How Values are Created in Society

How many times have you heard a commentator on the radio, on the television, in a newspaper, on a blog? And the commentator says, you know, the major problem in this country is we have a problem with values. Well, what does that mean? We have a problem with values. Our problem is our core values. What does that mean? We hear it all the time. I'll give you a simple explanation of what values are, and then I want to discuss how values are created, specifically in society. You know, there's societal values, there's community values, there's personal values. Values are the principles that create your character. They're the principles that create your character. It is what you value. It is what you value. It's what you think is valuable. So there's big, giant sort of principles, ideas, that you say, those are valuable to me. And once you say they're valuable, they actually become who you are. That's why they're core issues. They become who you are. Because of that, you now base your standards on your values. Your standards are your measurable behaviors, your measurable behaviors. So we have values, these are ideas that we hold so important that they're part of who we are, and those values determine measurable behaviors. You can tell a person's values over time by their behaviors. Their behaviors will tell you what they value. I'll give you an example. If you say, honesty is a value to me. Now that's a big concept, honesty. But if you really understand honesty and explore its meaning, then that means you try to tell the truth. You try to tell the truth. It means in business dealings, you try to be honest with the people, which means that you're never trying to take advantage of anyone. It means that you are always not... you never try to cheat somebody in any way. So if you really think honesty is a value, it's going to equate and turn into measurable behaviors. If someone says, I really believe honesty is important, but their behavior is they habitually lie, they habitually cheat, they're always finding a way to get the edge, they're always finding a way to sort of cheat whether it's on their taxes or cheat on their tithes or whatever. They're always finding a way to do that. And you know that honesty really isn't important to them.

Their behaviors show what your real values are. But your values then will determine your standards or your measurable behaviors. We have a premise we're going to start with here. We believe that this book is the Word of God.

So we believe that God sets our values and therefore God determines our behaviors. If you try... I've seen people do this. I've seen people try to determine their behaviors with a different set of values. I've seen people live this way of life for 10 years and then give it up. I've seen people live this way of life for 20 years and then give it up. I've seen people live this way of life for 30 years and then give it up. I've seen people grow up in the church and they can't wait to get away from it as soon as they get to a certain age. The behaviors are forced upon them because they never make it part of their value system. They never value those things. If you don't value God and you don't value the same thing He values, eventually His standards of behavior will seem horrible to you. You'll hate His standards of behavior. And the reason you will hate His standards of behavior is because you don't value them. So if we value simple concepts like that we should, if you know, as someone who's in the church, marry someone who is in the church, and we value that, then that's what we will attempt to do. If we don't value that, we will do something else because the behavior will seem harsh. The behavior will seem unfair, and we will reject the behavior because we do not value it. And it comes down to everything. How many times have we seen people... let's take the concept of marriage. Marriage is a value. Biblical marriage is a value. Once you accept biblical marriage as a value, it determines your behavior. How many times do we see people divorced in the church? And the reason why is that marriage was not a value. Eventually, the requirements of marriage, the behaviors required for marriage, caused them to reject God's way. See, it happened all the time. Because if we believe marriage is a spiritual value, then it's different than just two people getting married so they can love each other and have children. There's a spiritual basis to the marriage. It is a value. So it's marriage value to you. It's marriage and family of value. Or is that a means to an end? For most people, marriage is actually a means to an end. It's not a value. How many of you have applied this to everything? If the Ten Commandments are not valued by you, they are oppressive.

They were oppressive using God's name in vain. It seems silly that you can't use God's name in vain. Come on. OMG is... it's silly to say that's wrong, right? But if you value God, then you're not going to use His name in vain.

Sabbath, all these things. How much do you value them?

So we have to talk about value systems in order to truly understand. We talk about behaviors all the time, and then people reject the behaviors. You will never, ever, ever accept the behaviors established by God until you value what He values. And this is what this comes down to. Either your own value system or God's value system. We have to choose which one we want. God's value system or our own value system. We must choose which one we want.

And if you choose God's value system, you will feel oppressed by the society you live in. You will feel oppressed by it. If you accept your own value system or society's value system, you will feel oppressed by God. So you have to understand, you're going to feel oppressed by somebody here. If you accept your own value system or the value system of the society, you will feel oppressed by God. If you accept God's value system, you will feel oppressed by society. And that puts us in a very awkward situation, because that means if we accept society's value system, your conscience will be bothered, if you know God's way. And if you accept God's value system, you will be oppressed by society. That's part of it. That's part of what you live in. That's part of the reality of it. So you know what we try to do as human beings? We try to live in both.

We have sort of this insanity that happens in us, and it really is. This insanity that says, I can value both at the same time. And I'll give you the ultimate expression of this insanity. The ultimate expression of this insanity is we must value the eggs of the fertilized eggs of birds, because they're almost extinct, but we do not value the fertilized egg of a human being, because it's just fetal matter.

From a value system, that is so bizarre. I call it insanity. It really is. It's insane. We value the birds, but we don't value the human beings. And you get angry if anybody says, well, no, that's a human being. No, it's not. Well, then that's not a bird. Yes, it is. It's insane. You're holding onto two values that are opposites at the same time. But this is what we try to do in the church. You know, before the feast, I know myself and the Sermon, the Sermonettes I've heard so much before the feast in this area, and I've talked to people it's been happening all over the church, and it was this way at the feast, too. At the feast, so many of the messages were about, get ready. Get ready. We can't play at this anymore. And that's true. That's true. We can't play at it anymore. Genesis 19 gives us a perfect example of someone who tried to hold onto two value systems at the same time.

It's Lot. Lot moves into Sodom. Sodom is a place that has zero values of God. Economically, morally, nothing. There's nothing there that's of God. And Lot comes in and does very well. In fact, there's an implication that he'd actually become a sort of one of the elders, one of the leaders in the community. And he tried to live God's way. But without even realizing it, he slowly, he and his family had begun to become affected by the society around them. So what happens? The angels come to visit Lot, and we get to verse 8 because these men come surround the place. We know what they're trying to do here. They want to participate in it. It really constitutes gang rape with what they think are two men. They're actually two angels. And Lot, who the Bible says is a righteous man, was on the verge of accepting both value systems at the same time so much that in his fear, he comes up with this bizarre solution to a problem.

See now, he tells this mob, I have two daughters who have not known a man. Please let me bring them out to you, and you may do with them as you wish. Oh, they do nothing to these men, since this is the reason they have come under the shadow of my roof.

Now, was this neat that he didn't love his daughters? Of course he did. This was a man who was petrified because he finally had reached a crisis point where he actually could not work out his value system because he had held on to two different value systems at the same time. And now the crisis came. Fortunately, the angels pulled him back and said, get out of the way. We'll take care of this. And they blinded everybody. They blinded everybody. Lot was fortunate. God saved him in this crisis. He couldn't reach the point where the crisis was so bad that he had accepted the value system of Sodom so much that God would have let him die inside. We know that he didn't. He saved Lot and his family out of that crisis. A few weeks ago, I gave a sermon on secular humanism as the spirit of this age. I want to go back to that sermon. Hopefully you remember at least part of it, where I went through and showed how the teachings of secular humanism have become the foundation of American education now for almost four generations. The result is that, whether it's most of the politicians of this country, business leaders of this country, the entire educational system of this country, especially at the college level, and unfortunately in many of the churches of this country, secular humanism has become the value system. It determines the value system more than God and the Bible. We have to be very, very careful because we live in Sodom. And if we're not careful, we're going to try to live in both worlds.

This sort of theme that started a few months before the feast, and sees the run through places in the church all over the place, is we have to understand how serious this is. But to understand it is more than behavior. It's more than behavior. Like I said, if you cheat on your tithes, why? It's because you have a problem with your value system, and tithing is not important to you. There's something more important. If you lie, why? Because lying gives you a benefit that you feel is more important, it's more valuable to you than not lying. We have to understand that the core is what do you value? What is your value system? Let me talk about some basic values that come from secular humanism. I talked about the teachings back here, for once, I guess about eight weeks ago. I talked about the teachings. Those teachings produce values. As I mentioned the values, you have to understand, human beings have it internally. We have a need to have values. We have a need to feel good about ourselves. Right? How many times have I sat with someone who has done something horrendous, and they said, but I'm a good person. I've sat with people in jail who have said, but I'm a good person. I'm really a good person. I just did this bad thing. We all have a need to feel good about ourselves, and that we do good, that somehow we are good. So, if we don't, we will make up a value system. Every human being has a value system. The Nazis had a value system. In fact, it felt very good to be a Nazi in 1938. You have to understand, it felt good to be a Nazi. They had a value system. Part of their value system was, you are superior than these other people, and it made them feel good. They now felt more valuable than people who were Jews or Slavs or Russians. They felt more valuable. The French and the English were almost as valuable as them, but not quite. You have to understand, that's a value system. It's a wrong value system, but it's what they saw as valuable.

So, everybody has a value system. Some people just value evil.

So, we have to say, what is God's value system? What are the principles that God builds on that leads to standards of behavior? If I force the standards of behavior, and I don't accept the values, eventually I'll give up the standards of behavior. I won't care. I'll do whatever I want.

You know, if it says, okay, the Bible says you shouldn't have sex with your girlfriend. Yeah, but hey, I like that better than, you know, I have more value than being with my girlfriend than I do with this God thing. So, that's what you do. Even when we momentarily have a lapse and we sin, because everybody sins, you know what we're actually doing? We're taking that momentary whatever benefit, we're saying this is more important to God, whatever it is. So, people decide that a boyfriend or girlfriend or freedom, whatever they describe as freedom, or, you know, doing whatever you want with the Sabbath, or whatever. You know, we just add all these things up, lying, cheating, stealing, fooling around. These things have more value to us in that moment. Now, repentance means you realize that with a sin you go through all this. Repentance is supposed to be a very painful process. As you realize, I compromised with what God values, and therefore, I did not value myself. I did not value God. What are the values that sexual humanism produces? So, I'm just going to quickly go through some values. I want you to think about this.

One of the values that the teaching of sexual humanism produces is that human nature is basically good. If you think that human nature is basically good, then you approach the world as simply as problems that can be solved with good, educated people. Remember how in secular humanism, the answer to everything is education? It's the answer to everything. Good is defined by being highly educated, and we can solve the problems. Now, the Bible says that all human nature is a mixture of good and evil. Now, we have a real value system problem. You see the world differently. In fact, if you see the world as basically everybody's good, then you don't want any laws at all. You don't need laws. Just love each other. How do you define love? Now it gets to be a problem. If you understand that every human being is a mixture of good and evil, you understand the need for the laws of God. In fact, there reaches a point where, once you accept this value system, you love the laws of God because why? They determine good. But we live in this world where we try to have both value systems at the same time. Yes, I love the law of God, but I really don't keep the law of God. So we have this insane value system, and it will drive us crazy. To try to hold on to both, you either one day have to give up one or the other. You have to, or you will go crazy. A second value of secular humanism is that all religious ideals are equal as long as they promote acceptance. We talked about that.

That means all religious ideas are equally good. This means the Bible cannot be valid. The Bible cannot be valid. Acts 4. Just show you one place in the Bible. This is why secular humanists will say the Bible should be studied, the teachings of Jesus, but even that, they throw out half of Jesus' teachings.

I'll show you in a minute how they do that. Acts 4 verse 8, "...that Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, rulers of the people and elders of Israel, if we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man..." They just performed a great miracle of healing. "...but what means that he has been made well? Let it be known to you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who have you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man stands here before you whole." This is the stone, close from the Old Testament, which was rejected by you builders, which became the chief cornerstone. Nor, verse 12, "...is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven, given among men by which we may be saved." Now, either that's true or it's not true. If it's true, there is no salvation through Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam.

There is no salvation. In fact, there is no salvation through modern Judaism either. No salvation, because they don't accept Jesus Christ as the Christ. Now, secular humanists would say, what a weird, perverted value system. You are prejudiced and filled with hate speech.

Prejudice is filled with hate speech to say that salvation can only come through Jesus Christ. And those are the things you're going to see secular humanists use over and over again, prejudice and hate speech. But you have to understand their values, and you have to understand, if you and I are going to fall into that, we're going to have to accept the value system God has given to us. Either this book is correct or it's not. A third value system. I find this interesting. If you think about it, I probably would have to go check through notes, and I went through all the basic tenets of secular humanism. This is one of the values that comes from those tenets. The major cause of crime is poverty. The major cause of crime is poverty. That's one of their values that come from their beliefs. Values come from beliefs. Standards come from values. Behavior comes from standards.

Now, in that, the secret to solving all crime is to give people more money. And you'll solve crime.

So, if you make everybody equal in the amount of money they have, there'll be no more crime. There's a real problem with that. And that is what the Bible says is crime, all crime, murder, theft, stealing. But there's other crimes mentioned in the Bible. Crimes. Lusting after someone in your heart. Pornography. It's a crime. Right? It's a breaking of the law of God. Is that not a crime? These are crimes. Hanging your brother is a crime. According to the Scripture, all crimes given by human beings comes because of selfishness and lust and greed, and because we have a corrupt human nature. No. If we just give people a higher standard of living, they'll stop committing crimes. If that was true, there would be no white-collar crime. Right? Some of the greatest crimes in history have been done by rich people.

But if they're a value system, once you accept the value system, understand something. Your standards and your actions will be because you believe the values are true.

You believe it. Your belief system has produced a value. It's at the core of who you are. If you truly believe crime is a product of poverty, then you will value what? You will value getting people out of poverty. Nothing wrong with that. But you started with the wrong belief. Now you value that. What will you be? Behavior. They take everybody else's wealth and give it to poor people so they won't be criminals anymore. Well, what about middle-class people who commit crimes? What do you do with those people? I guess you make them rich. I don't know what you do. Rich people make crimes. I guess you make them richer. I mean, what do you do?

A fifth value is that, well, a fourth one. This is number four. We talked about this as one of their basic tenets, and now this becomes a value. Remember, we talked about their beliefs, this now becomes a value. The ultimate expression of human freedom is sexual freedom. The ultimate expression of human freedom is sexual freedom.

Now, how does this turn into standards? How does this turn into standards? You all have heard about what happened over in Houston, right? Where they actually subpoenaed some servants given by ministers because they spoke out basically against homosexuality.

Now, does God love homosexuals? Yes. Like He loves anybody else. Did He want them to repent? Yes. Okay, you have to understand. There's none of us that God says, I'll take you just the way you are. What He says is, I'll change you from what you are. So that's what's important. That's what's important. No matter what the sin is, God forgives us and wants us to work through it and to change. So, homosexuals? God doesn't say, okay, you're all going to the lake of fire. Well, God says, change, or you will end up there. But God says that about everything. You know, when Paul lists all the sins of the New Testament, fornication, homosexuals, liars, all these people. And He says, and as were some of you. Well, we make the list of sins, and you're going to find that pretty soon there's a whole bunch of those lists in there, things that apply to you. So if I give you a big list of sins, eventually every one of us can pick out the ones that apply to every one of us. And as were such some of you. The point is, God expects us to change. Because the mayor wants my sermon transcripts, he doesn't have to. He can just come ask me, I'll tell him what I believe. Remember I said a while back, if they change the Constitution, I want my guns. They can have them, because guns are a right given by the Constitution, and they believe, not the Bible. But I tell you what, they can't take this away. They can't take this Bible away. They can't take away the truth of it. So we have to be willing to make our stand, but realize how serious this is, because this is way different than the belief that is becoming the common, and will soon be the overwhelming majority of people in this country will have secular humanist values, and they will believe that the greatest expression of human freedom is sexual freedom. And then the last value that I want to talk about is in this context, and I'm going to talk a little bit about the Bible here, but the answer to human emotional problems is higher self-esteem. Now that's an interesting concept, but it really is at the core of so much of secular humanism. The answer to all emotional problems is higher self-esteem. You just got to feel better about yourself. You know, that's not what the Scripture says. In fact, what the Scripture says is God wants to heal us because we're all a mess. So you know what the first thing God tells us with our emotional problems is, boy, you a mess. And I can help heal you of this, but the first thing you're going to have to accept is you're a mess. And the first thing secular humanists will tell you is not your fault. At the core of secular humanism is a rejection of personal responsibility. It's not my fault. It's somebody else's fault. Everything is somebody else's fault. It's not my fault.

And I just have to feel better about myself. And so they have lots of people who feel better and better about themselves and are more and more dysfunctional. More and more and more dysfunctional, but they feel better about themselves. Now God will help us feel better about ourselves because He'll give us value. But the value comes from Him. And that's another sermon I'm going to give some time here in the next year. Where our value must come from? This is so important in our children. Where does their value come from? Because if it doesn't come from God, then they're not going to accept His value system. And we have to teach children where their values come from. And where their worth comes from. If their worth comes entirely from themselves, then they will eventually reject God. They have no choice because their value comes from themselves. And that's the problem with the self-esteem movement. God just expects us to walk around feeling horrible and mad about ourselves all the time. We're worthless. It's where does the worth come from? Where does your worth come from? And it has to do with what do you value. You have to be honest about this.

Now, let's look at then what does these values produce? What are the standards, then, of conduct? What are the standards of behavior you and I see in society that are slowly becoming, if we're not careful, our standards also? They'll just become the way we think. They'll become the way we act. Just like Lot teetered here on, you know, moral ambiguity to the point when he's doing something that's so morally absurd, it's hard to even imagine. It's hard to even imagine. How did he get there? Well, he began to be absorbed into the world and not even know it. It's just so normal. It's normal for everybody else.

Here's some of the standards, then, that come from these values. One is a promotion of a pseudo-religion without a recognition of God's sovereignty. It's a pseudo-religion. All religions are okay. Where you sort of hang on to the part of the truth, but not all of the truth. You sort of hang on to the commandments, but not all of them. You sort of hang on to what you know are the moral standards of the Bible, but not all of them. You're always compromising. You're always on the edge of it. It's because when that happens, our value system has become murky, and we're beginning to value what the world values, which is exactly what the problem where Lot was. It cost him what? It cost him everything he owned, and it cost him his wife, because his value system got murky, and hers got murky, and the children got murky. You read the rest of Genesis 19. The family had real problems. We as individuals, we will do the same thing if we're not careful.

Look at 2 Peter.

2 Peter.

Interesting statement made by Peter about Lot. Verse 6, we're breaking in the middle of the 7th.

And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemning them to destruction, making them an example to those who were afterward would be ungodly. Now, to the secular humanist, he would say, this is a proof that the Bible, much of the Bible is not true. Because if there is a God, a higher being, you'd see those call it a higher being. They don't want to mention it specifically as the God, the ruler of the universe, the Creator. They don't want to accept that. So what they'll do is, this higher being, this thing out there, it is love, and it would never do this. See, pseudo-religion without recognition of God's sovereignty. The truth is that the God of the Bible, now you, we believe this or we don't. This is part of our value system where it is not. The God of the Bible says He is the Creator and ruler of the universe. He is the ultimate Creator of good, and He hates evil, and He will punish evil. It's that simple. He will punish evil in angels, and He will punish evil in human beings.

And He has the right to do that. Although, not a loving God. Here's the New Testament. This is what the New Testament says. That God destroyed Sodom as an example of how He will deal with unrepentant evil. The Bible is filled. You know what the main message of the Bible is? We're all evil. Let's repent. Repent, repent, repent. Change. Follow Me. I'll clean you up. I'll help you. I'll get you through it. It'll be up. It'll be down, but I'll make it. I get a reward for you. That's the message of the Bible. And then there's this little thing that comes along every once in a while, but if you don't, I will punish you. Now, there are short-term punishments God does when we refuse to respond. There is eternal punishment that comes when we reject Him entirely. There is a like fire.

Here, they suffered a short-term punishment because we understand there is a resurrection for these people, the great white throne judgment. Verse 7 says, "...and delivered righteous lot." He was delivered from that. But we see how He was just in between. He had been in the Sodom so long, He had sort of become absorbed in the Sodom some. But notice who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked. Remember I said, if you accept God's value system, you will feel oppressed by the world. And if you accept the world's value system, you will feel oppressed by God. You will feel oppressed by Him.

He thought oppressed by the society around Him, even though He was sort of softening. The notice for saints, for that righteous man dwelling among them, tormented His righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless needs. He was tormented by what He saw around Him.

That's why God saved Him. Even though He was in this moral ambiguity of time, God saved Him because He was fighting it. He was resisting it.

Verse 9 is a great promise to all of us. Then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations. Last week I talked about temptation. Mr. Henniger talked about temptation today and integrity. Last week I talked about the internal workings of temptation. What happens to us when we're tempted? Why we're tempted by some things? Why we're not tempted by others? Why that's different in different people? We went through this concept of temptations. But God can deliver us out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment.

There's something very encouraging here, and then there's a little warning message. You will be oppressed by the world if you follow God. If you don't feel oppressed by the world, it means you're probably not following God. If you feel oppressed by trying to live God's way, if you feel oppressed by Sabbath services, if you feel oppressed by other Christians, then you know what? You probably are absorbing the world's value system.

But he also gives that little warning that God will judge.

The second thing that these values of secular humanists will produce in terms of standards is that they will produce a lot of propaganda about family values, but they're actually redefining the family. So you can go to public schools and read little books about a little boy that has two mothers living together, and what it's like to have two mothers. Promoting what? Remember what the value is? The ultimate of human freedom is sexual freedom. That's the value. The value produces standards. What are the standards are? Measurable conduct, measurable behavior that promotes the values. Therefore, promotion of sex out of marriage, promotion of divorce, promotion of homosexuality, is righteousness. They have the same religious feelings in doing those things as we do in experiencing the worshiping of God. You have to understand that. The emotion they experience are the same emotions we experience to worship God, because all human beings have to have a value system. That's what's so hard to actually obey God, because God has to rip up the old value system. God has to rip up out of us the core of who we are to change us. Even that, if He doesn't rip up the core, then here's what happens. He gives us standards of behavior. We hate them. We hate those standards of behavior. They're oppressive. It keeps us from doing what we want.

And so we hate them, because they're not what we value.

The third, this is a very interesting one, because this one really becomes a feeling of righteousness. And I'm going to make a statement, but then I'm going to have to explain it, so you know what I mean. The overvaluation of nature while devaluating human life. Remember, if you don't have God's values as your moral compass, you have to create a set of values. And one thing that's central to secular humanism is the valuation, holding nature in great value. Now, I hold nature in great value. I'm a conservationist. I think we should conserve nature. And I think we should take care of what we have. I think people should take care of their property. I think we should have land that is not used, but is there for because it's natural. It should be used by others.

But you never value nature over humanity.

What actually happens, and this happened here a couple years ago, about two years ago, out in California, where a truck full of sea bass wrecked and dumped all the sea bass out on the road. You know, all these sea bass flopping around. And now there's one of the humane societies out there. It's actually trying to get the state to build a monument on the side of the road to all the sea bass who suffered and died. Because their suffering was as terrible as any human suffering that's ever happened. A monument to sea bass, they were, well, they said the most horrible thing is they were going to be taken and eaten. Now, here's what happens when you value this. You have to create a standard. What is your standard? Well, let's see. It's wrong to eat meat. Now, if a person decides to be a vegetarian for health reasons or whatever, that's fine. But the secular humanist will actually say, it's sin to eat meat. It's wrong. If other people eat meat, they are immoral.

They will say it is wrong to use animal skins. So if you have leather shoes, you are immoral because that leather came from an animal. Let's look at Scripture here in Genesis 2. These things, have you noticed how common these arguments are and how they're spreading? And then 10 years ago, the majority of people rejected these kinds of concepts. Now, they're becoming more and more common, partly because three generations in schools. So that now, this has become common beliefs. This has become societal norms. It's become the values. And those values are producing standards. There will come a time, as I said before, if secular humanism becomes the total velocity of this country, that it will be illegal for me to do weddings.

Because, or any of the elders to do weddings. You know why? Because we will refuse to do homosexual weddings. At that point, we can't do a legal wedding. Now, we can do a legal wedding before God, which is what matters. But you know, if you want the legal aspects of being married, you have to have a church wedding, then you have to go to a justice of peace and pay the government money to get a second wedding. That's going to happen if this continues.

If this continues, that's what's going to happen. Because the standards, the beliefs set up values would set up standards of behavior. And those standards will become what? Law. The standards become law. And eventually, they will replace all of God's laws. Have no God beforming. The secular humanists say that is oppressive and hate speech. Do not take my name in vain. Has no meaning to the secular humanists. Don't have idols. Well, that's oppressive and hate speech because whatever gives you your religious experience, so if you want to have idols, that's good and righteous thing. Keep the Sabbath day. Oh, you talk about oppressive. Everybody chooses what they think is holy. They will set up walls to actually go against those walls because their values just act opposite. Genesis 2.15.

Then the Lord took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. You and I do have a responsibility to take care of our environment. In fact, there are laws in the Old Testament specifically about how to take care of your animals. Someone who is cruel to the animals they own is breaking the law of God. We have a responsibility to take care of our environment, but we are not to value the environment over God and over humanity. And then there's another very fascinating verse in chapter 3 verse 21. Also for Adam and his wife, the Lord God made tutics of skin. They clothed them. Now whose skin did he use? He made animal skins for them. So you have to understand, to the secular human, though not all secular humanists are vegetarians, by the way. They like meat too much. Now they will support vegetarianism if that's your your religious beliefs, that it's good, that it's righteous. Once again, if you want to be a vegetarian because of health reasons or whatever, that's up to you. But it can't be a point of righteousness. It can't be a point of righteousness. Because God, because Jesus, ain't meat. Okay?

He ain't meat. So it can't be a point of righteousness. But also animal skins were used by God to clothe people. Through that example, we could use animal skins for clothing or for whatever or good reasons. Now, the way they slaughter animals today, in these huge slaughterhouses, and the way they feed them, that is inhumane. I oppose that. Can't stop it, but I think it's immoral.

But, eating meat is something that's given to us by God, using animal skins is something given to us by God. But if you have the overvaluation of nature, to the devaluation of human life, then you have that deliver. Don't eat meat. Can't use animal skins. Kill human fetuses that save animal fetuses. It becomes very weird in terms of its moral deliverance. A fourth one, and this is really, really important in understanding the righteousness, quote, unquote, concept of secular humanists. You can't judge anybody else's personal behavior. Now, we have to be careful about judging, but we have to know what judging means. We have to know what judging means. You can't judge a matter of conscience with someone, as long as it's against the law of God. But since we understand God's standards, if we accept His values and God's standards. But there are issues that the Bible does not completely spell out. When we get to those issues, then we cannot judge. We also can't judge someone's eternal life. Well, that person's going to like a fire. You and I have no right to say that. So we have to be very careful in those terms of judgment. Also, we have to understand that many times, we judge people without knowing the situation. Now, I deal with people judging each other all the time. And one thing I've learned as a pastor when I have to make judgments, you better get everybody's story that's involved.

Because if we judge people, and we wrongly judge them, you know, we accuse them of a sin, or we accuse them of something, and especially if we gossip about it, and tell others about it, we've actually sinned ourselves.

But the section of humanists, so we have to be careful about judging and how we judge. But the section of humanists take that to a point that says, you can't judge anybody's private behavior as being right or wrong. Every person gets to decide their private behavior. Public behavior is one thing. Private behavior, that's up to you. You can do whatever you want. And they even use Jesus to support it. They go to Matthew 7. And they'll say, judge not that you be not judged. And they stop and say, there's what Jesus taught. Now, He is teaching a very, very important point here about judging. And that is, you and I have to be very careful, as I just said.

When is it our place to judge? When it is not our place to judge? When is it our place to turn something over to God? When it is our place? You know, there's lots of things in the Bible that says you were to go to your brother. Well, if you're going to your brother, you're actually judging. And we're going to go through that in a minute. It's the standards by which you are judging that's important. It's the purpose of why you're judging that's important.

You can tell whether you're judging correctly or not in some ways by, do you sit around all the time and talk about other people? This person did this wrong. This person did that wrong. If you're judging people by sitting around in gossip about them, then this Scripture is for you. It's important. But let's look at the rest of the passage, because this is used to say abortion is a private matter. This is used to say, if you go out on Saturday night and get drunk and pick up some woman at a bar, that's a private matter. Nobody can judge that. If you want to worship trees, that's a private matter and nobody can judge that. That's what they believe. Those are private matters. Now, they wouldn't say you can't judge stealing or killing, because those are public matters. Remember, the secular humanists are all about what is good for the whole, what is good for society. So they would say, well, you can't judge those things, but you can't judge the private matters. The private matters can't be judged by anybody else. I'll tell you how that's even steeped in the Protestantism. It's very interesting that there is a revival in Protestantism about the Sabbath. You think, oh, well, you know, for hundreds of years, the Sabbath was defined as something in Protestantism. Well, they know that the Sabbath isn't something now. They can't pass that off anymore. So the Sabbath is whatever time during the week you set aside as your time with God. So if it's two hours on Tuesday afternoon, that's your Sabbath. You now define the Sabbath in a totally different way, a personal way, and nobody can judge anybody else on that. And someone says, well, my Sabbath is Monday afternoon between one and four. And what do you do with your Sabbath? Well, I do transcendental meditation, and I sit down in a yoga position, and I hum. Well, that's just as good as any other Sabbath, because that's private behavior. That's how they define it. So if that's private behavior—I know this because we're doing a TV program on this subject, and I say, oh, good, there's this big revival. I start to think all these articles, and the guys start sending the articles and there's no research for it. Big revival of the Protestant world on the Sabbath. Well, yeah, I found out what they meant by it. They're not even calling Sunday the Sabbath. You know why? That's the day you watch football.

So if your Sabbath is one hour of going to the Baptist Church, that's your Sabbath. If your Sabbath is 24 hours on Saturday, that's good. But you can't tell anybody else, and you sure can't tell somebody what they should do with that day, because that's a private matter. Now, there are some things that are private matters. But they break it down. There's nothing that can be judged in these areas. That there's nothing that can be judged sexually. There's nothing that can be judged on a whole scale of morality issues of what's right and wrong. Let's look at what Jesus said here. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it shall be measured back to you. This is real important. If you go home and you say, you know, did you see so-and-so in church? Her skirt was colored up to her rear end. You know, she needs to go be kicked out of this church.

Judging that the skirt was too short is a righteous judgment based on a value called modesty. Okay? I know what my value system is called modesty. If I move this over to standards, there has to be standards of what's too short. The judgment that she should be kicked out of this church, now you're in another problem.

Okay? You move past what we're allowed to judge. This is the point he's making. Now, I'm not saying the person should be talked to, you know, or, you know, hey, I found out that so-and-so has a smoking problem. Now, I hear this man has been in the church 10 years and he has a smoking problem. Well, okay, you can judge that as wrong by what standards?

Standards based on God's values. You know, I have a drink, this person has a drinking problem. Okay, that's wrong. How do I know that? I know God's values and God's values produce the standards. And the standard is drunkenness is wrong. I can't now declare that person worthless and have no value. Even the instances where someone has to be asked not to come back to church, which on rare occasions happen, they are not worthless. They just have broken the standards that says they can't come to church until they change their standards.

That's all it is. You've broken these standards until you change the standards, you can't come back. Once they change their standards, they come back. It has nothing to do with their value before God. It has to do with their value system and their standards, not meeting God. So, verse 1 and 2 is very important on how we do look at matters. Now, verse 3, now why do you look at the speck of your brother's eye, who did not consider the plank in your own eye?

We've read this so many times. The hyperbole of a man with a two-by-four stuck out of his eye, okay, knocking people down left and right. So, how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye and look, a plank is in your own eye. Hypocrite. You can't judge specks or planks. That's not what he says. He says, hypocrite, first remove the plank. In other words, you have to judge yourself first. That's real important. We must judge ourselves first. First, remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. He says, now, you must go to your brother and remove the speck.

You and I actually have a command from God. If we think another brother is sinning, we have to go tell that brother. If you don't do it, you're not obeying God. Now, you better have proof. Okay. You can't just go around making accusations. But we're actually supposed to go talk to that person. Now, when and how and, you know, that's a whole other idea, concept, you know, the wisdom of doing it and how you do it. But we are required. You know what that means? You're passing a judgment. But by whose standards are you passing the judgment?

You're owed? Are you passing sentences? You and I just can't go hand out sentences, you know? Okay. You've come to me. You've got to sin, do 15 hillberries. We don't pass out sentences. We explain to people how to change the behavior. And then we get, you know, what you do is you change the behavior by going back to what is your value system. And you go back to your value system and you say, well, what do you actually believe?

You actually believe the 10 commandments? Because if you do, you have to honor your mother and your father. Well, you know, I don't really like my mom and dad. I don't want anything to do with them. That you don't have the same value. You don't have a belief. You don't have a value system. And you don't have standards set by God. So you'll treat your parents however you want. Right? And to work back through that, we have to know beliefs and value systems and standards.

Here's something I want you to do in conclusion. Now, this would be interesting. Do this alone. Do it as husband and wife. Do it as families.

But I want you to take some time this week, think about this sermon, and I want you to make a list of your 10 most important values. Now, here's the important part of this. You've all been to the church. You all know your Bible. And so you'll put down, well, my first important value is to love and obey God. I hope that is it. But you know what? Let's be honest. You're not showing this to anybody. You don't have to. I want you to really write down what your values are. Be honest. Because if you're not honest with this, you already have a value problem. And you can't be honest with prayer before God. Show me my true values. If you can't write down 10 values. Now, your number one value might be fun. Okay? That's going to be your number one value. But write 10 values, and then try to put them in order. Your number one value might be family. Maybe one of your values is loyalty. Maybe one of your values is generosity. Maybe it's service to others. Maybe it's a sense of accomplishment. Whatever your values are, count up with 10 of them. Your 10 most important values. Making money. Like I said, that may be one of your...my number three value in life is making money. Okay, then be honest and write it down. Make this list, sort it out, you might end up with 20 there down to 10, and then put them in order. So remember, these values are going to determine your standards. Put them on a sheet of paper. You've got 10 of them now. And then I want you to do something on the other side. I simply want you to write down the 10 commitments. And then if you really want to explore your values, make a third column. Go through 1 Corinthians 13, which is really about values, and write down all the points in 1 Corinthians 13.

Take your 10 values and see if they connect anywhere to the 10 commitments. You might have one or two that connect. You might have some of them that don't connect at all. Then take that 1 Corinthians 13 and say, are these my values? Now you don't have to do this. Maybe you think you know what your values are. Maybe you don't care because, well, 1 Corinthians 13 doesn't mean anything to you. Then be honest with where your values are. You will find yourself eventually oppressed, either by God or oppressed by the world. I wish I had a better scenario, but that's the reality. Know your values. Know what's important. Know where God is taking you. And in doing so, let's remember the great lesson of the righteous man, Lot, and his wife.