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Bible Believers and Modern Controversy
Modern Controversies #12; Final Installment
"Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the
most of your time, because the days are evil. So then, do not be foolish, but
understand what the will of the Lord is." (Ephesians 5:15,16).
This is the twelfth and final installment of a special series which has
investigated some of the more controversial topics facing the Christian today.
We have asked our guest writers to deal with the following topics and they have
responded with fine articles. We have looked at Abortion, Capital Punishment,
deviant sex, Euthanasia, Abstinence, New Age, Social Reform, Pornography,
Racial Issues, Violence and Political Correctness.
As believers in God, we are almost constantly bombarded with the world's
concepts concerning these things. No doubt, we have all had to make personal
moral choices in at least some of them. The believer handles moral decisions by
looking into the Scriptures. We seek to "understand what the will of the Lord
is." Our moral compass is unwavering and steady. There is absolute right and
wrong. For those believers who are knowledgeable of God's word; for those who
have taken the Lord's command seriously to "Be diligent to present yourself
approved unto God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling
accurately the word of truth." there is not the moral confusion that exists on
the parts of so many in our world today (2 Timothy 2:15).
Polls suggest that the majority of Americans no longer believe in absolute moral
truth. Little do many understand that our Declaration of Independence as well as
our Constitution were both constructed and considered valid because our nation's
founding fathers strongly believed in absolute moral truth. It was so obvious to
them that they spoke of holding these truths as "self-evident." To deny absolute
moral truth is not only to deny the validity of the Bible, but also the
constitution, and
even the basis of civil law.
Another consequence has been the steady decline of the recognition of individual
moral responsibility. A greater percentage of today's students will admit to
cheating, many even boasting about it, where earlier in our history such
behavior was thought of as shameful. In the recent presidential election, a
majority of people who voted for the winner admitted that they did not trust him
as much as they did his opponent!
Honesty and honor were not as important to them as the feeling that he would do
more for them. Perhaps the most drastic evidence of moral confusion today are
the cold blooded predators on our city streets who horribly victimize the
innocent without any remorse at all. The Bible well describes their state as
being "like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct' reviling where
they have no knowledge; suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong." (2 Peter
2:12,13).
How can our society survive without a foundation of basic morality? It can't.
But thanks be to God that disciples of Jesus hold dual citizenship. Our eternal
citizenship is in the kingdom of Christ. Our moral standard is His, unchanging
and true. Though the nations of the earth should be shaken, we have received an
unshakable kingdom (Hebrews 12:26-29). And our moral standard has already been
determined from above. We do not have to enter into each day's situations and
ask, "Is it O.K. to lie in this circumstance?" or "Is an abortion a morally
acceptable choice in this particular case?" or "Does this fit the criteria for
morally acceptable euthanasia?" All those questions have already been decided,
not by us but by the Lord. He has taken away much of the controversy from these
"controversial" topics. He has made His will known, and we have determined not
to be foolish, but "to understand what the will of the Lord is."
As long as Expository Files continues to publish, we will deal with moral issues
without apology. In the editorials, through the topic page and in the texts we
expound, we will exalt the ways of God over the ways of men and call people to
the former.
There are other writers sounding the alarm, and not just preachers. Robert H.
Bork has just published a book under the title, "Slouching Towards Gomorrah,"
(1996, Simon & Schuster). We close with a few quotes from his work:
"Morality is an essential soil for free and democratic governments. A people
addicted to instant gratification through the vicarious (and sometimes not so
vicarious) enjoyment of mindless violence and brutal sex is unlikely to provide
such soil. A population whose mental faculties are coarsened and blunted, whose
emotions are few and simple, is unlikely to be able to make the distinctions and
engage in the discourse that democratic government requires." (p.#142).
"For those who dislike what we are becoming, the task is not merely to resist
but to attack the many manifestations of corruption and restore something of
what we once were." (p.#55).
"We have turned abortion into a constitutional right; one state has made
assisted suicide a statutory right, and two federal circuit courts, not to be
outdone, have made it a constitutional right; campaigns to legalize euthanasia
are underway. It is entirely predictable that many of the elderly ill, and
infirm will be killed, and often without their consent. This is where radical
individualism has taken us," (p.#172).
Yet, God is on His throne (see Rev. 4)!
By Jon W. Quinn and Warren E. Berkley
From Expository Files 3.12; December 1996
