Woe to Those Who Call Evil Good

Introduction: Isaiah's Unpleasant Task and Israel's Apostasy

0:04 Will you turn, please, to the chapter from which I read earlier in our gathering this evening, the fifth chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah.

0:15 The text that will be the focus of our attention tonight is verse 20,

0:22 in which the prophet, being the mouthpiece of God, pronounces this terrible woe upon the people of Israel, particularly the men of Jerusalem and of Judah. Verse 20, The prophet Isaiah was given a very unpleasant task in the unfolding of the history of redemption. According to chapter 6, which is the record of his commission, God made it plain to him at the very beginning of his ministry that he would not be a success.

1:33 God told him in that very commission, verse 9 of chapter 6, Go tell this people, hear ye indeed, but understand not, see ye indeed, but perceive not, make the heart of this people fat, make their ears heavy, shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn again and be healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? And the answer of God is, until cities be waste without inhabitant, and houses without man, and the land be...

2:08 become utterly waste. Wonderfully encouraging prospects for a young preacher, aren't they? To be told when you are commissioned that your primary function is to be an instrument of judicial hardening upon men until that hardening gives way to the manifest judgments of Almighty God. The reason why God gave this strange commission to the prophet Isaiah is because the condition of the people of Israel, particularly Judah, and even more particularly Jerusalem, the center of worship, had become so apostate, had turned away so miserably from what God intended they should be, that the promised judgments given at the very inception of God's formal entrance into covenant with that nation at Mount Sinai are now about to be fulfilled. This nation that had such light and privilege is now ripening, for judgment. Outwardly, religious worship is going on fine. You read the first chapter of Isaiah, the 58th chapter of Isaiah, and it's a picture of flourishing religion.

3:21 But God says the religion had lost all its soul and therefore all its power over the lives of its people. And that's always true. The form of religion can never have its power over people. It is only when there is the soul, the vital godliness, that there will be practical, ethical outworking of one's religious experience and religious conduct.

3:44 And so in the midst of all the feasting and the fasting and the keeping of holy days and sabbaths, as we have the description in chapters 1 and 58, God calls the nation a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah because of the wickedness that abounds in that nation. And in a very real sense, this parable with which the fifth chapter begins is a synopsis of the whole history of Israel from the beginning of the world. And so in the midst of all the feasting and the fasting, from God's gracious dealings with that nation to its terrible apostasy in which it brings forth nothing but wild grapes. The whole history of the nation is found in capsule form in this parable of the vineyard that receives such wonderful treatment from God but which brought forth such disappointing fruit. And after that parable, as I intimated in the reading, beginning with verse 8 of the fifth chapter, there is this pronouncement of woe for specific sins that have provoked God to anger. And the focus of our study tonight is verse 20 which comes to us couched in the paragraph beginning with verse 18 and concluding with verse 23. And as we move now from the general overview of Isaiah's ministry in a broad sense to the precise state of the nation of Israel ripening for judgment, notice now, the more immediate context of the text that will be the basis of our study tonight.

The Immediate Context: Sins Leading to Woe

5:13 Preceding verse 20 is the statement in verse 18 that these people were drawing iniquity with cords of falsehood and sin, as it were, with a cart rope. Here are people bound to their sins with lies. They are drawing iniquity with cords of falsehood. It's the picture of animals dragging carts behind them and the picture is that of the yoke or the rope that binds the animal to his cart in this passage is called falsehood.

5:47 If only they would give up their falsehoods they would no longer drag sin behind them. But they are so tied to their sins by lies that they have become like animals in the service of their sin. Verse 19 underscores this brazen impiety that dares God to bring judgment upon them. They say, Let him, that is, let God make speed.

6:10 Let him hasten his work that we may see it. Let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel. Is that what you call him, Isaiah, Holy One of Israel? Well, let his counsel draw near and come that we may know it.

6:20 They were theological empiricists. You see, the empiricist is the man who says, I believe nothing but what is demonstrated before me. I'm from Missouri, show me. They say, you, Isaiah, and these other prophets, you say the Holy One is going to judge us?

6:33 Well, we'll believe it when we see it. Notice how brazen it is. God is saying, I'm going to cut you off with judgment. They say, we'll believe it when we see it.

6:42 And this became characteristic of the nation at its heightened stage of impiety. There is reference to this in Jeremiah 17, 15, Amos 5, 18. And it's a characteristic whenever men become bold in sin. For we read in 2 Peter 3, 1, that men shall say, Where is the promise of His coming?

7:02 We'll believe it when we see it. We are theological empiricists. When we see it, then we'll believe it. Not until then.

7:11 And so you have the picture of them tied to their sins by their lies. This breaking forth into brazen impiety that defies and dares God to bring His judgment. Then verse 20 is followed by a statement concerning proud human wisdom that is the basis of all of their operations. Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight.

7:36 They say, we need no wisdom, but that which rises out of our own minds and our own hearts.

7:43 And then further is followed by the statement of this braggadocio concerning their ability to consume intoxicating spirits. Woe unto them that are mighty to do what? To fight battles in the name of the Lord? No, mighty to drink strong drink.

8:01 They bend their elbows at the bar and count their beers.

8:05 They say, I've down 15 and can still count my fingers. How about you? Sound familiar? And then the paragraph concludes with this statement concerning the perversion of justice in what we would call the courts of law.

8:19 They let the wicked go free for a bribe. And then they condemn the righteous. Now in the midst of that, we have this statement of verse 20, which in a sense, I believe, is the mother of all the other sins. This is the embryonic sin.

The Core Sin: Moral Inversion (Isaiah 5:20)

8:33 This is to change the figure, the womb, out of which come forth all the other sins. This statement of verse 20, Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. And I believe this text has something to say to us that has peculiar relevance to the age in which you and I are living, to the precise condition of our own country, and therefore we need desperately to understand what it's saying and something of its application to the present hour. As we think our way, through the text, first of all, I will direct your attention to what I'm calling the basic presupposition of the text.

The Basic Presupposition: An Unchangeable Standard

9:17 Then secondly, the tragic perversion described in the text. And thirdly, the sober pronouncement given in the text. First of all, the basic presupposition of this text. A presupposition is something you assume.

9:32 You operate on the basis that it is so. Now when God says through the prophet, Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil, that put darkness for light, and light for darkness, bitter for sweet, sweet for bitter, God is assuming something. There is a fundamental assumption, a fundamental presupposition in this text. And that supposition is this, that there is an irrevocable, unchangeable standard of good and evil.

10:04 The only reason God can pronounce a woe upon the people of Jerusalem and Judah for calling evil good, and good evil, is that there is something, a commodity, that is called good, that has always been good and ever shall be good, and there is another commodity called evil that always has been evil and ever shall be evil.

10:29 If good and evil are simply whatever you make them, then God cannot indict the people for calling one the other. If it may indeed pass from one to the other, who knows, maybe the people are right. If darkness can, in the passing of time, become light, if light in the passing of time can become darkness, if cultural circumstances, if the rise and fall of nations, if all of these changing factors in human history can alter what is good, what is light, what is sweet, so that the good actually does become evil, the light does become darkness, the sweet becomes bitter, this text has no meaning. You see, the basic presupposition of this text, is that there is an unchangeable, irrevocable standard of good and of evil. And what is that standard? It is mentioned in this very context in verse 24. Therefore, as the tongue of fire devoureth the stubble, and as the dry grass sinketh down into the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust, because they have rejected these, the law of Jehovah of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

11:51 What is that unchangeable, irrevocable standard of good and evil? It is the law of Jehovah of hosts. It is the word of the Holy One of Israel. And the truth that is underscored in this text, and is found from Genesis to Revelation, is that God's law is the foundation of the whole moral universe.

12:21 God's law is the expression of His character. And God has embodied in His law the obligations that are incumbent upon the creature to His God. This is why in that summary statement of His law, the ten words of Moses, the first four or possibly the first five, deal directly with man's obligation to his God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

12:52 You shall worship me according to my directives. You shall keep my name holy. You shall keep my day holy. And if we count the fifth commandment part of that, you shall acknowledge all authority which I constitute upon the earth.

13:09 And then the last five, of course, have reference to man's obligation to his fellow man under the eye of his God. And that law of Jehovah up host is unchangeable. It is irrevocable. It is inflexible.

13:26 It is the infallible standard of what is good and of what is evil. It defines the obligations the creature has to God. It defines the obligations the creature has to his fellow man. It declares that man is accountable to God in terms of that law.

13:46 Like it or not, you cannot escape it. Born as a creature and image bearer of God, you are accountable to God in terms of that law. The God who says, Keep that law in the perfection of its demands and you will live. Disobey that law and you must die, for the wages of sin is death.

14:08 It is that law which declares not only man's accountability to God, but it will be the basis of his judgment at the last day. It is the basis of the whole biblical doctrine of atonement. It is the basis of the whole biblical doctrine of future retribution, the doctrine of hell. In other words, God's law is the foundation of the whole moral universe.

The Tragic Perversion: Inversion of God's Standard

14:34 And without it, there is no moral universe. And the basic presupposition of this text is that there is a standard, unchangeable, irrevocable, inflexible, a standard of good and evil, and that standard is the law of God. Now, having considered the basic presupposition, now notice the tragic perversion, or literally, a better word would be, inversion, described in the text. What have they done with this inflexible standard of right and wrong, of light and darkness, of bitter and sweet, notice verse 20, Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil, that put darkness for light, and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. That which violates the clear commandment of God, God calls evil. Now, what have they done? The text does not say that they have simply neutralized it.

15:43 That would be bad enough. You see, for a man to be an agnostic and say, well, I just don't know if there's anything good or evil, that's bad enough. But when men go so far as to take the thing God has called evil, and say it is not evil, and go beyond even making a neutral pronouncement, and say I'm not sure whether it's good or evil, but they take the very thing upon which God has pronounced the name and judgment evil, and they call it good. When vice becomes virtue, what a frightening state, an inversion of moral standards.

16:19 It's not mere perversion, it is inversion. They take that which God has constituted and called darkness. Darkness is always a picture when it's used with reference to moral issues. It's a picture of a turning aside from the realm of God's holiness.

16:36 God is light, that is. God is spotless moral purity, and in Him is no darkness, no sin, no stain of moral evil. They take that which is the stain, that which is moral evil, and they not only neutralize it, but they say it is actually moral virtue. It is light.

Modern Manifestations of Moral Inversion

16:56 God calls departure from His law bitterness. They say no, it is not bitterness, it is actual sweetness. This text describes a tragic inversion of God's inflexible moral standard. And I would like to suggest, and this is the heart of the burden of the message tonight, that this is the tragedy with which you and I are living in our day.

17:27 As a nation, in the realms of politics, ethics and morals, whether we're talking about them in the home, in the school, in the classroom, in the professor's chair at the college, into the very highest courts of government a la Watergate, international politics, we are living to behold, verse 20 of Isaiah 5, before our own eyes, a situation in which what God calls evil is being preached as good and as virtuous. Now let me demonstrate it. Let's take that inflexible standard of right and wrong, darkness and light, bitter and sweet, the holy law of God, and let's just pick out several of the commandments. This is not an exhaustive study, only suggested so that it will, I trust, produce some independent meditation on your part. The first commandment is, Thou shalt have no other gods before me. This commandment says it is good that man, the creature, should recognize in the one true and living God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Creator and Sustainer of the universe, that the creature should recognize in that God the source of his life, the source of all that is good and glorious,

18:55 and give to that God the unrivaled allegiance of his heart. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. I am the one true and living God. The God who has revealed himself in creation and in the revelation of the scriptures, the God who has absolute claim over all of my creatures, the fountain of life and good, worship me alone, and this is good and this is right.

19:20 We are told in our day, from educational circles, and sad to say as in the day in which Isaiah lived from religious circles as well, or within religious circles, no, no, this is not right. This is too narrow. It is now called an evil thing to insist that there is but one true and living God, and that that God is the Creator of heaven and earth. It's not intellectually sophisticated to talk about a God who brought the world into being out of nothing by the word of his power.

19:55 That's an evil thing. That's constricting upon the sciences. That's constricting of true intellectual investigation. And to talk religiously of there being but one God, the true and the living God, the God revealed in Jesus Christ, and to say that if we do not know that God, whatever we claim to know in worship is but an idol, that's too narrow.

20:19 That's an evil thing. And so the pressure comes from everywhere, every quarter, telling us that the good described in the first commandment is in reality an evil thing. Take the second commandment, in which God says in essence when he says don't make any images, don't bow down or worship them, he's saying, I will dictate the terms of how I am to be worshipped. I know the human heart.

20:49 I know what I deserve from the human heart and what I require. Therefore worship me only as I have revealed in my word. And so when people begin to take seriously that principle, what is called in theological language the regulative principle, and we will worship God only in the light of what he has positively commanded, what is positively warranted by the teaching of the word of God. I know this is called narrowness.

21:18 This is called exclusiveness. This is called being an antiquarian. This is called being a traditionalist. We've got to be with it.

21:27 We've got to be sensitive to the current religious fads and the current fads in the visible church. And we've got to be sensitive and all of the rest. And it's called an evil thing when there is a group of people who are determined to worship God only as he's revealed in his word he desires to be worshipped. You take the fourth commandment.

21:52 God says it is good for the creature that one day in seven be set apart for holy exercises in which man's secular work is laid aside apart from works of mercy and necessity. And we read in the New Testament that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. And God says it is good, good for man, good for God's glory that one day in seven should be held in a peculiarly sacred way. We're being told that's an evil thing.

22:18 These old blue laws. Let's get rid of them. It's a constricting thing. It's a binding thing.

22:25 Sad to say as in Isaiah's day this cry is going out from Jerusalem and from Judah. It's going out from the very visible church of God calling good evil and evil good. What about the fifth commandment? God says it is good that all those who are placed in a position of duly constituted authority be respected for the position they occupy.

22:53 I honor thy father and thy mother. I have placed them over you. I have instituted the family and the structures of authority and it is good that you should obey those regulations. It is right.

23:08 It is sweet. It is light. But in our day this good is being called evil. This sweetness is being called bitter.

23:20 This light is being described as darkness. Many of you kids who in your neighborhood make it evident to your fellow to the kids in your neighborhood your buddies, your girlfriends that you take seriously the wishes the feelings the sensitivities the standards the regulations of your mom and dad you're looked upon as some kind of a kook. We move on to the second table of the law. Thou shall do no murder the sanctity of life.

23:58 God has secured the sanctity of life in many ways in his word but his law says thou shall do no murder. Thou shall not take human life except in those instances where my word says human life ought to be taken. And is it not interesting that in this day of woolly-headed and so-called liberal thinking the same people who have pushed and pushed and lobbied and promoted for the abolition of the death penalty have produced the mass murder of abortion laws both of which cheap in life. The abolition of the death penalty cheapens life it does not sanctify life.

24:37 And I'll prove that from the scriptures. God says in Genesis chapter 9 a key text in this whole discussion in Genesis chapter 9 God says verse 6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed for in the image of God made he man. You see what God is saying? A man who murders another man shall forfeit his life.

25:05 Why? For he's made in the image of God. You go out and kill a beast you don't need to give your life for a beast. Why?

25:14 He's not made in the image of God. He does not bear God's moral image. The beast has no dignity compared with that of man. But man's dignity is so lofty that lest people cheapen the dignity of human life God says bring home the seriousness of touching human life.

25:31 And if any man takes upon himself to destroy another man's life it will be with the price of giving his own life. Then and only then will the dignity of human life be maintained. In the abolition of the death penalty for murder and related crimes what's happened? Someone gets an itch to have a few bucks to go out and get a quick fix a few packs of heroin sticks his pistol in his pocket holds up somebody shoots him dead no fear. Why?

26:01 Human life is cheap. I can take his life. I can take his life and all I'll get is a lifetime at the expense of the taxpayers in semi-confinement. It's cheapened the value of human life.

26:18 Precisely the same thing has happened with reference to abortion. If there were not a text in scripture upon which to establish the fact that at conception what is conceived is a human being and there are texts I'm convinced but if there were not it is inscribed upon the conscience of man in terms of the law of God. That abortion is murder. This is why the godless psychiatrists are admitting now that they can't handle the many women who are coming with tortured emotional lies because they can't rid themselves of the guilt that has followed from the abortion.

27:03 It's not my purpose to go into the whole subject perhaps that warrants a message in itself because the issue is such a burning one. But you see what's happened? We're being told it's a virtue. Why bring an unwanted child into the world?

27:24 Better to kill it in the womb than kill it with a hostile environment. That sounds very virtuous, doesn't it? They call evil good and they call good evil. They put darkness for light and light for darkness.

27:44 We move to the seventh commandment. Thou shalt not commit adultery. God is saying it is good to maintain the sanctity of the sexual union. By an arrangement in which one man cohabits with one woman within the tender self-giving relationship of marriage.

28:04 And any violation of that is not good. It is evil. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Whether the violation be in the desire of the heart according to Matthew 5 or the actual union of the bed.

28:16 Thou shalt commit no adultery. We're being told that that good sanctity of sex is an evil thing. Group sex is better. Let four or five couples get together for a weekend and bed around.

28:34 That's good. That loosens up the hang-ups takes away the tensions. Promiscuous sex for young people much better. They're not ready to take on the responsibilities of marriage and a home and a family.

28:48 And so it's good that they get rid of their sexual tensions by bedding around a bit. And furthermore we're being told that homosexuality is not sin perversion and wickedness. Although God himself burned two whole cities primarily because of this sin. This is not evil.

29:12 If that's your inclination that's good. Society just has to catch up with this good. And they're doing their best to make us all catch up to where we don't even use the term in a derisive way anymore. We don't use it in a way that would anyway infer that there's anything abnormal that there's anything bitter anything dark anything evil.

29:32 And now the height of this impiety is being expressed in the idea that well really the best thing is to be bisexual. So when it's convenient to consort with those of the opposite sex fine. But if circumstances are such that someone of your own sex will do get rid of your hang-ups. It's terrible to be so hung up that all you can do is find fulfillment with a man if you're a woman and with a woman if you're a man.

29:57 You can hang up. And this is good. I heard one man actually say that the worst curse upon our society is our concept of the sanctity of a one-on-one relationship between a man and woman and our whole concept of the home. If we can get rid of that he says we'll get rid of all our hang-ups.

30:19 Good is called evil. Evil is called good. Then we go on to the commandment to the ninth commandment about not bearing false witness and what can we say? God says it is good to be honest.

30:33 Even in the light of the scriptures such as Psalm 15 and Psalm 24 even when honesty brings me to personal hurt the righteous sweareth to his own hurt and keepeth it. We're being told lies are necessary for international diplomacy. Lies are necessary for domestic diplomacy. We're being told that lies are absolutely essential to the functioning of human government.

30:58 Good is being called evil. And evil is being called good. Do I need to give any further illustrations to demonstrate that this text speaks with a relevance that is shockingly pointed? Here is a description of the tragic moral perversion not only in the day of Isaiah but in our own day.

The Root of the Problem: Rejection of God's Law

31:22 Now what is the root of all of this? Well look at the passage. The root of all of this is to be found in the phrase that we read earlier in verse 24. Because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts and despise the word of the Holy One of Israel.

31:45 Now the word despise most frequently in the Old Testament does not mean what we usually mean when we say it. We use despise as a word of positive and deep and a heightened sense of antipathy. I despise spinach the kid might say. What you mean is, not that I regard it lightly, I just can't stand the stuff get it away from me.

32:09 But more often than not the word despised in Scripture particularly in the Old Testament means to regard with indifference. And here is the picture. They have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts and regarded with indifference the word of the Holy One of Israel before any man any group of men, any nation can enter the condition described in verse 20 in which good is called evil evil is called good darkness light, light darkness bitter sweet, sweet bitter there must be this two-fold experience described in verse 24 there must be this rejection of the law of Jehovah and this regarding with indifference the word of the living God the Holy One of Israel. And it doesn't take a historian to see how this was done over the past 100 years in our own life you see no one or very few people thought when God was ruled out of his world as creator that he would be ruled out of his world as moral governor the smart Alex who said well to be with it we've got to believe in the theories propounded and expounded and supported by Darwin most of the people for many good religious men were infatuated with Darwin they had no intention of ruling God

33:39 out of his moral universe they just wanted to push him a little bit further away from the physical universe when men begin to despise treat lightly the word of the Lord in any area it's only a matter of time before verse 20 will be upon us for when confidence is undermined with reference to the word of God touching the origin of things it isn't long before confidence is undermined with reference to the meaning of things for the things that God has made and if God is not recognized as creator he'll not be acknowledged as lawgiver and judge that's why when the apostle Paul is speaking to pagans who do not know God as lawgiver and judge and creator he starts with creation in Acts 17 and he ends up with judgment because until it grips me that this is God's world made by him for his ends I'm his creature accountable to him subject to him now there is a situation in which moral order is possible but if this world just happened and I just happened who can tell me why I'm here and what the rules are why I'm here and what will happen when I leave oh you can guess and you can surmise that you can't tell me with any authority

35:06 that you tell me that I'm here because almighty God made me and the God who made me is the God who judged me and now there's a basis for moral perspectives and for moral judgments so there the root of this is seen in this rejection of the law of the Lord and of his word and what came in its place verse 20 verse 21 woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight darken human wisdom becomes the substitute for divine pronouncement and what a tragedy when that happens having rejected the law of God having despised the word of the holy one of Israel when they ask such questions what is right what is wrong they have nothing but what is described in verse 20 their own wisdom they are prudent in their own eyes and what does God say after that in the wisdom of this world the world by wisdom knew not God man's wisdom is holly when unenlightened by the word of truth and so the psychiatrist and the political scientist and the sociologist and the experts and the educationalists and the political leaders they try to tell us what's good what's right and isn't it amazing yesterday's virtue is today's vice

36:35 and it may be tomorrow's virtue again why human wisdom has no fixed pole star of reference so in the place of God's eternal unchangeable word forever O Lord thy word is settled in heaven there is the changing vacillating opinion of man the same results come from this or the same results that came in Isaiah's day blatant brazen impiety verse 19 let him hasten his work let's see it we're from Missouri show us isn't that our age there was a time when if a man felt that way he whispered it silently now he speaks it blatantly why as the conscience has become dulled and seared and the heart has become hardened as it was in Isaiah's day and there is this indifference to the wrath of God and then when there is indifference to the doctrine of divine wrath based upon the inflexibility of the standard of good and evil darkness and light there is always indifference to God's salvation

Consequences: Indifference to Wrath and Salvation

38:02 get hold of this principle the moment God's law ceases to be the most powerful factor in influencing the more moral sensitivity of any individual or nation there will be indifference to divine wrath and when indifference to divine wrath comes it always brings in its train indifference to God's salvation because the salvation of the scriptures is God's answer to the problem of divine wrath against the sinner proof the book of Romans when Paul would expound the gospel where does he start in Romans 1 18 the wrath of God is revealed from heaven and all the way through chapter 1 all the way through chapter 2 all the way through chapter 3 to verse 20 what is he doing he is bringing the whole world into a conscious awareness of its exposure and liability to divine wrath that he might open up the glorious salvation that is God's answer to that dilemma of divine wrath against human sin and sinners and so in Isaiah's day there is indifference to the wrath of God there is an actual irreverent impious flirting with that wrath and it's not surprising that there is indifference to God's salvation

39:29 a despising of the holy one of Israel the savior of his people do I need to spend much time in application to say that that's our day we live in a day that has little if any fear of divine wrath I've lived long enough to see the change in my own generation I can remember the time when even though it was said in a joking manner if a man was talking about a lecherous life a life lived in blatant disobedience to the law of God he'd say something about well I may go to hell at the end but I'm having fun on the way the consciousness that that kind of life brought divine wrath was there but it's well nigh gone now we came out of the slime we're going back to the slime and there's probably nothing more than a little slimy existence in between the slime out of which I came and the slime to which I'm going some of you kids in college you try to understand your peers you take these things seriously you begin to understand why they operate the way they operate you try to find out what makes your neighbors tick you begin to think in these

40:57 terms and you begin to understand what makes them tick and what makes them tick why is there such an indifference to God's salvation because there's no troubling about divine wrath why no troubling about divine wrath because the inflexible standard that says this is evil has been perverted and inverted evil is called good and good is called evil and then of course that manifests itself in a total breakdown of morality public and private and that's always the pattern you see nothing but vital religion in the heart can maintain true morality in the life. Jesus said you've got to make the tree good and then it's fruit good. Or the tree corrupt and the fruit corrupt. You see, there is no true morality without vital piety and there's no vital piety without these biblical concepts of inflexible law putting me under judgment and glorious gospel bringing me out of judgment into the realm of grace and acceptance. And that's what becomes the motivation for true morality. I'm a bond slave of Jesus Christ. I must honor Him in the deepest recesses of my thought life to the most, uttermost extremities of my conduct so that in all of my ways Jesus Christ shall be honored and shall be praised.

42:23 And oh, when you read some aspects or some segments of history when there was an abundant outpouring of special grace of special grace applying the law of God with power to constrain loving evangelical obedience in many and when there was a mighty operation of common grace using the law of God to restrain evil in great segments of society you cry out, oh God, do it again. Lord, pour out of your Holy Spirit the spirit of converting grace the spirit of regenerating power that will write your law upon the hearts of people upon the hearts of men so that they will see that good is good and evil is evil and light is light darkness is darkness sweet is sweet bitter is bitter but not only see it wonder of wonders have a heart that loves the good and wants to do the good out of love to the Savior who has freely redeemed them by His grace.

43:23 When you have that coupled then with the leavening influence of the word of God preached and powerfully applied then in common grace that sense of dread that comes to people when they know that if I do of His evil no amount of calling it good will change it and the wages of sin is death. Though common grace never saved a man thank God it created an atmosphere that was a lot less hellish now and a lot more amenable to the salvation of many others.

The Sober Pronouncement: The Meaning of 'Woe'

43:59 It's a lot more difficult from the human perspective to preach the gospel in a situation where the restraining sensitizing influence of the law of God is gone and our poor generation needs to go back to pre-kindergarten and to be told God made the world God made you God has given a law that law binds you break that law and you will die that's where our generation needs to go with all of the vaunted advancements of the 20th century and its computers and its rockets and all the rest it needs to go back to pre-school to learn these elementary issues you kids in high school that's why your teachers don't know which end is up and if you're honest you'll acknowledge that when they start talking about human behavior they don't know which end is up why? because they have so long called evil good that they've brought themselves to believe that evil is good and good is evil here is the description of the tragic perversion or inversion of moralism or moral standards having considered the fundamental presupposition the tragic perversion now in the third place notice the sober pronouncement in the text the text begins with the word woe what does the word woe mean?

45:29 it's a pronouncement of great grief of sorrow of pain and of misery when someone says woe is me what are they saying? they're saying I'm afflicted with grief with sorrow with pain with misery with pain with misery and when God pronounces woe what he's saying is you will have cause to cry woe is me now what is the basis of this pronouncement? the fact that saying good is evil and evil is good does not make it so look at verse 16 in the chapter after mentioning the judgment upon the people that would lead them into captivity but the Lord of hosts is exalted in justice and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness what's he saying? he's saying when God brings his judgment it will be manifest that God did not change good into evil light into darkness he said to you O nation of Israel if you follow that which is evil you'll go into captivity by the tricks of your own perverted desires and by listening to your false prophets you've convinced yourself that it's not so that evil is good and good is evil but when the grave opens itself up it's not so when multitudes of your own people go to a premature grave and when the lowly and the high alike are humbled in judgment in captivity then the Lord of hosts

46:57 will be exalted in justice you'll see that all of your barking about good being evil and evil being good has not changed the inflexible standard of Almighty God that's what God is saying the basis of this sober pronouncement is that God's character is unchangeable God's law is unchangeable God's law is unchangeable God's knowledge is perfect and God's patience will reach its end look at verse 24 the end of these descriptions of the sins of the people therefore in the light of this as the tongue of fire devoureth the stubble and as the dry grass sinketh down in the flame so their root shall be as rottenness and their blossom shall go up as dust because they've rejected the law of host and then he goes on to describe to the end of the chapter the certain judgment that will come when God's patience reaches its end I tell you this is a sobering concept you wonder why God as it were folds his hands in patient silence when we hear men blatantly in the language of verse 19 saying if there is this God you talk about why doesn't he vindicate himself they get louder and bolder every time they say good is evil and evil is good and there are no thunderbolts there's no breaking of the sky there's no coming down of fiery judgment no balls of brimstone as in the days of Solomon Gomorrah

A Warning to the Unconverted

48:26 it's as though the sound of their own voice seems to bounce off a silent heaven and makes them more bold to say it again evil is good good is evil and God doesn't say anything so they say it louder evil is good good is evil I'll bear patiently but the hour is coming when as surely as the tongue of fire devours stubble and as dry grass is consumed before a flame my wrath will go forth and consume all who've believed a lie there's this graphic picture of this mentality in the 50th psalm and this is the beginning of the end of our study tonight what is the message of all of this to us oh listen to me impenitent unconverted sinner sitting in this building God's pronouncements have not changed the wages of sin is death the wages of sin is death evil brings death and yet you're like the person described in psalm 50 beginning with verse 16 but unto the wicked God says what have you to do to declare my statutes and you've taken my covenant in your mouth seeing you hate instruction you cast my words behind you

49:53 when you saw a thief you consented with him you've been a partaker with adulterers you give your mouth to evil your tongue frames deceit you sit and speak against your brother you slander your own mother's son these things you've done and I kept silence you got bold you sinned here you sinned there you sinned in the other place and one sin gave birth to another and there was no intervention of divine judgment until God says you fooled yourself into thinking that I was altogether such a one as yourself you let bygones be bygones you think I'm going to let bygones be bygones time heals and you think that time has caused the aggravation to my holiness to be healed you think that the breaches of my law and the provocation of my wrath now slumbers with the passing of time ah but God says listen listen listen but I will reprove thee and set them in order before thine eyes and now this language is some of the strongest language in all of the Bible now consider this ye that forget God lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver what strong language God says I'll take hold upon you like a mighty beast of prey that has been slumbering and you've been in the vicinity of that beast and you've gotten so at ease and so carnally confident

51:22 because the beast seemed to slumber when you prodded it and pricked it and teased it and God says suddenly the beast shall leap upon you and tear you to pieces that's the picture of this verse my friend I don't want God to be an angry beast to be an angry beast

Hope in the Gospel and the Cross

51:46 when omnipotence when omnipotence is joined to holy vengeance no wonder men will cry for rocks and hills to fall upon them my friend this text ought to fill you with holy dread if you're determined to go on in your sin you can call your good evil and your evil good you can call light darkness and darkness light but almighty God has not changed and it ought to fill you with dread tonight that that God will yet make you a monument that evil is evil when he says to you depart from me he that work iniquity but oh listen this is what makes the gospel good news if you're prepared this night to own your sin and say oh God what you call good is good and I have not done the good and what you call evil is evil I have not loved you my heart's been a sink of idolatry I've loved everything but you I've not honored your name nor your day I've defiled your holy law trampled underfoot your precepts I stand exposed and guilty thank God thank God good is always good and evil is always evil in God's sight that's what makes the cross an inflexible standard of hope because upon that cross

53:13 God was dealing with his son on the basis of the inflexible standard of his law his law said this do and thou shalt live this fail to do and thou shalt die the curse of the law the curse of the law was upon all of the people of Christ and the scripture says he endured that curse for us it was the inflexibility of the law that demanded Calvary if ever God could call evil good for a moment would that moment not be when his own son was bearing evil if he could have called it good for a moment there would have been no shrouding of the heavens in darkness there would have been no agonizing cry my God my God why hast thou forsaken me the whole mystery of Calvary is explainable only in terms of the principle of our text evil is always evil and will forever be evil that's why the only way to put it away was by the bloodletting of God's own dear son and my dear sinner friend that's hope for you because if you'll run into Christ and plead to be covered in the perfection of his sacrifice and his rights and his righteousness God being a God whose law is inflexible cannot inflict the same punishment for the same crime twice he bruised his son in Christ

Application for Believers: Beware of Conformity and Shame

54:39 you will never be bruised but then this text has a very practical word for us who are the people of God let me give you just three little suggestions by way of application and then we're done Christian beware lest you be you find yourself subtly conforming to the spirit of this age Romans 12.2 says be not conformed to this world you live in a day in which Isaiah 5.20 is being fulfilled on every hand evil is being called good and good is being called evil and darkness is called light and light darkness and there's enough wickedness left in you that you will want to believe what the world is saying you young people there's something in your flesh that would like to believe that the current moral standards are indeed good and light and sweet be not conformed to this age God says flee fornication whoso looketh to lust hath committed adultery God says fornicators and homosexuals shall not enter the kingdom of God you deal ruthlessly and brutally with the inordinate

56:07 passions of your flesh bring them to the cross and ask God by his spirit to put them to death through the virtue of your union with Jesus Christ you men women in your places of business good is still good and evil is still evil it's evil to lie business lies are lies and if you can't maintain that job and be honest then lose your job for Christ's sake and stealing is still stealing whether it's a bag of paper clips or a box of rubber bands or whether it's a piece of metal from the stock room whether it's ten minutes on your time card stealing is still stealing be not conformed to this world the mark of a generation that abandons the law of God and the word of the Holy One of Israel is that they may good evil and evil good be not conformed to this age let your life be a monument of the inflexibility of God's standard of righteousness secondly beware lest you be ashamed of the moral absolutes of God's word Jesus said in Mark 8.38

57:34 whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation of him shall the son of man be ashamed when he comes in his father's glory it's dangerous living in an age characterized by Isaiah 5.20 why everybody's calling evil good and for me to stand with Jesus Christ concerning the inflexibility the irrevocable nature of the holy law of God is to expose myself to ridicule to social pressure I'm conscious of that I can almost see the look of incredulity on the faces of people at times I'm talking with them about this or that and they say well he sounds like the half well-bred half intelligent human being anyway maybe they don't give me quite that much in the fraction maybe sometimes a little more but then you can almost see the look of incredulity to find out here someone that actually believes the ten words of Moses are binding upon men now in the middle of the 1970s you must be willing to bear the shame of being a moral absolutist it's a shame when you have to bear it even in the church when you believe the word of Christ is found not only in the gospels but in the Old Testament regulations that are yet applicable for it says the spirit of Christ was in them testifying

59:02 and when we believe the instructions in the epistles are the word of Christ as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14.37 if any man is spiritual let him acknowledge the things that I say unto you are the commandments of the Lord you take seriously right now in the Presbyterian church United Presbyterian church the gospel the gospel big issue the next general assembly is the whole matter of whether or not Jesus Christ will be obeyed with reference to the place of women in ecclesiastical office and their people determined to make a part of the ministerial commitments of every candidate for the ministry a binding of his conscience to recognize women as elders and there are men who have said if that goes through I've had it you see the issue are we ashamed of his word which says I suffer not a woman to teach in the Christian Reformed Church this is one of the big issues that's being debated in the banner the past couple of months two or three articles by a man trying to justify equality of ecclesiastical authority between men and women a travesty on exegesis a butchering of the word of God pure sophistry and yet those who dare to say they believe that it is good for the woman it's in protection of the God by the God who made her who knows her strengths

Application: Cry to God for Revival

60:31 and her weaknesses that God has forbidden ecclesiastical office to a woman to say that you see is to expose yourself to all the ridicule ah you're nothing but an ecclesiastical chauvinist you're nothing but a traditionalist you can't separate between biblical norms and cultural changes and all the rest I'm fully aware but I come back to the words of our Lord whosoever shall be ashamed of me and my words in this sinful and adulterous generation of him shall the son of man be ashamed when he comes with his father and so on my exhortation to you as God's people is beware lest you conform to this mentality beware lest you be ashamed of these absolutes and my final exhortation is will you not cry mightily to God for an outpouring of the spirit that will bring back to the consciousness of the church and to the world the inflexible standards of the holy law of God under the guise of liberating men our poor generation has been brought into the most miserable and vicious form of bondage and we see the words of second Peter fulfilled promising themselves liberty while they themselves are the slaves of corruption do you see many smiling people in our day who just seem

61:59 to be enjoying life huh this is the thing that breaks my heart and I speak not as an insensitive old fogey I speak to you young people this is what breaks my heart when I drive down Bloomfield Avenue and see a bunch of shaggy dirty sloppy smile-less creatures milling around wondering what it's all about their whole external appearance is a witness to the fact that they cannot make heads or tails or they can make neither head nor tails out of what it's all about joyless smile-less no enthusiasm for anything why they've been told that evil is good and they've found that you cannot in any real sense break God's law you break yourself over that law that's what's happened in society at large what's the root of the labor problem it's uncrucified covetousness on the part of labor and of management selfishness that's it that's the heart of it when you go through every single segment of our national life you see it's the fruit of calling evil good and good evil and there is absolutely no hope but the outpouring of the spirit of God

63:28 that will first of all grant a multitude being swept into the kingdom having the law written upon the heart and having not only the eye to see what is good but the desire to do and then there will be the wonderful overflow and restraining influence as our pulpits are filled again not with mealy-mouthed professional ecclesiastics who can pronounce the rituals and who can mouth the phrases but who thunder the law of almighty God and then proclaim with joy and power the everlasting gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ oh that we may be found pleading with God for such an outpouring of his grace well this text has been brewing around for a while and was stuck in what I call my boneyard for months and when this opportunity came I pulled it out of the boneyard and I said I'm feeling perhaps God would help to put some flesh on the bones and I hope in some degree your soul has been fed by the flesh that is found in that truth of Isaiah 5.20 woe unto them that call evil good and good evil that put darkness for light and light for darkness that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter let us pray