Well, They All Sound Alike to Me!

This morning I received a call from a longtime dear friend, asking me for a Scripture reference. He said, “I remember, there’s something in the Bible about people in the last days calling good evil and calling evil good. Do you know the verse that’s taken from?”

We talked for about an hour, just catching up on things. He gloated about the beautiful weather he’s having in his part of the country, and I slipped several notches in my piety because of the sin of envy. He told me the wonderful things happening at his church, and I rejoiced with him.

All during the conversation I was searching my various concordances to no avail.

“I think it’s probably Pauline,” I said. He agreed it sounded like it belonged in 2 Timothy, around the “itching ears” text in 4:3-5.

After we finished our conversation and wished each other well, I kept scratching my head. All my keyword searches (“evil,” “call,” etc.) were to no avail. Why? Because I was looking at the New Testament passages for my answer.

Finally, I consulted one of the two theological experts in my life: either Google or Bing, I forget which. Searching on “call evil good” returned about 3 finish-the-phrase search lines, one of which took me exactly where I wanted to go.

Well, no it didn’t. It took me to Isaiah 5:20, one of the “Woe” prophecies. “Woe unto them that call evil good” was not what I wanted to read. I wanted to read something like my friend had said: “In the last days there will be false teachers who call evil good and good evil.” I was disappointed for some reason.

Then it came to me. No, actually, two things came to me. The first was that Paul, in telling Timothy about the itchy ears being scratched by false doctrine, indirectly was saying exactly that. After all, when we look at the teaching that pleases the high-rollers in the progressive churches, it’s teaching that is blatantly false. It’s teaching that reinterprets such statements as John 14:6 (“. . . I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me”) as “I am one of the ways to God.” It’s teaching that excuses sex outside of marriage as long as (a) it’s consensual, and (b) neither party is married to another person. (Trouble with that one is that Jesus in Matthew 5:28 didn’t talk from the same memo; he didn’t consider consent, nor did he consider marital status when he defined adultery.)

The second thing that came to me was the consistency between Paul and Isaiah. Paul was never considered a prophet in the same sense as those great figures of the Old Testament, yet he often spoke and wrote prophetically. His words to Timothy and others concerning the last days had a prophetic ring to them, and his letters to the various churches expressed the Divine Revelation. So here I thought “they all look alike, don’t they?” Well, probably not. But I still enjoyed the consistency between Paul and Isaiah, and there are a lot of other consistencies just sitting around like gems on the ground as we reflect on the Scriptures.

May you be blessed in your own treasure hunts.

Charles+

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^KJV 2 Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; ⁴ And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. ⁵ But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.

^KJV 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!

^KJV John 14:1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. ² In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. ⁴ And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. ⁵ Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? ⁶ Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. ⁷ If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.

^KJV Matthew 5:27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: ²⁸ But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.