Ecclesiastes 8:5 – A wise man finds the time and way to always do what is right.
One morning, this was the chapter designated for my daily Bible study. As I quickly read through the verses of this chapter, the fifth verse jumped out at me.
Wow! “A wise man finds the time and way to always do what is right.”
How obviously lacking this concept is in our modern world. One look at the day’s news headlines, and we can attest to that fact.
We read about male drag queens reading storybooks to preschoolers, boys showering in girls’ lockers room, teenagers in public high schools pretending to be animals, and taxpayers funding all of these scenarios and more.
Yet, we also read of teachers, athletes, students, and small business owners who are punished and sometimes even criminalized for standing up for the rights of the preborn, refusing to support causes that defy their religious and moral beliefs, or simply wearing T-shirts that proclaim the name of Jesus Christ.
Our culture celebrates when a 10-year-old is granted access to mutilating transgender medical procedures without parental knowledge. On the other hand, it is considered prejudicial and even abusive when a child of the same age is required to cite the Pledge of Allegiance to our nation’s flag or stand for the playing of our national anthem.
It honestly seems as if we are living in an episode of The Twilight Zone. But there is no Rod Serling speaking explanatory lines accompanied by eerily evocative music. It is real life in a real world that is totally devoid of sanity and morality.
Instead, we have become a nation of people who create our own sense of reality – fed and fueled by our own standard of morality, and true to our American ingenuity, we have a whole plethora of creative ways to alter the lines between right and wrong.
Our first mode of creative morality involves making excuses for our mistakes, blaming tough circumstances and other people for our shortcomings and inadequacies. Yep, from childhood onward, Americans love to play the blame game. We are experts at it.
If a plausible scapegoat is not readily available, then we change our tactics and justify our sins by comparing them to the sins of others. After all, what the ubiquitous “they” did was much, much worse than what we did. Even as Christians, we tell ourselves that we are doing pretty well in light of the horrible shape of our world.
We aren’t that bad, not really. Are we?
That depends on how we define the standards of good, bad, right, and wrong. And it depends on which plumbline we are using to gauge those standards.
Now, I used to believe that we all knew the difference between right and wrong. But these days, our plumbline is missing. It’s totally gone. When a teenager dressed as a cartoon-looking cat requests a litterbox in a high school restroom, we can know for sure that there is no plumbline to live by.
In case that declaration sounds far-fetched, the research and data analytics firm YouGov polled two thousand United States adults on the issue of morality in November 2022, and the eye-opening results backed it up.
While 85% of those surveyed stated that morality was somewhat or very important to them, only 27% declared God was the source of their standard for morality. And sadly, 86% of those polled believe people are either born innately moral or learn right and wrong from other individuals, and another 8% had no clue as to the source of morality.
Where was God in that statistical equation? Was He part of the minimal 6% who claimed the unidentified “other” source for their beliefs in right and wrong? Seriously, has America come to the place where less than 6% of our citizens know WHO sets the standard for right living?
Yep, that is sadly the case right now.
Granted, we know what is right in our own eyes, but our nation has little to no clue as to what’s acceptable in God’s eyes. In fact, this survey found that 37% of people believed we should simply determine for ourselves what is right and wrong.
Well, I may not be a genius or a pulpit preacher, but I can absolutely and positively assure you that what we deem as right is most often exactly what is wrong. Our own feelings and emotions cloud our perception of right, and as a result, our own right differs greatly from what God deems right and wrong.
But here’s some good news: We have an easily accessible guide. He left us His Word and His Holy Spirit to guide and convict us.
So, perhaps it is time to quit blaming others, time to stop making excuses, and time to quit comparing our sins to the greater sins around us. And even more importantly, maybe it is time to speak up, to stand up. and to rock the proverbial boat.
After all, there is an entire world of lost people drowning, dying all around us – people who could spend an eternity of time separated from the very God who made and loved them enough to send His only Son.
