An Upside Down World

Isaiah 5:20 (ESV)
²⁰  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! 


The word "spiritual" has become a mystery to me. People who do not know Christ or the Holy Spirit are claiming to be spiritual. I don't really think they are saying they are spiritual the way the demons are spiritual but what other spirits are there?

I sit with a man in a coffee shop as he tells me that his mother was a spiritual sort of person. I inquire what that means. He tells me that it is a special quality of understanding that there are spirits around us. He tells me that he knows things that he couldn't know without the "spirits" revealing them to him. He speaks of a warm glow when he is in his spiritual self. He says that his mother had that same quality.

The strange thing is that he is not strange. I have heard it before. I see it on tv as people speak of being spiritual. It makes itself known in movies. It is right and desired to be spiritual. No one seems to care who these spirits are. These spirits allow the person to adopt a new standard of right and wrong. Those who hold to the old standard are wrong. Those who go with the flow of these spirits are in the right.

Where do you think this will lead us?

The above scripture bothers me. We see it as a completed act. Those who ascribe to a biblical ethos of morality are called evil. The Bible itself is declared as having bad parts which do not need to be followed. One politician said that we "read" those bad parts out of the Bible. He placed the reader in control of what is right and wrong. He did not acknowledge that this simply isn't our call. The Holy Almighty God determines what is right and wrong. Even that statement would be considered evil by some.

God says that woe will fall on those who do this. It is the definition of being lost for we certainly don't know the way when we are going the wrong direction while claiming we are on the right path. You simply can't be more lost than to wholeheartedly believe you are right when you are wrong.

This seems like a losing battle too. Many Christians are adopting the morality of the world. They want to be in the majority. They don't want to be left outside. The world has captured them. They are claiming the world in exchange for their lives.

Things are apparently better as people are freed from the biblical standard. No one seems to notice the murders and robberies reported on a daily basis. I wonder why these are considered wrong. Couldn't the perpetrators simply claim to be spiritual and led to take what they wanted? Couldn't they say that they were ridding the world of a greater evil when they killed another person?

Some even claim they understand the acts of terrorism in France because of the cartoons drawn which mocked their religion. Who say those same things if Christians were so inclined to kill others in such acts of evil? We condemn those who kill the doctors who perform abortions. Who in their right mind would say this is good? There is no justice in murder. God does not condone murder.

So many times I hear people take the Bible out of context to justify their own evil. They have not read what it really says. They never understand it as a book which describes a loving God. They see only the parts and never the whole. Thus, they see it as an evil that brings about evil. Only those who take it out of context can use it to justify their evil. Only those who take it out of context deem it as evil.

So, good will continue to considered evil unless there is Someone who turns this all around. No number of sermons given by any number of believers can change things without a fresh breath of the Holy Spirit. Until Christians truly understand what it is to be spiritual those who claim to be spiritual will be just as spiritual as Christians.

It's an upside down world until that happens. I pray that God turns it right side up again.