Ryan Schiavo: When Evil Is Called Good, and Good Evil

We want to share a message from a dear brother in Christ, Ryan Schiavo, an evangelist who preaches boldly and travels widely, ministering across many fellowships and on the open streets. You can find more of his preaching on his channel, Last Days Pulpit Ministry.

Summary

This article is a summary and reflection on the message — “When Evil Is Called Good, and Good Evil” — and is not a word-for-word transcript of the sermon. It is intended to highlight the main themes, biblical insight, and application of Ryan’s teaching in a clear, readable form.

The text: Isaiah 5

Isaiah 5 pronounces a series of woes over a people in serious moral and spiritual decline — a people who had the law of God plainly before them and yet drifted into idolatry, injustice, and self-deception. The heart of it is one verse:

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)

This is an absolute distortion of reality. God’s very first act of creation was to separate the light from the darkness — He distinguished the two because they are not meant to mix. To reverse them, to call darkness light, is not merely to sin but to celebrate sin as though it were righteousness. And that is precisely the hour we are living in.

From sin to delusion

There is a sober progression here. It is one thing to sin and know it is wrong; it is another to sin and call it good. When people persistently reject the truth, Scripture warns that a hardening — a kind of judicial blindness — can settle over them:

And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

John 3:19 (NKJV)

…because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie.

2 Thessalonians 2:10-11 (NKJV)

The account of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 shows the danger of a hardened heart: to the man who wanted nothing to do with God in life, Abraham finally says that if people will not hear Moses and the prophets, no sign will persuade them. The lesson is simple and searching — know the Word of God. A people who will not believe and follow Scripture become susceptible to believe anything.

The church’s calling: salt, light, and a voice

The heart of the matter is a call to courage. There is a real distinction between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of men, and this is not about partisan politics. The concern is that the most basic, fundamental truths of God’s character are being overturned — especially where children are concerned — while the church has too often gone silent. Again and again we must return to God’s created order:

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Genesis 1:27 (NKJV)

The believer’s task is to be salt and light — to speak the truth in love, with genuine compassion for people who are confused or hurting, yet without compromising what God has said. That has meant ministering on the streets to those wrestling with these very questions — and, in Ryan’s own experience, being arrested and held in a London jail cell for ten hours for preaching openly that homosexuality is sin. Yet the call remains the same: refuse to be silenced. As the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil.”

Justice, and a righteous Judge

The same call reaches into the matter of justice and lawlessness. The psalm charges those in authority to judge rightly:

Defend the poor and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and needy. Deliver the poor and needy; free them from the hand of the wicked.

Psalm 82:3-4 (NKJV)

Where justice is bent and the vulnerable are left unprotected, God’s people are called not to fear or intimidation but to a sober, biblical understanding of the times — knowing that the issues the world parades most loudly are often the very ones that matter most to the enemy.

The closing hope

For all its weight, this message does not end in despair but in confidence. God is a righteous Judge who cannot be defeated, and He raises up a standard against the flood of evil — most often through His own people:

So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun; when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.

Isaiah 59:19 (NKJV)

That standard is often you and I — the church, standing firm in the truth, speaking it in love, refusing to call evil good. It is our responsibility, in these last days, to be bold and full of the Holy Spirit, and to raise our children to be uncompromising in a dark and confused world.

🎥 Watch the full message: When Evil Is Called Good, and Good Evil — Ryan Schiavo

📺 More from Ryan Schiavo: Last Days Pulpit Ministry on YouTube