WORD STUDY – UNETHICAL AND IMMORAL
Isaiah 5:20: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil;”
I recently heard a woman complain how difficult it was to find care giver who had a social security number. She wanted to be sure she hired someone who was legally permitted to work in this country. She finally found a woman who had a social security number and hired her. The day before she was to start work she called and ask if she could use her husband’s social security number because she would lose her public assistance check if she reported an income on her social security number. This woman felt there was absolutely nothing wrong in doing this and became rather abusive when her now ex-employer who refused to commit such a fraud. She just could not fathom how someone could be so uncompassionate to do this one little thing. This care giving job was not enough for her and she needed to supplement it with public assistance. How could anyone be so uncompassionate as to deny these benefits to her. She proceeded to let her former employer know just how heartless and cruel she was being to not simply change the social security number.
I recently made a wrong turn with my disability bus and my passenger suggest I turn on a one way street going the wrong way then turn into an alley. He was in a hurry. When I refused to do it he was indignant and felt I was just being totally unreasonable. No one would see me drive that 500 feet to the alley, no cars were in sight how could I be such a prude.
Sometime ago I noticed a woman on my bus who was not wearing her seat belt. I told I could not start driving until she buckled her seat belt. She said she was not going to wear it, it was uncomfortable and hurt. I told her she had to wear it, it was the law and I was responsible for her while she was on my bus. I finally fastened the seat belt myself and as I was driving someone cut me off on the road and I came to a quick stop. I heard a thud and this woman fell out of her seat because, as I was told by another passenger, the moment I started the bus, she took her seat belt off. She had to go to the hospital and I was suspended because it was my responsible to be watching and be aware that she took her seat belt off.
Even after this she insisted she was in the right for removing her seat belt because it was so uncomfortable and I was unreasonable making her wear the seat belt and I deserved to be suspended.
I will give you just one more example. In my disability bus I drove up to a hospital to pick up someone. That person was not waiting for me so I left the bus to just run inside and check the waiting room. When I returned there was some guy in the back of my bus going through all the stuff in the back. I said: “Get out of here.” He did not even look back and said: “I’ve got the stuff here, you have the stuff in the front of the bus.” I said: “Get out of here.” He looked at me and said: “Who do you think you are? I was here first, this stuff is mine, I told you, you can have the stuff up front.” I said again: “Get out of here, I’m the bus driver.” “He then said: “Well, it is not your bus, what do you care what I take.” After much fuss and getting downright nasty, he threw up his hands, walked out empty handed shaking his head over how unreasonable I was and how generous he was to at least offer to leave the stuff up front for me.
You think I’m joking? These are real events. I daresay that many of you reading this have very similar stories you can tell. All are examples of people who have become so callus to morality and ethics that the distinction between right and wrong became blurred.
I remember when I was a student at Moody I had a professor who said that if you want a good definition of chaos look up Judges 21:25: “In those days [there was] no king in Israel: every man did [that which was] right in his own eyes.” How do we really know what is right and wrong without a supreme standard. To my passenger who was in a hurry, he saw absolutely nothing wrong with traveling 500 feet the wrong way down a one way street. If no one gets hurt, there are no police around what difference does it make. Except the God I worship has set a standard and that standard instructs me that if the government makes a law that does not exceed God’s authority, I had better obey it or I will be accountable not only to the law of the land but to God as well.
I found the word evil used in Isaiah 5:20 to be very interesting. It is simply the word ra, Resh Ayin. We have no idea what that third letter for the root is. It could be ra’ah, an evil of consumption, or how about ra’a an evil of breaking someone down emotionally, or maybe it is ra’ash to cause terror in someone, or how about ra’am to rage at someone. There are ten different ra words each expressing a different type of evil. So what evil are people calling good and what good are people calling evil? We do not know that third letter in Isaiah 5:20 so we do not know what specific evil is addressed.
The word is simply ra’ and that leads me to believe it encompasses all evil. Can we find one word for all evil? I am open to suggestions. After beating my head against a wall I decided to call ra’ unethical and immoral. Ok, that is flawed and I agree but it does narrow it down to the point where all evil theft, murder, hatred, etc. are really all unethical and immoral. Ethics and morality set a standard by which we can live, we violate that standard we form a slippery slope.
There was an American President who once said he did not have sex with a woman, although he admitted to improper behavior. The question was debated for months, what constitutes sex, at what point does improper behavior become sex. A legal definition of sex was debated over and over. Jesus set the standard. If a man looks upon a woman to lust he has commited adultery in his heart. God does not have an angel watching a couple closely: “Ok, not yet, not yet, getting close, ah, adultery.” Jesus put it simply if you thinking it you’ve done it.
The point is that without a supreme being, God Jehovah, setting a standard of ethics and morality committing a ra evil becomes a matter of one’s own opinion and doing what is ethical and moral in his own eyes. What is so wrong with that? As my old professor said: “That is chaos.”
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