Knowing Right from Wrong

The Futile Search for Ethics in a Landscape without Truth.

The public schools are desperately trying to teach moral character to their students. Their purpose is education, but they are realizing that without sufficient character qualities in their students they are not able to educate them. Educators are now promoting character education and encouraging student-led character clubs.

One student who is president of her high school character club was asked recently in a television interview about one thing she can take away from her experience with the character club as she looks to college. She said that the most important thing she learned was tolerance and understanding. Does she mean that before her involvement with the club she was a bully who went around punching everyone she didn’t like or agree with? No, she meant something very different. We will look at the new understanding of tolerance in a moment. But first, a brief introduction to our subject is in order.

Ethics are ultimately from God.

When we talk about discerning right from wrong, we are dealing with the subject of ethics. Ethics is the study of the good; the study of right and wrong actions and attitudes. In simple terms, ethics is the study of how to relate to God, others, and ourselves. Ethics govern the creature’s relationship toward God, they govern the creature’s relationship to fellow creatures, and they govern the creature’s relationship to the creation itself.

The foundational ethic to all others is the command to glorify God. Vine’s Expository Dictionary describes the command to glorify God in the following manner: In the New Testament “to glorify” is to extol, praise, and honor God by acknowledging Him as to His being, attributes and acts. God’s glory is the revelation and self-manifestation of all that is His. Believers glorify God by bearing much fruit (Jn 15:8). To live for God’s glory is only possible when we seek to imitate Him in holiness, honor and righteousness (Eph 5:1).

“Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor 10:31, NKJV).

How can we glorify God?

“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Heb 11:6, NIV).

“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you@ (Matt 6:33, NKJV).

So the Christian ethic, the only real ethic, is to glorify God by having faith in Him and giving His kingdom priority in our lives.

God has given us His revelation, His Word, to guide us in ethics, in knowing what we should and shouldn’t do.

The book of Proverbs was given to us to teach us right conduct.

“To know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, equity [or, doing what is right, just, and fair, NIV]; to give prudence to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion—a wise man will hear and increase in learning, and a man of understanding will attain wise counsel . . . . The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Prov 1:2-5, 7, NKJV).

Because our Creator is Holy, we live in a Moral Universe.

The path of life and the path of destruction are set before us.

Because God is Creator and sovereign Ruler of all creation, moral law is built into the very fabric of the universe. As the only creature made in the image of God, every action man takes is either an affirmation or denial of God’s moral government. These two moral directions are described in Scripture as two paths—one of life, and the other of destruction (Jer 6:16-19; Matt 7:13).

The book of Proverbs, as the rest of the Bible, teaches us to think in terms of antithesis—that there are two opposing ways of looking at life, a right way and a wrong way. In the book of Proverbs we find right and wrong contrasted, and often these occur even in a single verse. Here is one for example:

“In all labor there is profit, but idle chatter leads only to poverty” (Prov 14:23, NKJV).

We see thesis and anti-thesis; this way or that way. We need discernment to be able to distinguish between right and wrong, between truth and error, and then we need to conform ourselves to the truth or the right way. In fact, we are commanded in Scripture to do exactly that:

“Test [or, examine, NASB] all things; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil” (1 Thess 5:21-22, NKJV).

Jay Adams has this to say about the principle of antithesis.

In the Bible, where antithesis is so important, discernment—the ability to distinguish God’s thoughts and God’s ways from all others—is essential. Indeed, God says that “the wise in heart will be called discerning” (Proverbs 16:21).

From the Garden of Eden with its two trees (one allowed, one forbidden) to the eternal destiny of the human being in heaven or in hell, the Bible sets forth two, and only two, ways: God’s way, and all others. Accordingly, people are said to be saved or lost. They belong to God’s people or the world. There was Gerizim, the mount of blessing, and Ebal, the mount of cursing. There is the narrow way and the wide way, leading either to eternal life or to destruction. There are those who are against us and those who are with us, those within and those without. There is life and death, truth and falsehood, good and bad, light and darkness, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, love and hatred, spiritual wisdom and the wisdom of the world. Christ is said to be the way, the truth, and the life, and no one may come to the Father but by Him. His is the only name under the sky by which one may be saved.^[1][1]

Adams suggests that “people who study the Bible in depth develop antithetical mindsets: they think in terms of contrasts or opposites.”^[2][2] We often refer to this as thinking in terms of black and white, truth and error. How different this antithetical thinking is from the thinking of our culture which claims truth is a fuzzy gray with no center. Also, how different it is from the attitude of many Evangelical Christians who want to only present biblical truth in positive terms but never point out error and especially never point out proponents of error.

This idea of antithesis is as old as human history as Jay Adams has indicated. It is also the subject of a fascinating early church document from around the end of the first century A.D. calledThe Didache, or Teaching of the Apostles. The word didache comes from the Greek word for teaching. The Didache is the first manual on church order that we know of. It was written to teach “the doctrine of the two ways.” The opening sentence begins, “There are two ways, one of life and of death, and there is a great difference between the two ways.” It then proceeds to expound on those two ways.

Jesus clearly taught this idea of two ways in His famous Sermon on the Mount:

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult [or, confined, constraining] is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matt 7:13-14, NKJV).

All of us are either on the narrow way that leads to life, or we are on the broad way that leads to death. There is no other alternative. There is no gray area. There is no neutral ground to stand upon.

We cannot know right from wrong without understanding God’s truth.

When ethics are divorced from the character of God, they can become vices.

In our present godless and humanistic culture, there is a new “virtue” which undermines and opposes everything Christians believe. The new “virtue” is tolerance. (The highest virtue wasjustice, now it is tolerance. More on justice in a moment.) Consider the following characteristics of this “new morality.”

1. The word tolerance now has a dual definition.
2. Webster’s dictionary gives the traditional definition of tolerance (now known as “negative tolerance”). That definition acknowledges that tolerance recognizes and respects the beliefs and practices of others without necessarily agreeing or sympathizing with those beliefs. Everyone has a right to his own opinion.
3. The new tolerance is known as “positive tolerance.” The new tolerance can be explained as follows: Every single individual’s values, beliefs, lifestyles, and claims to truth are equally valid. So if a person claims that any individual’s values, beliefs, etc. are better or more correct than another’s; that is hierarchy and constitutes bigotry. Thus a bigot is one who believes in moral hierarchy (that there is a lifestyle, belief, etc. that is greater than another’s).
4. Under the U.S. constitution each person has an equal right to hold his or her belief. But under positive tolerance all beliefs are equal in the sense that they are morally equivalent. (EXAMPLE: If I say the claims of Christ are superior to the claims of Mohammed, or anyone else, it makes me a bigot who is going against virtue.)
5. Traditional tolerance was simply the right to hold to one’s belief and practice it and still be respected and treated fairly. However, “positive tolerance” demands praise and approval for all beliefs and lifestyles (“Now we not only want your neutral permission, we demand your positive praise and approval”). To be considered tolerant, you must from your own heart, regard the beliefs and lifestyles of others to be equally valid to your own or you’re not tolerant. You must treat the ideas of others the same as your own.
6. The most quoted verse has changed from John 3:16 to “Judge not lest ye be judged” (Matt 7:1). Christians frequently are accused of being judgmental the moment they make a moral judgment. (Moral standards are now equated with being judgmental which is equated with being intolerant.)
7. The confusion inherent in “positive tolerance” is captured in a quote by National Public School administrator, Frederick Hill, “It is the mission of public schools not to tolerate intolerance.” This is a logical contradiction. To be intolerant of intolerance is itself an act of intolerance which they say is wrong. The position of positive tolerance violates the traditional view of tolerance. Now postmoderns no longer recognize and respect someone who has a differing belief when it comes to the issue of tolerance. Instead, in their quest to be “tolerant” they are unjust because they are being intolerant of someone just because they have a different belief when in the past that would have been tolerated. So justice and “positive tolerance” are incompatible. They are, in fact, antithetical. This is because to make justice possible, one must make a moral judgment on right and wrong. But “positive tolerance” does not allow one to make moral judgments. It actually forbids moral judgments. So the irony here is that the more open-minded you become (not making moral judgments), the more close-hearted you become (don’t care about justice for people). The end result of positive tolerance is moral and intellectual intimidation or bullying to get you to no longer hold to moral standards or pursue objective truth. Romans 1:18-32 gives us insight into the cause behind this trend and where it will lead our society (see Addendum).

Christians are considered the most intolerant people on the face of the earth. Consider the following changes that have taken place in our culture in less than fifty years.

1. By the mid-nineties 2800 major corporations were taking their employees through training in tolerance. Now the person who dares make a moral judgment is commonly greeted with a response such as, “You’re a bigot. You’re judgmental. What gives you the right to say that? Who do you think you are?”
2. The truthfulness of what one says is no longer the issue. One’s right to speak the truth is jeopardized by “positive tolerance.” The Bible is not quoted much in public anymore because its content is regarded as bigoted and anti-multiculturalism.
3. Multiculturalism has also changed. It is no longer confined to racial issues. It now is the application of tolerance to culture in such a way that all cultures are equal in belief, values, lifestyle, and truth claims. If you deny this, you are regarded a bigot. (Francis Schaeffer warned more than four decades ago that we are moving from a post Judeo-Christian culture to an anti-Judeo-Christian culture.) We are now at a point where we have gone from the Christian view being dominant in American public life to it not being tolerated in public. The most dangerous person in America now is the Bible-believing Christian who says there is such a thing as right and wrong for everybody.

The tolerance intended by our forefathers was based upon God’s absolute truth.

When considering the dual definition of tolerance, there is no intelligent way to discern between them without appealing to absolute truth. By “absolute” is meant that the truth of God’s infallible Word is universal and unchanging. It applies to all men everywhere and it always will do so. No man has ever taken a “moral holiday” from God. God’s moral government will be in force in both heaven and hell. The righteous man utters, “Oh, how I love Thy law!” God’s moral law is revealed in His Word, and it is also an unchanging standard that is written on the conscience of man (Rom 2:15). Due to the fact that sinners suppress the truth of God and sear their consciences by presumptuous acts of sin, there is a constant need to sensitize and educate the conscience of man by means of the Word of God.

There is a hideous and rapacious beast on the loose called “lawless love.”

Scripture demands that human dignity, life’s sanctity, and love’s boundaries are founded upon God’s laws. Lawless love is the patent denial that justice is inseparable from Christian love (Micah 6:8). Consider the following contrast between biblical love and the lawless “love” espoused by positive tolerance.

1. Under “positive tolerance” justice is regarded as the enemy of tolerance because justice demands a moral base apart from oneself to discern right from wrong. (By contrast the new tolerance says that there is no universal moral basis for right and wrong. The Bible teaches that the moral basis for right and wrong is both fixed and outside the individual; it resides in God and His immutable Word.)
2. The new tolerance and justice cannot coexist because justice requires moral judgment. (The tragedy is that younger folks are not insisting upon justice!)
3. The new tolerance says, “I must be indifferent when it comes to values and lifestyles. I must not impose my values on another. I must not make moral judgments.” The values of the new tolerance can be summarized as follows:
   1. The moment you are not indifferent regarding values, truth claims, and lifestyle, you have crossed the line into bigotry.
   2. You are biased, prejudiced, and discriminatory if you care enough to make a moral evaluation.
4. By contrast, Christian love says, “I must act and speak truth in love. So if I see someone in a destructive belief or lifestyle I will stop to speak truth in love. Therefore, positive tolerance is opposed to Christian love! (because Christian love makes a moral judgment). Jesus exposed the lifestyle of the woman at the well (John 4) as a sinful lifestyle—what He did in confronting her was love!
5. Truth and morality cannot exist separately. History is filled with a record of the tragic consequences of attempting ethics apart from God’s truth. Oppressive regimes have always sought to set aside the truth of God’s moral government in order that they might have uncontested power. Pol Pot of Cambodia taught evolution in order to do away with the concept of God. The dictator’s motive, by his own admission, was to make the state the supreme authority—the holocaust known as the “killing fields” was the result. (Other examples of ethics attempted apart from God’s truth include the following: the French Revolution, fascism, and morality by popular opinion resulting in infanticide and euthanasia. Moral chaos, anarchy, and sexual perversion thrive in a climate of “ethics” without truth.)
6. In our present culture, moral relativism resembles a shoreless sea without the safe anchorage of God-ordained ethics. The result is countless shipwrecked lives.

Having rejected God’s truth as a moral compass, the pseudo-ethic of positive tolerance offers itself as a means of moral navigation. The tragedy is that untold numbers of lives are led into the path of destruction by this faulty compass. Immorality reigns under this erroneous definition of tolerance. Guilt, misery, and enslavement to sin comprise the tragic consequences.

Love that is not established upon the foundation of truth is incapable of

coming up with its own ethics.

When all values, truth claims, and beliefs are equal, you lose the ability to choose right from wrong. This is because if all views are equal, then it doesn’t matter which one you choose. They have no substance and they are inconsequential. One’s beliefs have nothing to do with the real world of cause and effect. We see this clearly in our Christian youth.

1. Today there is no connection between belief and behavior. There is a gaping chasm between theology (Christian beliefs) and behavior.

a. EXAMPLE: Josh McDowell brought the sharpest young people to the front of a church he was visiting. He asked, “Would you lie to get out from under a situation? 204 of the 209 said that they would lie.

b. But here is the shocking part, 99% of the kids said lying was wrong, but said, “I’d do it anyway.”

2. It is devastating to have young people say that something is wrong because mom says it is wrong. It is inadequate moral preparation for adult life. (Among those who give young people moral instruction, the common approach is to cite the precept, “The Christian religion requires that you do not lie, after all, the Bible says, ‘Thou shalt not lie.’” As McDowell cautions, “[At best,] we are [preparing] a whole generation to live by legalism.” We say “at best” because most likely most of these youth will not be in church once out of the home.

Without God’s truth, there is a radical loss in moral discernment.

When young people only discern right from wrong by precept or commandment, they are inadequately grounded. Without a foundation in God’s truth, pragmatism and sentimentality can easily cloud the discernment needed to make right ethical choices. Moral relativism has so fully permeated our culture, we can no longer successfully train our youth in ethics by using dated and unscriptural methods.

1. We cannot preach the way we preached before the age of positive tolerance.
2. The old way of instructing in morals was, “It is wrong because God says, “Thou shalt not . . . .” But, culture has changed so radically, we can no longer do our moral instruction the old way. The old way is lacking in moral authority. The precept is not simply “one among many equally valid claims.” It is THE truth, the one and only truth!
3. We must show our young people that right choices depend upon knowing absolutely right from wrong, and right from wrong depends upon knowing the truth.

In order to teach right from wrong, one must teach the truth.

Culture has changed; relativism has ushered in a deadly perspective that believes we no longer have morality, only differing opinions.

When we teach morality, we tend to start with a precept. But, if you stop with a precept, you are left with moralism (which can easily become legalism). We must communicate the fact that behind every precept is a moral principle (a broad standard or norm).

God’s moral principles are grounded upon His absolute truth.

1. What is absolute truth?
   1. It is true for all people, in all places, at all times. It is constant and unchanging.
   2. It has an objective basis outside of self. God and His Word are an unchanging (immutable) reference point external to us.
   3. Truth is to be distinguished from personal standards. (EXAMPLE: Different sets of parents have different policies for their children when setting the time of curfew.)
2. There are two models of truth.
   1. God establishes absolute truth (absolutism).
   2. Man determines truth (relativism).
3. When asked to give the definition of truth, only 4 out of 7000 Christians could do it. Truth is that which corresponds with reality. Another definition found in Webster’s Dictionary is: “Truth is that which has fidelity to an original.”
   1. EXAMPLE: If I say that I have a one-liter container, and someone says, “No you don’t!” Truth can settle the matter. “Fidelity to an original” comes into play when I take my container and my friend to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures to measure my liter against the original liter. There is fidelity if my container is equal to the original.
   2. The “original” is the unchanging reference point.
   3. Ethics can’t operate without truth (situation ethics demonstrate that ethics divorced from truth cannot provide an immutable standard).

Right from wrong is nothing less than the revelation of God’s righteous character.

Something is right or wrong because it is true in God.

1. Why does the Bible say, “You shall not murder?” The reason is because God is life. He is the source and giver of life. The command flows from and is the expression of God’s very Person and nature! It is the life of God that gives sanctity to life. We are to pursue sexual purity because God is pure and holy.

2. Because our culture has adopted the twisted values of relativism and postmodernism, we must now teach biblical morality the Scriptural way; by connecting the command or precept to the Person of God.

3. When it comes to teaching right from wrong, the Scriptures never disassociate the precept from the divine Person. Josh McDowell offers the following paradigm for understanding how we should present moral truth:

a. Level One – is PRECEPT (a specific moral command)

b. Level Two – is PRINCIPLE (or broad moral principle)

c. Level Three – is PERSON (behind every principle is the Person and character and nature of God Himself.)

4. Without level three, you are left with moralism (or legalism).

The character of God is the basis for discerning right from wrong.

Right and wrong do not change, because God’s character does not change.

1. Our moral foundation has a truth foundation. “Fidelity to an original” is fidelity to the very nature and character of God.
2. God’s commands are not for Him, but for us. They are for our good. They are to protect us and to provide for us. They are the safeguard of love. EXAMPLE: Like an umbrella, if you remove yourself from obedience, you remove yourself from protection and provision. (On a hot summer night, a high school athlete walked past a sign that said no entry, danger, no trespassing. He climbed over a fence with a girlfriend. In the dark she saw his silhouette dive off the diving board into an empty swimming pool. He was paralyzed for life.)
3. We must teach our young people that God’s moral absolutes flow from His love to us. He is trustworthy. He wants to provide for us and protect us.

Because we live in a moral universe, love is impossible apart from delayed gratification.

Instant gratification by indulgence of our lusts destroys love of God and neighbor. Selfishness is the enemy of love. When the lower nature is allowed to set the standard of our moral conduct and behavior, sin and bondage are the result. Love is guarded by the ethical boundaries God has established in His moral law. Part of the deceptiveness of positive tolerance is found in its attempt to define freedom in terms of throwing off God’s moral standard. Jesus reserves some of His sternest warnings for this kind of error (see John 8:34-44, also see 2 Pet 2:18-22).

Young people tend to make choices that are based upon immediate return.

1. There is a paradox associated with moral choices:
   1. Most right choices have immediate “negative” consequences (sacrifice, planning, delayed gratification, self-denial, peer disapproval, etc.)
   2. Most wrong choices have immediate “positive” consequences (temporal pleasure, peer acceptance, false sense of freedom, etc.)
2. In the long run, there is a total reversal of consequences. Wrong choices bear more and more bitter fruit and right choices produce ongoing well-being.
3. The reason for the above truth is the character of God. This is a moral universe ruled by a holy God. Therefore, the universe is built upon delayed gratification, not indulgence.
4. Purity and chastity is power because self-control and love are virtues solely found in those who are living free. It takes God’s truth and God’s strength in order to live free. Our entire identity is bound up in the fact that we were created in the moral image of a holy God. Sin is deadly because it is a distortion of God’s image. Man as image-bearer of God lives in a universe that is not now normal. Death, decay, suffering, injustice, and disease are reigning because of sin (Rom 5:12-21). Not until sin is dealt with will these byproducts of sin be expunged from creation. Thus we proclaim from the rooftops, there are two paths, two kingdoms, two masters, two destinies! If we trust our sinful preferences, we will remain in a state of darkness and deception. By nature we are part of the problem, but through Christ we can be part of the solution.

Youth can’t see the result of choices long term.

1. In order to make the sacrifices that are inseparable from right moral choices, young people must be taught that God loves them in Christ and that God is trustworthy.
2. This is the only way that they can be equipped to make consistent right choices. We must show them that they are to walk through the maze of life by the precepts of a trustworthy God, even when they cannot see the immediate results. EXAMPLE: Josh McDowell uses the following illustration when teaching young people. He speaks to the young person who has been blindfolded: “You know me, you trust me. Now start walking. I will get you safely through this maze, telling you when to stop and turn.”
3. Though we can’t see the results of right choices in the immediate, God sees the end from the beginning.
4. In summary, when instructing, counseling, and discipling our youth, we must not stop at level one or two. We must move from precept to principle to the Person of God. Each moral choice needs to be anchored in the Person and character of God. EXAMPLE: Using all three levels, how would you respond to the phrase, “If you loved me, you would sleep with me.” The precept says, “Flee sexual immorality” (1 Cor 6:18). The principle is God’s standard for sex is based upon love, purity, and faithfulness (within marriage). The personlevel states that God is love, pure, and faithful.

Connecting belief and behavior.

1. We must now show our youth how beliefs are consequential in the real world, that there is a cause and effect relationship between beliefs and behaviors that have good or bad consequences. God’s moral standards are not only based on truth, they apply to them in a practical way. We must show them what truth can do for them.
2. We show them the practicality of the truth when we show them how God’s standards protect them from harm and provide for their well-being. God’s commands are for our good. “And now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good?” (Deut 10:12-13, NKJV). God’s commands are not arbitrary. They serve a practical purpose. He never gives commands like, “You shall paint your right ear lobe green.” The apostle John declared, “And His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3b). He never tells us to walk twice as far as we need to go just because He commands it. No, all of His commands have a practical purpose. They are for God’s glory and our good.
3. In the example of illicit sex, God’s standard of purity protects them from guilt, unplanned pregnancy, STDs, and emotional distress. Sex with marriage provides spiritual rewards, optimum environment for raising children, peace of mind, truth, true intimacy.

We must know how to teach the truth to our youth.

The Holy Scriptures provide the content, method, and example for teaching truth to our youth.

1. By relationship, example, and truth.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord [is] our God, the Lord [alone] [Truth]! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength [Example]. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart [Example]. You shall teach them diligently to your children [Truth], and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up [Relationship]. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” [Truth] (Deut 6:4-9, NKJV).

1. Rules without relationship = rebellion. Parents, use the following questions as a self-test to see how you are doing in relating with your youth:

· When was the last time you laughed together?

· When was the last time you cried together?

· Do you know what his/her current favorite song is?

· Do you know who he/she sits with in the school cafeteria?

· When did he/she last seek your advice?

· When did you last forget or cancel a commitment to him/her?

· Do you more often ask questions of or make statements to him/her?

· Have you recently admitted a mistake or fault to him/her?

· What do you know—really know—about his/her spiritual life?

1. The answers to such questions help reveal the depth of your relationship with your child and may suggest places to start deepening them right now.

An Addendum on Postmodern Tolerance

Understanding postmodernism is essential if we are to make an accurate assessment of our times.

Postmodern (PM) tolerance is having a disastrous effect on moral virtue in our society. Its corrupt fruits are seen in divorce, recreational fornication, homosexuality, abortion, profanity, and perversion. These sins are defended in the name of tolerance and freedom.

On the worldwide web there are numerous sites filled with bitter anti-Christian material. These are often the same sites that are promoting tolerance. Why is there such ferocious opposition from the “paragons” of tolerance? The reason is because the truth claims of Christianity (which are absolute and exclusive) are the death-blow to postmodernism which is simply a cloak for intellectual and moral self-government (i.e., self-centeredness, self-worship, idolatry).

This casting-off of the Christian worldview for the purpose of moral "liberation" is explicitly admitted by one of the "fathers" of postmodern thought, Aldous Huxley:

“I had motive for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics, he is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do, or why his friends should not seize political power and govern in the way that they find most advantageous to themselves. . . . For myself, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political.”

-Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means, pp. 270 ff.

A theory we have as to the motivation behind the postmodern tolerance view is that when people think of positive tolerance they primarily have in mind sexual freedom. Firstly, homosexual rights and acceptance in Western culture and, secondarily, other deviant lifestyles surrounding sexual immorality like pornography, abortion, fornication, adultery, transsexual/transgender lifestyles seem to be the driving motivation. We believe in the near future that we are going to see this emphasis on tolerance of sex sins spread into even more vile sins such as pedophilia, incest, bestiality, orgies, and public sex acts. It is quite plausible to believe that positive tolerance is really an irrational and demonic defense for an exploding sexual revolution in our culture.

Positive tolerance has become our culture’s highest virtue and coming alongside that is a heightened value placed on sexiness. Being sexy has become most fashionable. Case in point, at a recent awards ceremony Madonna and Brittany Spears kissed on stage (this was planned in advance). We must be reminded that sexiness is not a virtue, it is a vice. It doesn’t have God’s approval but His condemnation. (Flaunting one’s sexual parts in public certainly could be considered a form of sexual harassment!)

Romans 1:18-32 demonstrates that the progression (or, more accurately, regression) into sin is marked by sex sins. We can parallel the steps into moral degradation in Romans 1 with what we witness in our own society in the last 100 years. In verse 18 we recognize that we have entered upon the wrath of God, being given up to our sins, as a society by the following:

· Step 1 – v.18b, Suppression of the truth. We removed the Bible and God from public thought (beginning with higher criticism then on down to the public schools—early 20^th century and up to the fifties and sixties).

· Step 2 – v. 21-22, Futile thinking—nihilistic worldview, existentialism, postmodernism, relativism, etc. filled the void left by the removal of a Christian theistic worldview (early 20^thcentury up to the present).

· Step 3 – v. 23, Change of focus from God to the creaturely world—materialism, consumerism (beginning in the fifties and on up to the present).

· Step 4 – vv. 24-25, Sex sins increase along with an increase in materialism (the sixties, the sexual revolution and up to the present).

· Step 5 – vv. 28-ff., The rise of sins of every kind; moral anarchy.

In the midst of such moral chaos, Christians must not be duped or intimidated. We must retain confidence in the power of God who stands behind His unbreakable Word. We must remain bold in proclaiming Christ as the only hope for people in the world. It’s vitally important that we rise above the confusion—there is a source of absolute truth; it is outside of us, it is true no matter how you feel (Ps 119:151; John 17:17).

Postmodernism says there is no such thing as knowable absolute truth. Truth is only the creation or construct of the human mind. Therefore, there is no religion superior to anyone else’s. Right and wrong cannot be based on theology, but “what I believe is right for me.” In other words, truth has now become preference, and these preferences are determined by a perverse and wicked human nature.

In postmodern thinking, confident faith is demonized while skepticism is enthroned. Strong convictions are equated with intolerance. If a person has strong convictions he may even be compared to terrorists because he wants to persuade people to adopt his own convictions.

Postmodernism leads its proponents into extreme irrationalism. To know absolute truth is considered arrogant. Dogmatism about the truth is regarded as bigotry and pride. PM tolerance is highly irrational. PM views two contradictory propositions as simultaneously true! By contrast, the Word of God indicates that whatever contradicts truth is error (1 Tim 6:3, 4). This is the law of non-contradiction (A cannot be non-A in the same way and at the same time.). Human history has unequivocally held to it and still does in all realms with the exception of the current moral and ideological anarchy. In other words, in all areas of human endeavor like science, medicine, engineering, driving, sports, etc., we use the law of non-contradiction. Only in the moral and ideological realm (namely the metaphysical) do we seem to allow the law of non-contradiction (and other laws of logic) to be violated.

Scripture truth is unchanging because God is unchanging (1 Pet 1:25). Repentance is the only proper and rational response to postmodern thought. Our thoughts and affections must be adjusted to God’s invariable truth.

Postmodernism attacks the clear meaning of Scripture, suggesting that God’s Word to humanity has countless meanings for countless people. The Word says the opposite. Scripture has one meaning. That meaning is perspicuous (having clarity). It is not “whatever it means to me” (2 Pet 3:16).

The Word of God is the starting point and final test of truth. The Scriptures, being the infallible Word of God, are totally rational because God is the only source of rationality. Without God one cannot explain the origin of rationality.

The natural man (a person not born again) is at war with the truthfulness of God (Rom 1:18). He or she does not receive God’s truth. It is regarded as foolishness (1 Cor 2:14) because the natural man is darkened in his thoughts and driven by a relentless lust for autonomy.

We must recover our love of biblical truth and the conviction that it is unassailable truth (2 Thess 2:13-17). We must proclaim it, for it is a sin to keep it to ourselves (2 Cor 5:11-21).

God is Building a Kingdom of People whom He has enabled to Choose Right from Wrong (Titus 2:11-14).

God’s plan for the recovery of fallen mankind involves the writing of His laws on the hearts of those saved by Christ. This not only means that the conscience is tuned to God’s moral will, it also means that the desire to obey God’s law is stamped upon the hearts of the redeemed. Right moral choices become a function of having been set apart by and in Christ. God-glorifying ethical living is the expression of a new nature that is empowered by God’s Holy Spirit. Christians are not establishing their identities by right moral choices, instead their ethical conduct is the manifestation of who they really are. Thus their transformation by God’s truth and daily righteous living is a function of them becoming what they really are in Christ, sanctified by truth.

The following words from the Lord Jesus interceding for His elect are a most fitting benediction to end with:

“I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As you have sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth” (John 17:14-19, NKJV).

[1][1] Jay E. Adams, A Call to Discernment (Eugene, Ore.: Harvest House, 1987), 31.

[2][2] Ibid., 29.

Porn’s Secret Death Wish

Man is a creature made for God: God is both the source and fulfillment of man’s greatest longings. But because man is estranged from God due to sin, he looks for the fulfillment of his deepest soul’s needs in the creature and the creation (nature), instead in the Creator (Romans 1:25). Man’s whole purpose on earth is bound up in God, but when sinful man lives alienated from God, Who is the source of all life, death is the result Romans 6:23). By reason of sin, the human condition is one of ruin and confusion -- man seeks theBYPRODUCTS of a love relationship with God while rejecting God who is the only true source of peace and joy. According to Scripture, to take God-ordained longings (which only God can fulfill), to finite sources is self-destructive and tantamount to idolatry (see Colossians 3:5,6). Man by reason of sin is cut off from God who is the source of all life, love and good. The conviction that man may have his deepest needs met apart from a right relationship with God is the great delusion of every age. Man lives in a moral universe because God is holy: God’s character is excellent, righteous, wise and loving. God’s law is the perfect expression of His righteous character. If God were on earth as a man, He would keep the 10 commandments perfectly. This is precisely what Jesus did. God’s law is therefore NOT AN ARBITRARY STANDARD. By way of example, if God were to people a planet in a distant galaxy, He would not have a different set of moral laws than on earth, He would not even have the option! The reason being, His laws are the perfect manifestation of His immutable righteousness – He cannot and will not deny Himself. God is both love and holiness. Man is to be a moral reflection of this union of love and holiness. The two are necessarily joined -- genuine love must operate within a fixed ethical framework (emotion is not a reliable guide). When God gave the 10 commandments, He organized the moral code into two tablets. The first tablet (commandments one through four), addresses man’s relationship to God – “the vertical.”The second tablet (commandments five through ten), addresses man’s relationship to man – “the horizontal.” Have you ever wondered why even atheists agree that if everyone kept the 10 commandments it would be “heaven on earth?” The reason for this sentiment is that they recognize that the 10 commandments are the perfect safeguard of love. God’s Decalogue is the protective hedge around love and trust. Here is where man’s ruined condition and God’s standard come into mortal conflict. God says in effect, “As your Creator, I have an absolute claim upon your life. I know what is best for you. My laws are the path of life. When you disregard my laws, you abuse My good gifts and bring destruction upon yourselves.” Man in his rebellion, is trying to get his needs met apart from God and His holy law. Man in effect says, “I will fulfill my longings, even if my effort to do so violates your laws. My effort to satisfy my desires and needs my way is so important to me, I choose to decide what is right and wrong for myself.” When that rebellious direction is followed, man’s longings become ruling lusts and God’s gifts are perverted into idols. The reign of moral relativism: The terrorist attack of 9-11 caused our sleeping nation to roll over, but not to awaken from its slumber on the bed of moral decadence. Our nation’s sleep is deep – its narcosis is induced by the drug of moral relativism. In these post-modern times, Americans seem oblivious to history’s next ineluctable lesson. History is a consistent teacher, but a harsh one when her lessons are repeatedly ignored. Consider the regimes that have tried to construct utopian societies apart from God’s law and authority. Though the word “utopia” was written above the gates to those new societies, those who entered found them to be a slaughterhouse of human souls. Marx was wrong about God and human nature – the result was the death of 100 million individuals. Consider just how powerful a philosophical lie can be, for it is the marketing of a lie that fuels revolutions that are heinous. As the popular NRA saying goes, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” So also it could be said, “Dictators don’t produce holocausts, lying ideologies do.” America is perched upon the precipice of its own demise because it has ingested a lying ideology. The deadly philosophy she has swallowed is dulling the moral sensibility of America’s citizens. The “toxins” from this ideology are traveling through her system and landing in the minds public school students. Like the disgusting creature in the movie Alien, whose offspring fed upon the internal organs of its host, so also moral relativism is consuming the moral consciousness of this nation. The relativism of post-modernism is eating away at the conscience of its host. The lie seems at times to be unopposed by bulk of corporate America – the fashion industry recasts the lie in its latest ad campaigns. A new generation of pre-teens is exposed to the lie by way of videos, music, magazines and fashion. The content of the lie is as follows: “Freedom is only possible when there are no moral absolutes. Those who make moral judgments rob others of their freedom.” To those untrained in morality who have yet to develop critical thinking skills, the lie sounds like the Magna Charta of personal liberty. Now, accompany the lie with music, film, starlets and fashion and it is even more irresistible. The lie is insidious in nature – it functions like a deadly parasite, gradually desensitizing moral perception. Situation ethics – a fruit of moral relativism: Without a point of moral fixity, ethics flow from the dictates of self. This sounds reasonable at first blush, but it opens the door to both anarchy and oppression. Ethics that flow from self are subject to the passions of the person. Monstrous crimes have been committed by those who in their own minds were simply evening the score. The example of a disgruntled postal worker who guns down a coworker may sound extreme at first, but it effectively illustrates the following principle: Situation ethics allow a person to make up his own “morals” as he goes. This is a totally tenuous arrangement – one person’s standards of decency may be viewed as discriminatory by another who regards sexual license to be a protected right. By that test of fairness, the lowest common “moral” denominator sets a standard that permits and protects sexual license. This is precisely the morass in which America is mired. Without a fixed moral rudder America founders on a sea of moral relativism. Sex has been yanked from its moral context. Smut, perversion and indecency are defended as “free speech.” God’s gifts have the potential of being perverted and misused: God’s moral commands form the context that protects His gifts from perversion. When God’s gifts are removed from their moral contexts, corruption takes place. The phrase, “sex is beautiful” is an unqualified statement. It has not been qualified by its God-given context. Without the divine qualifier, the statement is too inclusive. A Filipino teenager selling her body to help feed her family is the polar opposite of beautiful. To those with a conscience informed by God’s commands, the account of the teenage prostitute evokes moral outrage. An example from the natural world can help illustrate the principle of moral context: It’s not a crime to ignite the logs in one’s cabin fireplace, but it is a crime to place a lit match in the dry chaparral thirty feet away. The warm, comforting fire in the fireplace becomes an unbelievably destructive force when moved into the context of the nearby forest. Context is the difference between a legal and an illegal fire. Context is the difference between sexual fidelity and sexual immorality. When God’s gift of sex is removed from its protective context, great damage takes place. God, the Giver of the gift of sex knows its potential for good or evil: Humanism views morals as merely social mores that reflect statistical analysis (belief about good and evil is seen as nothing more than the prevailing moral opinion of the day). Humanism regards man, not God, to be the source of morals. Social Darwinism has a low view of morality, considering it to be a pragmatic function of society’s survival. By contrast, the Christian worldview espouses a self-evident moral consciousness in man that evinces the righteous nature of the Creator. God’s laws resonate with the moral dictates He has written upon the conscience of man. God’s moral mark is stamped upon the human race. Therefore, morals and ethics are anchored in the moral authority of God. Though humans labor to suppress it, God’s moral absolutes are written upon their hearts (See Romans 2:11-16). God is the “inventor” of human sexual relations. He alone knows exhaustively its potential for good or evil. For mankind’s protection, God commands that sex remain within the context of marriage. Within that God-ordained context, it retains its beauty, power and sanctity, guarded by the bonds of marital fidelity. Sex is a powerful force because it touches the physical, the emotional and the spiritual. By God’s design, the “act of marriage” is intended to reinforce the bond of marriage. It functions as a kind of “glue” that deepens experientially the “one flesh” description of marriage given by God in His Word (Matthew 19:4-6). During the act of marriage, the husband and wife are reminded of their bond in a beautiful way. Soul, body, spirit and emotions are involved in the affections of the marriage bed. Mutual trust and surrender are hallowed and blessed with pleasure that is mutual, not narcissistic. Herein resides its power for bonding two people. God regards it sacred for this reason as well as for its procreative purpose. Illicit sexual relations also touch all three areas of our human unity – this is the very reason that sexual immorality is destructive. Because the spiritual, the emotional and the physical are involved even in sexual immorality, a kind of “bonding” takes place, however fleeting. Sexual sin therefore, is antagonistic to the bonding principle that is built into the act of marriage. Promiscuous relationships fly in the face of God’s design for lifelong marital fidelity. Sexual immorality is the misuse of God’s good gift: The perversion of a God-given virtue or gift entails the wanton use of it – wanton because it is used outside of the context prescribed by God. God regards the perversion of a virtue to be an “idol.” By the use of the word “idol” is not meant graven image. The term has reference to where a person goes with his whole being in search of fulfillment. The biblical use of idol, when not referring to a graven image, has more to do with a false integration point (an integration point – what a person regards to be a source of unity, purpose, satisfaction and peace). Man was made for God – Scripture declares that He alone is man’s source of life, unity and integration. God’s gifts, when used as integration points, have the potential to become idols. (Man’s faculties of soul could be described as comprising the will, the intellect, the emotions and the conscience. Only God can integrate man so that these faculties experience a unity designed by the Creator.  Illicit sex is an extremely potent idol because it touches the areas of man’s unity, therefore it is a most convincing pseudo integration point. It appears to deliver unity – the emotional, spiritual and physical are all engaged during an encounter. Illicit sex is more powerful and addictive than a drug because its offer of integration is such a compelling counterfeit. (Scripture makes reference to sexual sins as the “lusts of deceit” – Ephesians 4:22.) When man the sinner attempts to write his own ethics, he fails to arrive at God’s immutable standard: It’s a fairytale to think that love is capable of coming up with its own viable ethics. The best it can do is situational ethics. In situation ethics, every case is considered upon its own merits apart from a universal absolute. When love and mercy are the only values out of which to construct one’s ethics, justice suffers in the process. Where laws are the most dogmatic in defending sexual immorality, the defense of the unborn is the weakest. (When ancient Israel became enmeshed in an orgiastic fertility cult, the sacrifice of living infants was the accompanying the result – see Jeremiah 32:35). In modern America, millions of unborn babies are “sacrificed” to the god of immoral sexual pleasure. Since the unborn child was not planned or wanted, permission is granted by the state to take its life. How did our nation arrive at the point where the innocent unborn are legally killed and murderers are spared the death penalty? The answer is that sinful man attempted to write his own ethics without God’s help. Without God’s moral authority, righteousness is trampled. Moral relativism does not seek to know what is universally right or wrong in God’s sight, it must invent its own basis for ethics. Ridiculous foundations for ethics have been suggested from that camp. Consider the following suggestions that have been proffered as a basis for ethical decisions: 1.) What will bring the most pleasure to the most people? If tested by that question, the blood sport of the Roman coliseum could be justified. 2.) Can it be done by the consent of those who participate? Sex between an adult and a child could be justified by the first two questions. 3.) Will it hurt anyone? Without God’s Word, the answer to number three can never rise above conjecture. The truth of Scripture is that the 10 commandments are the only immutable safeguard of love to God and neighbor. Break a commandment and love suffers. Violate a command and human dignity is invaded and diminished. Love and trust are injured in the process of violating God’s commands. Without accountability to God and His moral authority, man’s ethics will be distorted by self-love: There are no solitary infractions of God’s law. When one commandment is flagrantly transgressed, others are violated in the process. The person who feeds hate will find expression for it somewhere on the continuum of gossip, slander or violence. Breaking a commandment with impunity unleashes a mudslide of further egregious behavior. Without the first tablet of God’s law, which governs man’s love to God (the vertical), man is left with only his own passions and desires from which to construct his ethics. Once God’s moral authority is removed from the ethical process, there is an infinite void in authority that abhors a vacuum. Rushing in to fill that void is either the self or the state. In time, anarchy or oppression is the inevitable result. No amount of social engineering can tame the sin nature of man. For that very reason, ideal environments fail to produce perfect harmony among humans. Scripture asserts the reason why this is true – sinful man will not find within himself the motives or ethical will power to love his neighbor as himself. The necessary change must come from outside of the man. Only a divinely produced change in the man’s nature can cause a man to willingly come under the righteous government of God. (Scripture refers to this change as regeneration – Titus 3:1-7; Ezekiel 36:26,27.) Though God is transcendent from His creation, He is omnipresent at every point in His creation. When speaking of God’s power and knowledge, Scripture affirms that God is omnipotent and omniscient. For this reason, GOD IS MAN’S ENVIRONMENT. All that a man does is in the presence of God. All of our ethical behavior is first God-ward, then man-ward. Scripture asserts that violations on the horizontal plane (man-ward) are first and foremost against God Himself (Psalm 51:4) Without the first tablet of the law, with its reverential fear of God’s moral majesty, human ethics are only man-ward. Sinful man becomes accountable only to sinful man, not to God. The man whose conscience is informed by Scripture recognizes God as “reader” of his heart motives, thoughts and intentions. This is by design a powerful incentive to curb one’s lusts and to bring one’s desires into conformity with the immutable truth of God’s Word. Ethics that are solely man-ward fail to provide this immense dimension of moral accountability before the presence of God. Ethics that are merely horizontal are subject to wholesale corruption -- men conceal the contents of their hearts from one another. Deception, exploitation, manipulation and prevarication abound where sinful man is accountable only to himself or to another sinner. Pornography “promises” it users the fruits of intimacy without the risks of a relationship: Man the sinner, alienated from God, seeks the byproducts of a relationship with God while remaining estranged from Him. In that condition, man is an inveterate idolater. Pornography offers its viewers the byproducts of a committed, caring relationship without any relationship at all. Pornography is eros without phileo. It is the quest for erotic intimacy, without a personal relationship. Herein resides its power to degrade and corrupt. It pushes its users further into narcissism, idolatry, isolation and selfishness. The context God has ordained for sexual relations are a protection from the narcissistic use of pleasure. God has placed His good gifts within moral boundaries that safeguard them from decadent self-indulgence. The good feelings that accompany sexual relations are designed by God to be a pleasure that is experienced within the context of a committed relationship. The temporary high that drives the addiction factor: The media has given us shocking stories of husbands and fathers who after experimenting with cocaine became addicted. Their addiction did more than compromise their health, it radically corrupted their morals. They found that their addiction made them willing to lie, cheat and steal in order to supply their habit. What was it about the cocaine that could so quickly degrade the ethics of a married businessman? Insight into the answer is found in the drug-induced production of endorphins. Endorphins occur naturally in the brain in very small amounts – they are essential to a sense of well-being. Certain activities such as strenuous exercise increase the production of endorphins. Drug-induced production temporarily increases endorphins to the point where the user of cocaine experiences a strong sense of well-being, elation and confidence. Addiction takes place in part because the drug-induced increase in endorphins is not the result of work, rest or exercise – instead it is an instant high “for free,” not as a result of order, discipline or exertion. Cocaine addiction greatly impairs the normal production of endorphins. When the user is not under the influence of the drug, he is assaulted with negative emotions. While off of the cocaine, he feels far worse than before he ever started using the drug. The easiest and quickest “relief” from withdrawal is to get high again, no matter the cost (therein is the formula for rapid corruption of morals). Like the drug cocaine, pornography offers its users a deceptive reward – deceptive because the pleasure appears to be “free.” But there are hidden costs. Pornography is a symptom of masculinity in crisis: When sensual pleasure becomes its own end, it becomes destructive. God’s intent for males is that they pursue the redemptive ideal of steward, provider, hero, leader, caretaker and initiator. Men throw away this dignity when they descend the staircase of illicit sensual pleasure. When narcissistic eroticism replaces the redemptive ideal of a relationship of romance, manhood suffers in the process. Pornography functions as a two-dimensional idol that enslaves its worshippers through deceptive pleasure: Pornography is about VICARIOUS sex. Thus, it is an escape from reality. The user engages his imagination in such a way that he rejects his own adequacy, his own station in life and his own sexuality. Pornography offers an IDEALIZED sexuality with an IDEAL partner. When a man fantasizes about relations with a woman on the printed page or the screen, there is no relationship but with the self. By feeding lust and coveting the fruits of a relationship to the point of sexual arousal, the man is attempting to find fulfillment by way of auto-eroticism with a two-dimensional image. There is a price that comes with this escapism. Seeking the fruits of intimacy without actual intimacy produces guilt, shame and self-recrimination. Humanism would suggest that any guilt feelings that occur are the result of childhood conditioning. God’s Word declares that the guilt is real legal guilt before God (Romans 3:9-23). For man was made to be in relationship. Narcissistic passion is lust turned back upon the self, it is anti-relational – it is a rejection of God’s purpose for men. Manhood atrophies when self is the primary object of love. The use of pornography degrades a man’s character: Pornography sows to cowardice because it permits a man to grasp for what is not his. In his mind he can have it without risk, without commitment, without cost, without failure and without giving himself. When that is done habitually while reinforced with temporary pleasure, subtle changes take place in a man’s character. The female increasingly becomes an object that exists for one’s erotic pleasure. The world of sexual fantasy claims more and more of a man’s “mental geography.” Since the fulfillment that is implicitly promised is not really delivered, greater quantities of higher “potency” porn are often consumed. Many men become increasingly enslaved because of this principle of diminishing return. The comparison of porn to an addictive drug is not inaccurate. While a man is under the brief influence of porn’s pleasure and adrenaline rush, he does not feel the pain of his inadequacy, loneliness and self-hate. Like a drug, the titillation has taken him above the negative feelings for the moment. The trouble is his sensual self-indulgence is deepening his problem instead of relieving it. Dependency upon a quick fix is taking him further into a false peace, a cowardly lifestyle, and an escapist’s way of coping. This cannot help but stab at his relational failures and paralyzing inadequacies. In the realm of manhood, sacrificial love is power. Self-absorbed narcissism is radical weakness – this explains one of the reasons why porn fills a man with a sense of shame and impotence. Pornography frequently plays a role in sexual crimes: Dr. Victor B. Cline, who received his PhD. from Berkeley, is a marriage and family counselor. He makes the following observations about pornography use: 1.) 93% of sex addicts and sexual deviants had pornography as a contributor to their lifestyle. 2.) Men who are more intelligent are the most susceptible – it is due to their greater capacity for fantasy and imagination. 3.) Frequent use produced desensitization, loss of inhibition s and a seared conscience. 4.) Regular users experienced an increasing desire to act out the fantasies. 5.) The more deviant users precipitated to violent imagery depicting victimization and sexual crimes (Pornography’s Effects on Adults & Children, Morality in Media, Inc., New York, N.Y.). Because there is a stifling of conscience that repeatedly takes place during porn use, the corrupted conscience may cease to be an internal deterrent to crime. The desire to ACT OUT may override the function of the conscience. Criminal investigators know first hand what humanists often deny – namely that heavy porn use is a common denominator among pedophiles and rapists. Habitual porn use manifests a desire to live for eros pleasure WITHOUT LOVE. The person depicted in porn imagery is viewed as an object to be used, perhaps abused and then discarded. The sensual cravings of the user are commonly accompanied by enraged male impotence that is prone to violence (the aggression continuum runs all the way from verbal abuse to domestic violence, to rape, pedophilia and murder). Sex, when taken out of God’s protective context, has the potential for great destructiveness:Feeding upon wanton illicit sensuality contributes to the wholesale erosion of a man’s character. Men were created by God to be protectors – protracted illicit sensual indulgence can play a part in slowly changing a man from protector to predator. A passage in the Old Testament gives an account of a rape that took place during the reign of King David (2 Samuel 13:1-19). The account powerfully illustrates how the “glue principle” produces a tormenting, hateful reminder of sexual immorality. Amnon, a son of David, raped his half-sister Tamar after lusting for her day and night. Amnon pretended to be sick. He requested that everyone leave him and that Tamar alone enter his bedroom with food. When she entered his bedroom, he sexually violated her (he later paid for the wicked deed with his life when Tamar’s brother avenged the crime). Amnon’s lust for Tamar drove him to frustration and agitation UNTIL he could ACT OUT his fantasies. Then something remarkable happened. The Scripture says, “Then Amnon hated her with a very great hatred; for the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her. And Amnon said, to her, ‘Get up, go away,’ (and to his attendants,) ‘Throw this woman out of my presence’” (2 Samuel 13:15, 17). This is the “glue principle” in full backfire mode! Amnon is at war with the glue principle – he seeks to extinguish the reminder of the bond that resulted from his violent lust. Tamar’s presence and existence reminds him of the animal he is. When sexual pleasure is divorced from the discipline of love, the “discard principle” also kicks in with a vengeance. Amnon craved Tamar like some tasty cuisine to be consumed. After seizing her and violating her, she has become as undesirable as refuse. Amnon’s cowardly act involved using his male strength to prey upon another who was weaker. The shame, guilt, debauchery and self-contempt associated with this act will not go away – the memory of the illicit bond keeps producing “fallout.” What was once uncontrollable appetite is now revulsion. Amnon cannot rid himself of these internal recriminations – the sight and memory of Tamar only exacerbates the problem. This is one of the main reasons why many predators take the lives of their victims! When the glue principle is ripped out of context, the bond keeps kicking out new fallout that the perpetrator would like expunge. The New Testament also warns about the bond formed in sexual immorality: “Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a harlot is one body with her? For He says, ‘The two will become one flesh.’ But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body” (1 Corinthians 6:16-18). The media’s naiveté concerning sexual sin is truly astounding: The press, educators and the ACLU take pride in the fact that they are willing to face disturbing facts head on. The last thing they would dream of admitting is that they are sheltered, squeamish or naïve. This author would assert that when it comes to sexual immorality, they have no stomach for the truth. Because sexual immorality has been dignified, defended, legalized, protected and deemed a “human right,” the media is willingly blind to the moral principle of sowing and reaping. With the recent spate of child abductions, the issue of sexual predation has reemerged with intense interest. Why would a citizen who is a good neighbor with no criminal record abduct a child and murder her? The blindness of humanistic reason is pathetic. They cannot admit that man is a morally accountable being by divine design. They refuse to acknowledge that a man is responsible before God for indulging in sinful thoughts of sexual violence. They become tight-lipped when they hear that wicked fantasies can produce an overwhelming urge to act out the sins. When God’s moral absolutes are declared, they cry “That’s religion! Keep church and state separate! Do not judge!” In actuality they fear that someone’s ox will be gored if specific sexual sins are named. By surrendering to that fear, they have sacrificed all objectivity in the area of sexual immorality. By contrast, the Scriptures deal exhaustively with the activity of sin in the heart of man. The Bible shows us how sin is germinated, nurtured and birthed – Scripture “connects the dots” between a man’s thoughts and deeds (James 1:13-15). Here is where humanism is furthest from reality. The humanist worldview cannot explain the origin of morals or of evil, yet it proposes its worthless “solution” to human wickedness – behavioral psychology. By contrast, the Scriptures speak boldly about the transgressions that tear the human soul. The Bible can clearly trace the downward spiral to deviancy and bestiality (Romans 1:18-32). The Scriptures speak with comprehensive authority concerning the machinations of sin in the human mind and heart. Men reject God’s testimony, NOT because it does not correspond to reality, but because they themselves fear exposure by the light of God’s Word (John 3:19-21). Pornography is an “index” sin that marks the level of our nation’s descent into greater sexual permissiveness: In our land, the floodgates of sexual license have been opened because God’s protective context has been slighted. Sex has been made into a toy, an amusement, an indiscriminate pastime without boundaries. The sacredness of giving oneself solely within the context of marital bonds is considered outdated and passé. Instead, sexual expression runs like stagnant water in a barnyard ditch. Its beauty and spirituality are destroyed when its context is destroyed. Visual promiscuity has become a multi-billion dollar business that enslaves, corrupts and debauches its users. As pornography is devoured by consumers, the degrading cycle is furthered – lewdness for dollars. Every year more of America’s sons and daughters fall to the seduction of income in exchange for acts of lewdness in front of a camera lens. Houses of prostitution flourish next to outlets of pornography for the simple reason that lust stimulated by the visual demands physical expression. Without the consumer of pornography, the cycle of smut production could not continue to grow. The lies inherent in pornography enslave, degrade and deceive: Porn contains lies about sex, women and the masculine self. As Scripture teaches, truth sets free, but lies enslave – Jesus taught this ineffable principle in the gospel of John (John 8:32-36). The lies inherent in pornography make it a cruel hoax. Instead of bringing fulfillment, porn erodes a man’s moral courage. It leaves a man less disciplined and less noble – it increases weakness, discontentment and guilt. Porn use eats away at a man’s boldness for the cause righteousness – it leaves him craven, hypocritical and morally unstable, less able to take an ethical stand. (The man who yields to this ruling lust becomes a sensual opportunist without backbone.) A man’s real search is for completeness and fulfillment of soul: While a man is wed to the idol of sensuality, he is blind to his true need. The immaterial, eternal soul of man CANNOT attempt to feed itself upon sensual pleasure without an enslavement factor. The eternal soul of man must have an immaterial, personal and infinite source in order to truly satisfy its longing. The selfish pleasures of illicit sensuality only mask the painful deprivation of soul – they steer a man away from God, the only true Source of completeness and fulfillment. Only God in Christ can love and comfort the soul and speak peace to it. Only the redemption that is in Christ can restore fallen man’s true humanity: The good news of the gospel is that even the worst sinner is not beyond the reach of God’s power and mercy. The Corinthians of the first century world were notorious fornicators, yet by God’s grace a church was planted in their midst. Many of the Corinthian believers who trusted Christ had a past of sexual degradation: “Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:9b-11). Christ has compassion for those who are weighed down with guilt and hopelessly entangled in sin. As the “Friend of sinners,” He calls the broken and ensnared to Himself and grants them forgiveness and repentance (Matthew 11:28-30). God’s moral mark is upon us. The only true freedom and dignity is found in Christ Who restores sinners to their created purpose of knowing God.