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.