God's commandments represent His morality. Thus, if we are to live according to the will of God we must uphold them. Unfortunately, not every person who claims to be a Christian believes this; instead, they believe that there are no moral absolutes, but that morals are merely relative in nature, and are therefore subject to change when the 'moment' calls for such a change to take place. The Bible refers to this as 'lawlessness' (2Thess. 2:7), while those who promote it refer to it as either 'moral relativism' or 'situation ethics'.
How do we deal with these concepts?
By its very nature, moral relativism defeats itself in that it makes the claim that there is no absolute morality, which in turn implies that there is no absolute truth. How it defeats itself is that it uses an absolute to refute all absolutes, and thereby rejects its own claim to being true. Hence, moral relativism is false.
But what about situation ethics; how do we deal with that?
My response to situation ethics is, how can a moment in time determine what is morally right in the eyes of an Eternal God? If we are to believe that God knows the end from the beginning, then how could we believe that His moral law is relative? If that were the case, then there would have been no sense in commanding His people to keep it!
After all, if but a moment in time determines what is morally acceptable then wouldn't 'time' itself be the voice which tells us how we ought to behave? And if time itself is the voice that tells us how we ought to behave, then how could we even speak of serving an eternal God who orders time?
Can you see the problem here?
Time does not tell us how to behave. Our lack of faith and trust in an Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent God tells us how we ought to behave; and then we have the audacity to call that the voice of God! That is not the voice of God. That is the voice of self. And it speaks thusly because it is influenced not by the Holy Spirit, but rather by the same spirit that introduced Eve to the idea that God doesn't really mean what He says (Gen. 3:1)!
Therefore, time does not tell us what is morally acceptable. If it did it would be greater than God. And we certainly don't have the right to decide what is and isn't morally acceptable, because God is greater than we are, and we must answer to Him.
So what does this leave us with?
It leaves us with a choice. We will either obey the voice of God, or we will allow the father of lies to deceive us into believing that our voice is what we ought to listen to. Either way, we will end up in one of two places: if we follow God's will we will enter into eternal life; but if we allow the devil to subdue our thoughts we will usher ourselves into eternal damnation.
I think the voice of Joshua is fitting here:
"Now therefore, fear the LORD, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the LORD! And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." (Joshua 24:14-15 NKJV)
We know who Joshua served. Who will you serve?
This article was written by Chris Esty, a Christian writer who is also the founder of The Bible Post---a blog that was created for understanding the Bible and encouraging growth in Jesus Christ through the sharing of basic to advanced Bible teachings and Bible devotions. It is updated weekly with fresh content. Be sure to check it out at: http://www.thebiblepost.com
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