Franklin Graham: When Good Is Evil and Evil Is Good

As President Donald J. Trump begins his second term in the Oval Office, he faces a number of urgent challenges on the international and domestic fronts, and he certainly will need God’s wisdom to deal with them.

There is of course the longstanding war in Ukraine, where the conflict has now entered its fourth year. There have been tens of thousands of deaths on both sides and many more wounded and injured. President Trump is keen on ending the war and bringing about an acceptable peace, but it won’t be easy.

Domestically, a number of issues demand his attention and action, from the border to the economy to energy policy and the judiciary. However, there is one area that no president has control over, one that concerns me as a Christian more than any other political, legal or territorial matter.

That’s the ever-growing moral decadence that seems to have gripped so much of our nation, especially among young people.

I’m sure you recall a tragic incident from just a few months ago when the CEO of United Healthcare was gunned down on a New York sidewalk as he was leaving his hotel and headed to an early morning meeting. The assailant shot Brian Thompson from behind, and then walked up to him as he lay bleeding on the sidewalk and drilled two more shots from his silenced sidearm. Thankfully, law enforcement officials caught up with Luigi Mangione at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, when he was recognized by a patron and an employee as he sat in a corner booth.

It was nothing less than cold-blooded murder—by an Ivy League graduate who has expressed no remorse for his cowardly assassination.

But what has shocked many Americans is the large number of people who believe that this killer actually did nothing wrong by resorting to murder to express his grievances toward the health care industry.

The social media platform TikTok was filled with comedy-type references to the killing. Some posters referred to the assassin as some sort of folk hero. The United Healthcare website was forced to turn off comments after a post about Thompson’s death received more than 36,000 “laugh” reactions. Merchandise celebrating the killer was sold across the internet.

If this isn’t unbelievable enough, an Emerson College poll found that 17% of the American public believed the murder was “acceptable” or “somewhat acceptable.” Even more shocking, 40% of young adults (ages 18-29) felt the killer’s actions were either acceptable or somewhat acceptable. They endorsed his murder as a justified killing.

This moral sickness and depravity is a problem that no president, legislature or law can solve. It’s a spiritual degeneracy that can only be cured by repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other remedy or hope.

The Prophet Isaiah said it this way 700 years before the birth of the Savior, to an Israel that had long abandoned its loyalty and allegiance to God, and instead replaced it with idolatry, meaningless rituals and sacrifices that incurred God’s wrath, not His blessings. “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!” (Isaiah 5:20).

That is exactly what we are seeing right now in our sin-rotten culture. We have forsaken God. We have ignored God. We have forgotten God. Without a Biblically informed conscience and a commitment to the authority of Scripture, truth is turned on its head, leading to actions that are devoid of absolute right and wrong. Isaiah put it this way: “Truth is fallen in the street” (Isaiah 59:14).

If this kind of moral corruption continues to spread, can you imagine the consequences? In another few decades, we’ll have a generation of young adults with no respect or adherence to Biblical truth or principles. As Scripture states, “And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12).

I don’t believe we have reached the tipping point yet. God’s grace and mercy is still powerful and transformative. But it will take a sovereign move of the Lord Jesus Christ to bring our society to a point of repentance, faith for revival, and restoration. We must pray for Almighty God to move and for the power of the Gospel to prevail in hearts through the ministry of His Word and the Holy Spirit.

It has happened before in our country, through several mighty spiritual awakenings, and it can happen again. But it will not be brought about by any political maneuvering, only through a mighty outpouring of God’s Spirit.

As my father once said, “Man without God is a contradiction, a paradox, a monstrosity. He sees evil as good and good as evil. That is why some people love evil and hate that which is good—they are still in their sins. For them, life’s values are confused. … Before Paul’s conversion, he saw Christ as the greatest evil, ‘breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord’ (Acts 9:1). But after he encountered Christ on the Damascus road, he loved what he had so fervently hated. At last, he could see evil as evil and good as good. His values were straightened out because his nature had been changed by the redeeming grace of God.”

Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version.