{"id":27,"date":"2013-07-25T16:08:27","date_gmt":"2013-07-25T16:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aletheiabaptistministries.org\/Blog\/?p=27"},"modified":"2014-02-02T08:30:29","modified_gmt":"2014-02-02T08:30:29","slug":"whatever-happened-to-morality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aletheiabaptistministries.org\/Blog\/whatever-happened-to-morality\/","title":{"rendered":"Whatever Happened to Morality?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nThe contemporary moral climate does not favor a faith as tough and fibrous as that taught by our Lord and His apostles.\u00a0 Christ calls men to carry His cross; we call them to have fun in His name! He calls them to suffer; we call them to enjoy all the bourgeois comforts modern civilization affords!\u00a0 He calls them to holiness; we call them to a cheap and tawdry happiness that would have been rejected with scorn by the least of the Stoic philosophers!1<\/sup> (A.W. Tozer)<\/p>\n

The frothy entertainment culture in which we live is a narcotic: not only is it addictive, so that we always want more; it also eats away at us, skewing our priorities, rotting our values as surely as too much sugar rots our teeth.2<\/sup> (Carl Trueman)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

How often have we all spoken, written, taught, or preached on the subject of morality over the last twenty years?\u00a0 Yet it seems as if every year the subject becomes more needful and the current cultural malaise even more dire.\u00a0 Nothing seems to shock us, surprise us, or even anger us.\u00a0 Within the last week of this writing, four NFL players have been arrested for everything from murder to wife-beating.\u00a0 On one news station a pastor and a pro-homosexual were debating and when the pastor mentioned that God has said that homosexuality is wrong, the other man said no one has a monopoly on God and that his god disagreed.\u00a0 Around our country this week the American Atheists are erecting monuments next to the 10 commandment monuments stating that America was in no way founded upon Christian principles.\u00a0 In a scene captured on a home video, a large man bursts into a home with a young child and her mother, punches the woman multiple times in the face, slams her to the floor, throws her down the basement steps, and then calmly proceeds to rob the house.\u00a0 Meanwhile, a well-known rock singer and sex-symbol does a lewd dance for the king of a foreign country for a cool million dollars and no one even bats an eye.\u00a0 And these things were news just this week!\u00a0 No wonder most Christian parents feel that if they can just keep their kids free from sex and drugs until they\u2019re 18, they have raised exceptional kids!\u00a0 Sadly, maybe they have.<\/p>\n

The church seems pretty good at pointing out the speck of immorality in the world\u2019s eye while ignoring the beam of immorality in its own eye.\u00a0 We have our cussing preachers, our rapping gospel singers, our tattooed professional athletes, our pants-on-the-ground teenagers, and reputation-in-the-world mega-pastors.\u00a0 But in the church we have repentance and restoration of sinning and erring brethren because the church is a society within a society.\u00a0 Regardless of what the world does, we can and should act Biblically.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t mean we always do, but we should.\u00a0 Sure, we have our times when we overlook too much or overreact too much, but that is not the norm.\u00a0 Love is the norm.<\/p>\n

I do not mean to diminish nor malign the brother or sister in Christ.\u00a0 A true believer is and always will be a child of God.\u00a0 And, in addition, a human being is a fellow creature made in the image and likeness of our God and we cannot easily speak positively of God and negatively of those made in His image (James 3:9).\u00a0 But in the same parable of the speck and beam (Luke 6) the Lord Jesus said a good tree will bear good fruit and a corrupt tree will bear corrupt fruit.\u00a0 An evil heart will bring forth evil treasure and a good heart good treasure.\u00a0 \u201cAnd why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?\u201d\u00a0 (Luke 6:46).\u00a0 Adrian Rogers used to say what goes down in the well of the heart will come up in the bucket of the mouth.\u00a0 A judgment of thought and motive is presumptuous and wrong, but a judgment of immoral actions spilled out for all to see is only honest and necessary.\u00a0 \u201cAll things that are reproved are made manifest by the light\u201d (Eph. 5:13).<\/p>\n

The word \u201cmoral\u201d or \u201cmorals\u201d is practically nonexistent in our English Bible.\u00a0 The KJV does not have the word at all, The NASV uses it once in Job 11:15 as \u201cmoral defect\u201d and twice in 2 Peter 1:5 as \u201cmoral excellence\u201d where the KJV has \u201cvirtue.\u201d\u00a0 The NIV uses it once in James 1:21 as \u201cmoral filth.\u201d\u00a0 The ESV does not use the word.\u00a0 This is interesting because Biblical words have a weightier effect on our everyday lives.\u00a0 A word like \u201choliness\u201d seems to retain its meaning whether used in a positive or negative sense.\u00a0 I\u2019ve not heard anyone say, \u201cDon\u2019t push your holiness on me,\u201d but I hear \u201cdon\u2019t push your morality on me\u201d all the time.\u00a0 The same thing has happened with the word \u201cculture\u201d which is not found in our English Bibles either.\u00a0 That word has changed dramatically over the last fifty years.\u00a0 We know we can\u2019t love the \u201cworld\u201d but it seems we have no problem loving the \u201cculture\u201d even though the two may be identical.<\/p>\n

Morality has become a relativistic word.\u00a0 A quick look at the history of Webster\u2019s dictionary shows this.\u00a0 Noah Webster, in his 1828 dictionary, which was basically his own writing, said that \u201cthe word moral is applicable to actions that are good or evil, virtuous or vicious, and has reference to the law of God as the standard by which their character is to be determined.\u201d3<\/sup>\u00a0 He also defines \u201cmoral law\u201d as \u201cthe law of God which prescribes the moral or social duties, and prohibits the transgression of them.\u201d\u00a0 My Webster\u2019s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary published in 1967 never uses the word \u201cGod\u201d in the definition but only says \u201cconformity to a standard.\u201d\u00a0 That \u201cstandard\u201d could be anything anyone wants it to be.<\/p>\n

In spite of all of that, I think people today basically know what we mean when we talk of morality.\u00a0 They know it so well that to them it is a matter of someone judging them.\u00a0 Well, that is correct.\u00a0 An immoral thing is wrong and to say so is to make a proper judgment about it.\u00a0 But our society has made the judgment itself the immoral thing, and the thing itself is only a cultural phenomenon.\u00a0 Homosexuality is such an obvious sin in the Bible that only hermeneutical gymnastics could avoid it.\u00a0 Yet homosexuality has become a \u201cnormal\u201d lifestyle and speaking against it in any way has become the social sin of \u201cjudging.\u201d\u00a0 When Israel of old fell into this same moral contradiction, God told Isaiah to say, \u201cWoe 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!\u201d (Isa. 5:20).<\/p>\n

\n

The Basis For Morality<\/h2>\n

We Christians are making a big assumption when we talk this way.\u00a0 We understand, and we have been accustomed to society understanding, that we can call something immoral because God has said that it was immoral.\u00a0 Whether we talk of God\u2019s Word, the Bible, or talk of \u201cthe moral law,\u201d we have understood that there is a God to whom we all have to answer.\u00a0 At times we have even appealed to societal norms, for example, that our country has always believed in the traditional definition of the family (a man and a woman).\u00a0 But this appeal to societal norm will come back to haunt us when the majority of society believes a different way.\u00a0 It is hurting us now because a few amoral judges can usurp society\u2019s wishes anyway.<\/p>\n

Revelation from God will become the key issue (again) very soon.\u00a0 We can say that a thing is moral or immoral because we can appeal to what we know God has said.\u00a0 But when society no longer believes the Bible is God\u2019s Word, there is no longer any certain way of saying what God thinks.\u00a0 B.B. Warfield wrote often that there are only two kinds of religion in the world:\u00a0 humanistic and revealed.\u00a0 Christianity is a revealed religion and everything else was dreamed up in the heart and head of man.\u00a0 This is why I believe that the next battle for the Bible will be theism vs. atheism.\u00a0 Praise the Lord for those believing textual scholars who reinforce the historicity and reliability of the Scriptures.<\/p>\n

During WWII C.S. Lewis gave theistic talks over the London radio which became the book \u201cMere Christianity.\u201d\u00a0 He started his lecture with the illustration of a man getting on a bus and beginning to sit in a seat.\u00a0 Just as he does someone slips in before him.\u00a0 The man turns around and says, \u201chey, that was my seat.\u201d\u00a0 From this example Lewis built his case that we all appeal to a moral law for right and wrong and that that moral law must eventually appeal back to the God Who originated it.\u00a0 When we have no belief in God, we have no appeal to a moral law because it has no appeal to an Authority who can enforce it, that is, God.<\/p>\n

\n

The Weakness Of Morality<\/h2>\n

The Bible also teaches the fallen nature of human beings.\u00a0 Theologians call it a lapsarian view, that man has lapsed, or fallen, into sin beginning with Adam and Eve in the garden.\u00a0 The Fall, as we call it, separated human beings from their relationship to God and has brought upon them a depravity that reaches to all parts of their being.\u00a0 Because of this, man, at his best, is still a condemned sinner awaiting God\u2019s judgment.\u00a0 Isaiah said that even our righteousnesses are as filthy rags in God\u2019s eyes (Isa. 64:6).<\/p>\n

Fallen man has gravitated gladly to modern teachings of evolution or historical revisionism because this removes the historical possibility of a real fall and therefore relieves man of real guilt.\u00a0 Add to that a Star Wars view of the future and man no longer believes there is a real judgment coming.\u00a0 Even some so-called believers are positing a view that a literal hell would be unworthy of a holy and just God.\u00a0 Say what you will, but when we have removed a literal view of the Scriptures, especially regarding these things, the human nature feels free to behave the way it likes, and that way is not acceptable with God.<\/p>\n

The age of grace is a conundrum to sinners.\u00a0 Even Peter prophesied that the scoffers of the last days would credulously ask, \u201cwhere is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation\u201d (2 Pet. 3:4).\u00a0 How can there be a God who cares when He has not intervened into human affairs in the last two thousand years?\u00a0 As the world gets worse and worse, and bad things continue to happen to good people, either God does not care or He is unable to do anything about it.\u00a0 The conclusion has been to eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die!<\/p>\n

But the age of grace is designed for man to be left with the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit\u2019s conviction, and the historical fact of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 God will not miraculously intervene into the sinfulness of this world and open up the earth as He did in the wilderness when Korah and his followers rebelled and \u201cwent down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them\u201d (Num. 16:33).\u00a0 God is longsuffering because of the atonement for sin made by Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 3:9) and will wait until the end of this age and then judge the world severely for its unbelief and the immoral result of its actions.<\/p>\n

\n

The Triumph Of Morality<\/h2>\n

That coming judgment will be the triumph of morality.\u00a0 Paul explained to the Thessalonians that in this age believers suffer at the hands of an unbelieving world, but this only confirms that judgment, when it comes, will be righteous.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God, for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure: which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer: seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ\u201d (2 Thes. 1:4-8).<\/p>\n

That is a New Testament passage, and there are many more that explain that severe judgment is still coming on unbelievers because their sin is not forgiven through faith in the cross-work of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Rather, sinners treasure up for themselves \u201cwrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render to every man according to his deeds\u201d (Rom. 2:5-6).<\/p>\n

In addition to the triumph of morality at the judgment of God, Jesus Christ will usher in His kingdom that will last for a thousand years, the millennium, and will bring universal righteousness at last to the earth.\u00a0 The promises, Old Testament and New Testament, will be literally fulfilled and morality will be the norm for the first time since Adam\u2019s sin.\u00a0 Zechariah says it will be so pervasive that, \u201cIn that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD; and the pots in the LORD\u2019s house shall be like the bowls before the altar\u201d (Zech. 14:20).\u00a0 Rather than now, when every billboard, every commercial, every advertisement, every program, song, movie, or video, is semi pornographic or worse, then every bell that rings will be dedicated to the holiness of God!<\/p>\n

In the mean time, we can remember that the truth of God\u2019s morality cannot change even in this age.\u00a0 Marriage cannot change in God\u2019 eyes; fornication cannot change in God\u2019s eyes; the Word of God cannot change; and sin and the sin nature cannot change from what God has said that it is.\u00a0 Man may redefine it, disbelieve it, curse it, or flaunt it in our faces, but truth will be truth with God, sin will be sin, and righteousness will be righteousness.<\/p>\n

\n

The Battle For Morality<\/h2>\n

For now we understand, like Paul, when he was almost stoned to death yet exhorted the believers in Lystra \u201cto continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God\u201d (Acts 14:22).\u00a0 Paul reminded the Roman believers that they were joint heirs with Christ, \u201cif so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together\u201d (Rom. 8:17).\u00a0 We are here on the earth, in this time, to earnestly contend for the faith (Jude 3).\u00a0 It is enough to know that we are fighting a losing battle.\u00a0 The world will not be converted and we will not bring in the kingdom of God by our own efforts.\u00a0 It is ours to be faithful and to preach a gospel of deliverance for any individual who will believe to the saving of his\/her soul.<\/p>\n

The churches in the last days will, no doubt, have to address current issues in the country where believers live.\u00a0 How much can we give unto Caesar before we have to stop and give the rest unto God?\u00a0 How much social and political involvement can we do before we are merely wasting precious time for ministry?\u00a0 How long can we maintain properties, exemptions, licenses, accreditations, and other requirements without bowing too far to earthly authority?4<\/sup>\u00a0 But more important than all of those, how much can we continue loving this world more than heaven?\u00a0 When will we become too earthly minded to be of any heavenly good?<\/p>\n

\n

And So . . .<\/h2>\n

When the maniac of Gadara was cleansed of his demons (Luke 8), the towns people were \u201cafraid\u201d when they saw him sitting and clothed and in his right mind (vs. 35).\u00a0 The world is afraid of the power of righteousness.\u00a0 Paul told the Philippians, \u201cand in nothing [be] terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God\u201d (Phil. 1:28).\u00a0 God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and a sound mind (2 Tim. 1:7).\u00a0 We must always remember, \u201cgreater is he that is in you than he that is in the world\u201d (1 John 4:4).<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Notes:<\/address>\n
1. A.W. Tozer, Mornings With Tozer (Camp Hill: Wing Spread Pub., 2008) reading for march 20th.<\/address>\n
2. Carl Trueman, Reformation: yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Kindle Version) 111.<\/address>\n
3. Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English language , 1828 (Chesapeake, VA:\u00a0 Foundation for American Christian Education, 1995).<\/address>\n
4. I\u2019m not being flippant, I am suggesting that the future may hold the necessity for some very tough decisions for local churches and other ministries in this country as well as others.\u00a0 Paul called\u00a0 the last days a \u201cperilous time.\u201d<\/address>\n

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The contemporary moral climate does not favor a faith as tough and fibrous as that taught by our Lord and His apostles.\u00a0 Christ calls men to carry His cross; we call them to have fun in His name! 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