May 8, 2017
Isaiah 5:20-23
(All scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated.)
Some unscrupulous people will do about anything to increase their personal wealth! One practice has been to switch price stickers, taking one off a lower priced item and applying it to a higher priced one. Then, when the item is brought to check-out and scanned, the lower price will be charged instead of the correct higher one. Such a practice is illegal! It is stealing!
Manufacturers have countered this by designing price stickers that are resistant to removal. One company who manufactures such stickers describes their product thus: “The security slits discourage price switching by tearing when someone tries to remove the label.” This may not entirely eliminate Switched Stickers, but it does greatly slow the practice!
Would that such a deterrent was available to counteract the devil’s practice of Switched Stickers! What do I mean? Isaiah 5:20 through 23 describes the result:
Woe unto those who call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for
light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bit-
ter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their
own sight! Woe to men mighty at drinking wine, woe to men valiant for
mixing intoxicating drink, who justify the wicked for a bribe, and take
away justice from the righteous man!
God is not hesitant to name what is good and what is evil!
• For instance, in Micah 6:8 He says, “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”
• Of course the Ten Commandments of Exodus 20:3 through 17 have formed the basis of what is good for the Judeo/Christian society over thousands of years! Here is a shortened version:
✡ “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
✡ “You shall not make for yourself a carved image….”
✡ “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain….”
✡ “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
✡ “Honor your father and your mother….”
✡ “You shall not murder.”
✡ “You shall not commit adultery.”
✡ “You shall not steal.”
✡ “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
✡ “You shall not covet…anything that is your neighbor’s.”
• Jesus summarized all these good commandments in the Great Commandment of Mark 12:29 through 31:
The first of all the commandments is: “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our
God, the LORD is one. And you shall love the LORD your God with
all your heart, with all you soul, with all your mind, and with all your
strength.” This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is
this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other
commandment greater than these.
As John wrote in I John 4:19, “We love [God]…because He first loved us.” And in I John 3:16 (King James Version): “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us….” Paul tells us this in Romans 5:8: “…God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
So what is good in God’s eyes? Loving Him first and foremost! And why should we love Him (and obey Him – see John 14:15)? Because Jesus gave His very life to pay for our sins, so we could be reconciled back to the Father! So the ultimate good is to accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, closely follow Him, and represent the Lord to a lost and dying world! (See II Corinthians 5:18).
• The second part of the Great Commandment – the love we are to have for one another – is emphasized in the second half of I John 3:16 mentioned above. Here is the whole verse (King James Version): “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” It is the same kind of unselfish love with which God loved us! Such love is summed up this way by Saint Paul in Romans 13:8 through 10:
Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another
has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adul-
tery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear
false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other command-
ment, all are summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neigh-
bor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the
fulfillment of the law.
• Such Christian love, one to another, does represent the Lord to a lost and dying world (as I also mentioned above). For Jesus told us in John 13:34 and 35:
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have
loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you
are My disciples, if you have love for one another.
No wonder he says in I Corinthians 13:13, “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Love – the kind of love expressed by God to us, and by us as Christians to one another – is very good!
We could go on and on. But the point is, it is very clear in the Bible what God considers to be good!