Legal and/or Moral

I would like to look at a couple of verses today that I have been meditating upon in light of a full gambit of social issues. From the Supreme Court's decision to allow due process in gay marriage to Tom Brady and "inflate gate," to MTV's soft-porn music award show, the morality war is fighting battles on all fronts. I've noted a distinct pattern in two passages that I've color coated for visual clarity.  

Psalm 51:4, "Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge."

Isaiah 5:20-23, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. 21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight. 22 Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks, 23 who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent." 

In Psalm 51 we have the repentant song of David. He had committed adultery against his other wives (that was kind of weird writing that statement), manipulated Bathsheba's then husband into coming home and sleeping with her so he wouldn't find out she was pregnant by another man, and eventually David (passively) killed him by putting him on the front lines of a war.

When David was confronted by the prophet Nathan he didn't deny it. He didn't point to the culture and try and justify it. He didn't point to his own authority and challenge it. He understood where the definition of morality - right and wrong - comes from. 

Isaiah writes another song that demonstrates how far the people had left the spiritual moorings of their faith. It was a call to come back to the God who determines those moral foundations. 

When society becomes its own god determining what is right and what is wrong it will disintegrate. It is not a society that evolves into what is best for all humanity; it devolves into a base planet where everyone does what is right in his or her own eyes. Laws mean nothing.

I watched a movie where a seminary professor in the late 1800's traveled by time machine into the modern day era. (Yes, it was a bit corny but it had a good message). He was about to pay for a hot dog and a little girl came up behind him and stole it. He finally caught her in a park and said, "Little girl, don't you know its wrong to steal." She said, "Who says!" Point made. In a world where their is no god who makes up the rules? Every changing society?

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that you cannot legislate morality but it sure is a good way to keep an man from being hung. This works as long as the law reflects the heart of God. What is moral at the moment is the subjective preference of the majority. What happens when the laws do not reflect the morals of the secular majority or even the secular vocal minority? They will keep changing. We have laws that are becoming reflective of an anti-God world. Often these are done for the sake of "love" or "fairness" or "equality" - all the things that find their true bearing in the person of God, not a devolving society. 

I was listening to a couple of sports commentators talking about Tom Brady and "inflate gate." One of them said, "Just because something is legally justified doesn't make it morally right." Wow! What a statement! What a clarification of the real issue. 

We are increasingly living in a society that is calling what God has defined as good evil, and what God has defined as evil as good. This is taking place from the chief justices of the Supreme Court all the way down to the local pastors in God's churches. They are replacing light with darkness. They are convincing people that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter, up is down, down is up, right is left and left is right, the sky is green and the grass is blue. 

The world will keep moving to a place of utter self-absorption and selfishness. Many have tried the "utopian" ideal but they are left with the sinfulness of man to contend with. There is a way that seems right to a man but the end leads to death (Proverbs 14:12).

My exhortation is to the Church. Have we asked the question, "Why do I believe in a specific moral position?" Is it because it is stated in the Scriptures and modeled by Jesus or is it simply a religious preference?  Sometimes it is hard to cut away our own cultural preference from what we believe is the moral way of God. Let us pray for the conviction of the truth found in the Scriptures and ask for wisdom to navigate the coming moral storms.