Standing for Right
by Rusty Miller
Recently, I listened to a sports radio talk host berate his callers for the old-fashioned notion of desiring "good guys" to play on the local team. He said this idea was outmoded and that the name of the game was to win, even if it meant having "bad guys" on the team. By this he meant that if it took a few Dennis Rodmans or Michael Irvins to win a championship, it was worth whatever off the field problems were caused by them. He went on to discuss the Salt Lake City Olympic scandal, defending the practices of bribery, corruption and the furnishing of prostitutes to IOC officials as "the same thing that happens in business everyday."
I wondered how many others felt this way, and then I heard another host promoting the election of Lawrence Taylor, with two drug convictions and several rehab stints, to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. His argument was that only what took place on the field mattered.
"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" (Isaiah 5:20). How long will we continue to make such arguments? When we refuse to demand upright behavior from our sports, entertainment and political figures, it is only a short step to a refusal to demand it from our children, our brethren and ourselves. It is a step some have already made willingly, for when less is demanded of us, we think our life becomes easier. In truth, it becomes harder, for lives get messier when sin is allowed to reign unchecked in society. We pay for it in deaths at the hands of drunk drivers, in teen pregnancies, in horrible crimes of all manner. If unchecked, we will eventually pay for it in the form of evil rulers who will lead the nation further astray, until God has had enough.
We need to strengthen our resolve to stand up for what is right. We need to be like the children of Issachar, "men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do . . ." (2 Chr. 12:32). Here were men who, by implication, stood for what was right and sought to cause others to see this right and live up to it. One reason so many battles have been lost to the cynical and amoral sentiments detailed above is that Christians have given up the fight! We have backed up here and given ground there until we have such a small amount of territory left for which to fight. But fight we must!
We must be willing to call sin as it really is: a serious affront to our God and to us. Let the world take the pig that is sin, let them wash it and clean it up, let them put a big red bow on it and let them call it Sweetness. And we will see through it all and call it a pig. Dressing up sin, calling adultery "an affair" or lying about or taxes "fudging" or murder the "termination of a pregnancy", does not alter it so that it is no longer sin, adultery, lying or murder.
If we are to be what God would have us be, we must stand for more than the world's morality. We must be willing to speak out against wrongdoing, injustice, and sin. We must not be deterred by a society which continues to spiral downward in its pursuit of evil. We must stand for God.