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! (Isaiah 5:20)
This warning was specifically delivered to God’s people, the people of Israel, by the mouth of his prophet Isaiah. It was his people who were no longer behaving as though they belonged to him. They had engaged in a terrible deception, that of referring to evil as good and good as evil, pretending darkness was light and light was darkness. Sound familiar? Earlier in the same chapter Isaiah uses poetic language of a vineyard to portray what the nation of Israel had become as a result. Though the vinedresser (God) had done all that was necessary to yield good grapes, planting on a fertile hill, clearing the stones, choosing choice plants, building a watchtower in the center, and even preparing a wine vat, his vineyard yielded worthless, wild grapes (the children of Israel).
How easy for Gods’ people today, the church, to adopt the same attitude. Our culture very much celebrates evil as good and good as evil. Think – fornication, adultery, murder (ie. abortion or creepy serial killer entertainment), drunkenness, laziness, and the current hot-button homosexuality. Sadly, we do not need to look further than our own living room and the t.v. that sits in it to see that. Maybe we have already adopted the attitude for ourselves. Many churches have people filling their buildings who have and there are churches that officially in creeds and statements of faith have made the terrible exchange. How many more churches simply evade. Brance and I sat through a church’s sermon series on culturally controversial (sin) topics, some mentioned above, where the lead pastor did the most “amazing” dance that involved him speaking for an hour on each topic without taking a clear stance, even though the bible is quite clear. In this situation, in an effort to draw and keep a crowd, the bible was closed “as it were”, even while scripture was referenced. It is plain in scripture that it is not the job of the church to judge those outside of its “walls”, but to not share the clear teaching of scripture with those IN the church?! Yikes!
What’s the anecdote to all of this? The word. We need to be washed in the pure teachings of scripture. We are in grave danger when pastors devote more time to reviewing the latest episode from their favorite television show or the hottest new blockbuster, or simply to a string of anecdotal stories/ tales than they do to carefully explaining the word to their people. It shouldn’t surprise us that Paul tells us to arm ourselves with “the sword of the spirit” in Ephesians 6. The moment we literally, or figuratively, set aside God’s precious words to us, we are in the same vulnerable place the children of Israel were in before they became like the world around them, exchanging light for darkness, becoming worthless, wild grapes. And God says “woe” to people like that.
Leave a Reply