When we call good bad.
Woe to those who call the bad good and the bad good, who have darkness for light and light for darkness, who have bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Isaiah 5:20
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We live in a world that relativizes everything. The dividing line between good and evil is no longer a straight line that determines whether a behavior is appropriate or inappropriate, correct or incorrect. It is rather an undulating line that follows the direction of what we think is best for us and better accommodates our desires. In a world like ours, values and principles are not life guidelines, but only choices that are made or left according to the circumstances or the culture. There are many people who, faced with a dilemma, prefer to preface the word "depends" before making a decision. Even children question values.
We are living difficult times, weird, without common sense, the world is upside down. As the word of God says, evil is called good and bad good, undoubtedly there is a battle between light and darkness. And what are we Christians doing to fix it? Everything that is on the agenda is what God has condemned. impiety and injustice go hand in hand, sweeping away with justice and the piety that the Bible teaches us. Humanity excuses itself behind a heel of cheap modernism, ridiculous creativity and freedom that is nothing other than debauchery. Vanity, abuse, selfishness, foolishness that clouds the understanding, close and darken the heart, and disrupt reason. The truth of God has been changed by absurd lies, which man has invented to justify his sin (Rom.1: 18-32).
Shameful acts, disordered passions, and acts against the divine nature. We are outraged to see and hear how the evil has multiplied ... but this is not new, it was already prophesied. "The world is going from bad to worse", said my father more than forty years ago. It's a reality, the world is really upside down, and who's going to fix it? God is waiting for the church to fulfill its work, to stand up strong, powerful, holy and victorious. A church that does not hide behind a moldy religiosity, without life and without love for lost souls.
The Lord established a vigorous, active body, ready to fight the good fight of faith, men and women trained, prepared and full of knowledge that will mark this generation, impacting the world with the gospel of truth, forgiveness and grace of Jesus Christ. Church, wake up, we are not alone, the Holy Spirit is with us giving us power, strength, wisdom and strategies to fight and do it well, because the victory has already been given to us, Jesus won it for us!
And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men that lie down as wine in their lees, they that say in their heart, `Neither shall the LORD do good or evil. 'Zephaniah 1: 12
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But to give you these instructions, I do not praise you, because you do not gather for the good, but for the bad. 1 Corinthians 11:17
I once questioned one of my little students about how good or bad it was to hit a partner if he was offended by something. The boy answered without hesitation: "If he hits me, I'll hit him too". This makes me think that values are learned from the cradle and fixed with practice throughout life. How important it is for young generations to know where the line that divides the good from the bad begins and ends. The confusion in which many of them live has to do with the lack of fathers and mothers who live and model before them what God commands. And this is where we, the Christian mothers, play the role of models. Our children need to know and learn through formal instruction, but also informal and casual, values that will be their tools for building a successful life.
In Genesis 3: 7 it says, "Then the eyes of both were opened." Was Satan right? In fact, he had said that his eyes would be opened to obtain the necessary wisdom to be gods which would allow them to know good and evil. Although this verse says that their eyes were opened, what was opened in them was not wisdom, but their nakedness was not only literal. Before God, figuratively, the nakedness of his disobedience to his command was shown. They were guilty and they understood it immediately. This is actually the reason why his eyes opened and his conscience withered. They knew that they had done evil instead of good in the eyes of their Creator. Then they begin to observe in a very different way what Satan had promised in his lie, knowledge of the science of good and evil.
In examining the experience of Adam and Eve, with all the wiles and lies that Satan had expressed through the serpent, it is that simple obedience to God's instructions was the true test of our first parents. God had given an order and there was no reason to change it. It did not matter the appearance of the tree or its fruits, or what its name was. The sanction did not matter, if Adam or Eve believed that the penalty would be carried out. It should only matter that God, the Creator, had given an order to his creation, it was simple, easy to understand and fulfill. Obedience was all that was needed and what absolutely God required. This principle of obedience in the heart has been and always will be the definitive proof for all of God's intelligent creation. Obedience, in its very essence, is at the forefront of a true understanding of good and evil. Eve, as well as Adam, in all his rationalization of thought in relation to the beauty of the tree, its desirable fruit, its attractiveness and its skepticism to the sanction, failed before the test of obedience. This is the lesson to the people of the Lord and finally all of humanity must learn it if they really want to reach a full knowledge of good and evil.
Declare what is to come next, so that we may know that you are gods. Yes, do {something} good or bad, so that we discourage and fear one. Isaiah 41:23
"You should not consider whether it is good or bad, it will not change it either, if you change it, both the animal and its substitute will be sacred, they can not be redeemed." Leviticus 27:33
Never a child should grow up with doubts about what is good or bad and its consequences. The moral conduct of a child, which is formed from the first years of life, should be developed by placing the commandments of God as a basis. And you must be clear that they are that, commandments of God, not recommendations. When we think that free will authorizes us to interpret the ordinances of God in our own way, we are in the territory of Satan. That our voice does not break, that our hand does not tremble. A "so says the Lord" should be the battle cry of Christian mothers to face the challenge of their children to the authority of God and theirs...