Bill Johnson - Discerning Good and Evil and Cultivating the Culture of Heaven (08/15/2025)
The hour we live in is one where good is called evil, and evil is called good. I have to cultivate in my heart the value system He has. I refuse to call evil good just so that I sound contemporary or as if I’m in touch with culture. I don’t want to be influenced by culture; I literally just want the culture of Heaven. Well, hello once again, and welcome back to this quest for wisdom. We’re all in this together, and we’re doing chapter 17 today. I think I’ll take two, maybe three verses from this chapter. One is a bit different and a little bizarre, so give me a little grace on this one. Chapter 17 has much to say about conversation and speech, and I’ll let you read that on your own, but I want to focus on verse seven. We’ll start with that one and also cover verse eight separately.
«Excellent speech is not becoming to a fool, much less lying lips to a prince.» That fascinates me. We previously discussed how the righteous study to prepare their lips to speak rightly and accurately. I’ll use the term «excellence»; it’s smart to give ourselves to excellent speech. Excellent speech means there are certain topics I won’t engage in. I’ve been in many conversations where people discuss things I don’t want to be part of, so I’ll excuse myself from the room. Guard your heart to protect the privilege of excellent speech coming out of your mouth.
Verse eight is a bit bizarre, so let me read it to you: «A present, a gift, is a precious stone in the eyes of its possessor; wherever he turns, he prospers.» Let’s say a very wealthy person gave you, oh goodness, a $10 million diamond. He said you must carry it for 30 days without wearing it or showing it to anyone. You’d have this awareness that you’re carrying this incredibly valuable gift with you. What does it do? It changes your perception of who you are and what your assignment is, adding significance to your life. This person, aware of the gift they carry, prospers in everything they do. Why? I think it’s because it boosts our sense of importance and purpose. When we recognize we carry something invaluable—indeed, we have something far more invaluable than that, the message of the Gospel—we realize we have a gift.
Reading commentaries on this, they often say a present is a bribe, and a bribe gives someone confidence in an evil situation. Maybe that’s partially correct; perhaps being aware of the priceless gift we carry gives us confidence because we were sent by someone greater than ourselves to represent Him in a situation, which means we’re going to prosper in anything and everything we do. So, consider that: become aware of the treasure you carry. It’s the message of the Gospel and the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives that increases our confidence in challenging situations.
Alright, let’s move on to verse 15, which I also wanted to discuss. It says, «He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, are both alike an abomination to the Lord.» The hour we live in is one where good is called evil and evil is called good. I’ve never seen anything that closely resembles our current hour. The righteous are labeled as corrupt, while every disgusting thing you can imagine is exalted in culture. This serves as a warning; it doesn’t mean I need to hate people or consider them my enemies. It does mean I have to cultivate in my heart the value system He has. I need to be able to recognize that calling something good when it’s not is wrong. I will not do that to gain favor at work, nor will I do that to gain favor with my neighbors. I refuse to call evil good just to sound contemporary, to pretend I’m in touch with culture. I don’t want to be influenced by culture. I literally just want the culture of Heaven, where good is called good, and evil is called evil. It is what it is, and no compromise is required in my life or yours to lower the standards of what is real, right, or true.
Now let’s wrap up with one more verse. How are we doing for time? Yep, one more verse, in verse 22. This is something I’ve mentioned before, and I’ll bring it up again because it’s important. It’s repeated in Proverbs over and over again to ensure we learn it: «A merry heart does good like medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.» Let’s take the negative first. A broken spirit becomes traumatized through crisis and difficulty. Here’s the deal: all of us face loss, all of us face disappointment. There are no options there. Mourning can either lead me to the comforter, as blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted, or it can lead me to unbelief. If I allow life’s brokenness to push me into a place of resistance, then that’s where I end up. A broken spirit dries up the bones; it affects my health, mental and emotional well-being, and eventually the body begins to break down. To illustrate, I remember praying for a girl who had Crohn’s disease. I randomly asked her if she was hard on herself because Crohn’s is where the body essentially attacks itself. She replied, «Oh yeah, I’m very self-critical about my grades as a college student.» I suggested she repent for that. She had lived with this condition for seven years, and in a moment, after praying a prayer of repentance, she was completely healed of something that had afflicted her for years. Why? Because our bodies sometimes reflect our internal worlds.
So here it is: a merry heart, that’s a choice. «A merry heart does good like medicine.» Perhaps we should establish a counter at our pharmacies dedicated to merry hearts, making sure we receive good news and good reports to replenish our souls, so we enter places of great strength and personal health. I pray that for you. I pray that together, we can illustrate Divine Health as an invitation to the world to come to know this Jesus, who is absolutely perfect. Father, bless you, thanks for joining. God bless you.