Albert N. Martin

Turn with me to Isaiah 5:20. In this text the prophet—being the mouthpiece of God—pronounces this terrible woe upon the people of Israel, particularly the men of Jerusalem and of Judah. “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!” 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.Therefore, we need desperately to understand what it is saying and something of its application to the present hour.

As we think our way through the text, first of all, I would direct your attention to what I am calling the basic presupposition of the text. Secondly, the tragic perversion described in the text. Thirdly, the sober pronouncement given in the text.

First of all, the basic presupposition of this text. A presupposition is something you assume, 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,” God is assuming something. There is a fundamental assumption, a fundamental presupposition in this text. That presupposition is this: that there is an irrevocable, unchangeable standard of good and evil. The only reason God can pronounce a woe upon the people of Jerusalem and Judah, “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 that there is another commodity called “evil” that always has been evil and ever shall be evil. 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.

You see, the basic presupposition of this text is that there is an unchangeable, irrevocable standard of good and of evil. What is that standard? It is mentioned in this very context of verse 24, “Therefore, as the tongue of fire devoureth the stubble, and as the dry grass sinketh down into the flame, so their root should be rotten, and their blossom shall go up as dust; because they have rejected the law of Jehovah of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.” 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, secondly, notice the tragic perversion or literally 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 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, that would be bad enough. You see, for a man to be an agnostic and say, “Well, I just don’t know if there is anything good or evil,” that’s bad enough! But when men go so far as to take what God has called “evil” and say it is not evil and go beyond even making a neutral pronouncement and saying, “I’m not sure whether it’s good or evil,” but they take the very thing upon which God has pronounced the name and judgement “evil,” and call it “good”! When vice becomes virtue, what a frightening state of inversion of moral standards. It’s not mere perversion, it is inversion!

Listen to the complete message.