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! 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! (Isaiah 5:20-23)

The Woes Of Israel

A woe is an interjection and a denunciation. God uses the language of woes to tell the people of Israel of sins they have done to provoke Him to wrath. The woes are specific and dangerous, and the consequences are eternal. Israel is failing, and the prophet Isaiah preaches against the apathy and pride destroying the people of God. His mission is to turn the people’s hearts back to God, but they are not listening. The appeal of sin has entrenched itself so fully into their hearts that they have changed the moral compass of God to their own desires. They no longer see sin as the depraved nature declared by God. The heart of the wicked change what God has said is evil into something that is good. What the Lord says are the works of darkness are not accepted as the fruit of light. The bitter taste of evil has been turned into the sweet nectar of delight.

God’s word has been cast aside for the wisdom of men who seek their own counsel to say what is right and wrong. The world accepts the norm: there are no absolutes, and everything is allowable for the heart of man to please himself. Everything in the world has become the pursuit of passion and self-desire. Injustice abounds in the world, righteousness is ridiculed, and those who believe in God are mocked as fools. Morality is served by the desires of the flesh through sexual immorality, drunkenness, deceit, murder, stealing, and cursing God.

Marriage is no longer described by one man and one woman. The world of Israel is unsure of what a woman is. Homosexuality and transgenderism abound as the normal acceptance of one’s sexuality. Men are with men, and women with women, and children are taught the acceptance of perverted sexuality. It is not uncommon for someone to kill a rival. The government is corrupt, society is immoral, and families have so many last names no one knows who the fathers are. Goodness is now the evil. Marital unfaithfulness is expected. Couples live together and have children together, and there is no shame.

Israel takes what God has said is good and calls it evil. There is no longer a view that sin is the darkness of hell but the enlightenment of a new world. The consequence of sin and its bitter taste has become the accepted flavor of a perverted world. Men are wise in their own eyes, rejecting the word of God as outdated, outmoded, and out of touch. Life is filled with frivolity, drunken feasts, and corruption. Isaiah preaches against the evils of a doomed nation. There is little hope as the nation falls further into the pit of damnation and despair.

Israel was destroyed 2600 years ago when the Babylonians burned Jerusalem and the Temple to the ground. This became the fulfillment of a nation that changed evil to good and good to evil. God warned the people of the consequences of sin and the coming judgment, but they would not listen. The greatest failure of humanity is the inability to learn from its past. When history lessons are not viewed as a template for today, the world tends to repeat itself. What is found in the world today is not a new form of sin or a new philosophy. It is Israel repeating itself.

The world now views the goodness of God as evil and accepts wickedness as goodness. What man does not realize is that while they say the darkness is light and light is darkness; what God has called darkness is still darkness, and what God has called light remains light. The philosophies of men can be likened to someone who calls the Moon the Sun and the Sun the Moon. No philosophy of man will change the nature of what they are. The Moon is a dead rock, and the Sun is a fiery, brilliant star. Light is light. Darkness is darkness. Sin is Sin. Righteousness is righteousness. God is.