil gay marriage. In every case, the person refusing the service has openly stated that they are against gay marriage and can’t, by reason by conscience, provide the service because they believe that gay marriage is against the laws of God.

Pastors, then, have also begun to stand up and reject this secular turn of events, stating that now our society is calling what is evil good and what is good evil ("Homosexuality is good" and "Christian values are bad"). They are saying that this verse in Isaiah (v. 20) is about the world’s behavior and the world’s values. They are vehemently protesting that things in our society have turned around and are suddenly backwards.

I disagree.

Oh, of course things in our secular, unsaved society are crazy wrong. Everyone who isn’t saved is crazy wrong. Scripture has already guaranteed that! None of us can make good decisions about our lives, about our behavior, without the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit to make us turn away from our sinful natures and embrace the righteous character of the most Holy God.

But this passage in Isaiah wasn’t written about unsaved people. It was written about God’s people! God’s people will begin to call evil good and to call good evil. "They" aren’t the problem; we are. And I’m not talking about the so-called Christians who are distorting the Bible in order to try to include gay marriage as an acceptable form of Christian behavior. I’m talking about those of us who have painted the red letter A on the chest of every non-Christian for their sinful behavior. I’m talking about you and me.

Now, I haven’t suddenly changed my own belief about what is sinful and what is not. Scripture is plain that sex outside of traditional marriage is sin. One cannot equivocate about that and still remain faithful to the idea that the Bible in infallible in the original manuscripts. No, what I’m talking about is that we have suddenly decided that there are sins committed by the unsaved that will somehow send them more to hell than other sins. Think about that for a minute. So there is an unsaved person who is LGBT. They get married or not. They have homosexual sin or remain celibate. They do whatever. If they are unsaved, they are doomed. It doesn’t matter whether or not they are LGBT. It doesn’t matter or not whether they are sexually active or not. It doesn’t matter whether they are married in the eyes of the government or not. If they are unsaved, their eternal destination is hell. Pure and simple. There isn’t anyone who can make any decision in life that will somehow send them more to hell than another decision. The fact is, our unsaved heterosexual neighbors are just as much going to hell. Homosexuality isn’t something that is more heinous to God than any other sin when it comes to determining where a person’s eternal destination is.

And that is something we need to seriously get in our heads and hearts. Why? Because I believe that Satan is using the current state of affairs in our society to get our eyes off what is actually really important and that is the ignorance among Christians of what the Bible says about how we are to live. Isaiah 5:13 (the beginning part of this passage) says: "Therefore my people have gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge." The Hebrew word translated here "knowledge" is da’at and has connotations of discernment, understanding, and wisdom (Strong’s H1847). I believe God is telling us that His people weren’t sent into captivity because of what they did, but rather because of the root of why they did it. Their reasons for their sin were their undoing.

Do you know that most Christians in America are frightfully ignorant of what the Bible says? We read Christian books, go to Christian conferences, listen to Christian radio, but we don’t study the Word, not like we should. And we really don’t know what the Bible says about interacting with the LGBT community. If we did know, things like refusing to provide services for weddings or treat babies wouldn’t be happening. The Bible doesn’t tell us to do those things. In fact, the Bible tells us just the opposite.

"I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person." (1 Corinthians 5:9-11 NKJV).

God never meant for us to police the behavior of the unsaved around us. These dear deluded folks are simply acting according to their sin natures to which they are enslaved (Romans 6:15-23). But we are to police those within the Church, including ourselves, beginning with the idea that we are to ostracize those within our faith community who are sexually immoral . . . or covetous, or idolaters, or revilers, or drunkards, or extortioners. We are not to have any social interaction with them if they name themselves as Christians. (Notice that this list, while beginning with those who are sexually immoral, goes far beyond just those who have embraced sexual sin.)

We—those of us in the Church—are the ones who have things backwards. We are the ones calling evil good and good evil. We are willing to tolerate, to the point of ignoring, the sins of our Christian brothers and sisters, claiming that we aren’t allowed to judge their lives, but we turn around and persecute the unsaved LGBT community in the name of God. And yet Paul clearly tells us that he assumed we would keep company with sexually immoral unsaved people. Why? Because how else can they hear about the gospel unless the Christians around them embrace them with God’s love?

Oh, dear ones, we are the ones being sent into captivity because of our ignorance of what the Bible really says. We are the ones who are living in sin, calling what is evil good and what is good evil by persecuting the unsaved around us. We are the ones who are living upside down, refusing to be Christ’s hands and feet and heart in a dying world.

Inside our churches are people living in sin, people who claim the name of Christ, but who are living sexually immoral lives, Christians who are covetors, idolaters, revilers, drunkards, extortioners. We have refused to police ourselves, to hold ourselves and each other accountable for our sins. Instead, perversely, we have decided to label one group of sinners in our society as somehow more sinful than another group and to lay the blame of our society’s degradation on them! We are the problem, not them. We need to repent of our sin of ignorance, to repent of our own self-indulgence and sinfulness, and to reach out in love to those around us who are unsaved, regardless of how their "unsavedness" exhibits itself. Of course, they are sinning! They are slaves to sin and the only thing that will save them is the gospel! Our refusing to love them, to serve them, to embrace them won’t change them. We need to become the hands, the feet, the heart of the Savior!

© 2015 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Light Afflictions -- James 1:1

James 1:1


"James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad: Greetings." (NKJV)

James, a bondservant of God. It’s interesting that the King James translates this "bondservant" rather than slave. Traditionally in European culture, a slave was someone who was usually kidnapped from their home and sold into slavery by others (like the story of Joseph in the Old Testament). But a bondservant was someone who sold themselves into slavery, often to pay the debt of another. The connotation is that the subjection into slavery is the decision of the slave herself, not the decision of another. Isn’t that how it is with us? No one has forced us to become Christians; we have willingly made that decision. And yet, how is it then that it is so difficult for us to submit ourselves to the will of the Lord and to the service of others?

I think that often we are drawn into Christianity under rather false pretenses. Either we are "born" into a Christian family, or a family that claims to be Christian but has lives that are rather otherwise, or we are "convinced" that our lives would be totally "fixed" if we accepted Christ. Both are probably bad beginnings for a life that is neither easy nor bereft of suffering. To put it bluntly, being a Christian, while far the best choice, is difficult at its easiest and very painful at its most extreme. It is a life of self-denial, of embracing whatever God demands, and of very often trusting in the darkness. When we read that James defined himself as a bondservant of the God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, we need to understand that he had decided to live completely sold out to the will of God, regardless of what that will was, regardless of where it might take him.

Paul talks about all of the suffering that he went through as an apostle:

"In labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness" (2 Corinthians 11;23-27 NKJV).

Yet, early in the same letter to the Corinthian church, Paul calls his sufferings "light afflictions:"



"For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Corinthians 4:17 NKJV).

The Greek word translated here "light" is elaphros and means "easy to bear" (Strong’s G2347). Why would Paul say that? Because the pain is well offset by the eternal weight of glory that is working in and for us. Paul goes on to say:

"For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee" (2 Corinthians 5:1-5 NKJV).

This "earthly house" Paul talks about are our physical bodies, but not just our bodies, but in essence this life that we live here on earth. And his perspective on this "life" here is amazing. In verse 4, he says "that mortality may be swallowed up by life!" Despite everything we might try to think and say to convince ourselves, as human beings, we know that we are dying. We know that this life is filled with more misery than joy. We know that things here on earth are, simply put, messed up. We want something more and we try to get it through political, financial, social, and even sexual means, but nothing really works! Why? Because this isn’t really life. This is life messed up by sin. Sin permeates all of creation. There’s no way to get around it.

"For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who His children really are. Against its will, everything on earth was subjected to God’s curse. All creation anticipates the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay" (Romans 8:18-21 NLT).

All of creation—the entire universe—has been subjected to the penalties of sin. That is why both the apostles Peter and John write about the new heavens and the new earth that will someday be created (2 Peter 3:13, Revelation 21:1). This creation, so permeated with sin, cannot be saved; it must be destroyed and a new creation made for God’s people. We have the promise of new bodies and a new creation in which to live. This is why Paul called his sufferings light afflictions. This is why James was willing to become a bondservant of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the promise that brings us hope. We aren’t looking for a better life here within this creation that cannot be fixed, cannot be saved. We are looking for a perfect life in the new creation waiting for God’s people! We are willing to do whatever He asks for us now because He is preparing for us a life—an eternal life—that is so wonderful, we can’t even begin to imagine what it will be like.

© 2015 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

I Need A Savior -- Psalm 70:5

Psalm 70:5


"But I am poor and needy;
Please hurry to my aid, O God.
You are My helper and My Savior;
O Lord, do not delay!" (NLT)

I need a Savior.

As I have gotten older, I’ve become more and more self-aware, aware of my limitations, aware of my faults, aware of actually how little control I have on my life. But more than that, I’m aware of how close I live to the abyss, to the point at where I am lost and alone and terrified of life.

All of us, in the darkness, when we can no longer try to pretend, live in the same place. There is that moment when life threatens to crash in, destroying the "best laid plans of mice and men" and we realize that we are facing a future for which we are totally unprepared. It doesn’t matter how much we think we are prepared. The forces which battle for this earth are far greater than our limited resources, far stronger than our feeble strength, more far reaching than we ever could imagine. It doesn’t matter whether or not you buy into the idea of global conspiracies, fatalism, or the power of optimism. It doesn’t matter whether or not you’re a conservative, a liberal, or an independent. It doesn’t matter whether or not you live in a developed nation or a developing one. The fact is—the undeniable fact is—there are powers at work beyond our control and life, at the very point that we thought we had all of our ducks in a row, has a habit of crashing in and destroying all our hopes, our plans, and our futures.

We need a Savior.

"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" (Ephesians 6:12 NKJV).

The battle exists on a spiritual level. That means that regardless of the laws we pass, regardless of the government under which we live, regardless of the efforts that we make to change our society, the battle goes on and it can only be fought at a spiritual level. The battle may appear to be in another realm; it may appear to be societal, political, financial, or legal, but it’s not! The only battle against humankind, the only battle that’s being waged, the only battle we need to address is the spiritual battle of Satan and his minions against the Almighty God and His armies. There is no other battle!

It’s taken me a long time to realize that every attack, every heartache, every struggle is related. The hurts of this world seem so diverse, so disconnected. The daughter of a famous singer lying in a coma. The persecution of Christians by a terrorist group. The passing of laws limiting the exercise of religious beliefs. The increase of resources for the rich and the decrease of resources for the poor. The divorce of a dear friend. A child suffering from cancer. The increase of autism and Alzheimer’s. The loss of jobs. The increase in the price of food. The list goes on and on of the events and circumstances which bring suffering into the lives of those we know and those we know of. And yet, if we take the Bible at it’s word, if we believe that what the Holy Spirit has said is true, then there is only one battle and what’s at stake are the eternal souls of everyone who has every lived.

I think of horrible tragedies, homes burning down or terrible car accidents. But when people walk away alive, the common agreement is, "You can replace stuff. You can’t replace lives." As Christians, we need to begin to have that kind of perspective, but on a far greater, more significant level. You can’t replace souls. Souls are eternal; everyone has one. And the battle that’s waging is for our very souls.

We need a Savior.

A number of years ago, I had a nervous breakdown. While many of my friends didn’t realize what was happening to me, I was spending most of my days sitting in a corner of my walk-in closet. I didn’t eat. I didn’t take care of my children. I didn’t help around the house. I simply sat in a closet, terrified of life. Twice a week I’d get dressed and go to church. I had a "role" I could act out and, in the comfort of that structure, I was able to function for brief periods of time. But most of the time, I was paralyzed by the anger, hurt, and fear that permeated my life. My beloved doctor tried various drugs, to no success. Most of them actually made me crazier!

What I needed was a Savior.

Oh, I believe I was still a Christian during that time, but I needed the Holy Spirit to reach in and tear away my self-pity. Only when my dear husband came and prayed for me, a prayer of desperation that God Himself would release me from the prison I’d created, did I begin to get better. I so needed a Savior because I was unable to save myself.

The world is unable to save itself. Different laws won’t save us. Different spouses or jobs won’t save us. Different doctors or lawyers or religious structures won’t save us. We need a Savior. We need the Savior. Only in His power and through His will can the spiritual battle that is the foundational problem of everything be won. And we need more than a Savior at the end of an aisle when we said the "sinner’s prayer." We need the Savior every day for every moment that we face life.

We need the Savior!

　

© 2015 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Exceedingly Wicked: That Includes Me -- Jeremiah 17:9-10

Jeremiah 17:9-10


"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings." (NKJV)

"More than anything else, a person’s mind is evil and cannot be healed" (NCV)

"The human heart is most deceitful and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?" (NLT)

Very recently, Stephen Frye, a British comedian gave an interview to television host, Gay Byrne, on the show, The Meaning of Life. One of the questions Byrne typically asks on his show was what his guest might say to God if he saw God face to face. This was Frye’s response (answering what he would say to God):

"How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault? It's not right, it's utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God that creates a world that is so full of injustice and pain?" (http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/tv-host-asks-atheist-stephen-fry-question-about-god-you-have-watch-what-happens-next300115#sthash.nZohnqzl.dpuf)

"How dare You create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault?"

Most Christians would simply gloss over this response, knowing it is a typical response of a nonbeliever, but I think that Fry’s response is important for us to consider. Why? Because this is the heart of the world view of many people: that people are fundamentally good, so the evil in the world isn’t "our" fault. This incorrect and poor way of looking at things causes all kinds of problems. In fact, this is one of the greatest problems in the Church today, because we use this errant view to divide the "good people" from the "bad people." You see, if we believe that everyone is born "good," then when they do "bad" things, it becomes their choice. And if their choice is "bad," then they are now necessarily "bad people" (or "evil people"). It’s as if life is about those who wear the white hats and those who wear the black hats. And we do everything we possibly can to continue to this immensely bad doctrine.

Scripture tells us that the heart—our hearts—are "desperately wicked." Don’t you recognize that in your own heart? I know that my heart is desperately wicked, that I’m constantly doing things that hurt others, that ignore God’s will, that I know fail to bring glory to my Lord Jesus.

Paul understood this inescapable nature of being human: "I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do." (Romans 7:14b-15 NKJV).

"What I hate, that I do."

The psalmist wrote:

"God looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. Every one of them has turned aside; they have together become corrupt; here is none who does good, no, not one." (Psalm 53:2-3 NKJV).

We need God’s mercy and forgiveness precisely because we are so innately wicked! Not them. Us! Me! When we sing "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me," I totally understand why John Newton chose those specific words. He understood himself; he knew that he was capable of justifying evil deeds; he knew how wicked his own heart truly was.

A recent article on the Internet address this specific song and that word, "wretch":

"That first day at Grace Pointe, an interdenominational church with a membership of about 1,500, the pastors were leading an old-fashioned hymn sing. When they got to ‘Amazing Grace,’ Pastor Melissa Greene said something that ‘hit me right square between the eyes,’ Wigden says. Speaking about the line ‘that saved a wretch like me,’ Greene said the church didn’t agree with the word ‘wretch.’ ‘It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or who you are, you were born beloved by God,’ Wigden says she told the congregation." (http://news.yahoo.com/bible-belt-evangelical-church-embraced-gay-rights-201800629.html)

Of course we are beloved by God, but that doesn’t make us any less sinners and wicked. "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8 NKJV). The idea behind Pastor Greene’s words is that God loves us because He must have found something loveable in us. The Bible speaks so much to the contrary of that notion. God demonstrated His love, not our worthiness, in that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. The word used here is hamartolos and means "devoted to sin, a sinner; not free from sin; pre-eminently sinful, especially wicked." (Enhanced Strong’s G268).

We don’t want to hear that. We want to look at ourselves and find not find ourselves lacking. We feel better about ourselves if we can find something redeemable within our own hearts and perhaps find something less redeemable in the hearts of those with whom we have disagreements. But the Lord knew that we would think that way:

"Every way of a man is right in his own eyes" (Proverbs 21:2b NKJV).

"All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes" (Proverbs 16:2a NKJV).

We cannot trust our own hearts, our own valuations of people around us. There are no white hats and black hats; there are no good guys and bad guys. There are simply sinners (including me) who are desperately in need of the salvation that our Lord so graciously offers.

© 2015 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.