Live by Every Word That Comes out of the Mouth of God

I'm going to give a message today about...it's going to be a reminder. It's not going to be anything new. Hopefully it's not going to be anything new. Very rarely do we hear anything new. That's okay. Today is a day of remembering. Remembering quite a few things. Tradition has it that the children of Israel stood before Mount Sinai on this day, the day of Pentecost, and God gave them for the first time the Ten Commandments. Some nerd it out. Well, that's tradition. The Bible does not explicitly say it happened on the Feast of Pentecost. Might have. Tradition holds that it did. A day of giving of the law. Then in 31 A.D. a new thing happened on the Feast of Pentecost, which was mentioned yesterday. God began His church by giving approximately 120 people His Holy Spirit. That law that He gave to the Old Testament was now being written inside, written on the heart through the Holy Spirit. Jesus came and died, as we celebrated in the Passover, so that we might be forgiven so that we could receive this Holy Spirit. But in order to go through and qualify for what He did, He had to be tempted. Before He ever started His ministry, He went out into the desert, fasted for 40 days, and then Satan came and tempted Him. He was hungry, to say the least.

The very first thing Satan tempted Him with was bread, was food. He said, If you are the Son of God, command in these stones will be turned to bread. Jesus Christ quoted Matthew in Matthew 4.4. He quoted Deuteronomy. He said in Matthew 4 and verse 4, But He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. That's what we're going to talk about today. We shall live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. This day represents that, in a way. The giving of the Holy Spirit, the ability, the power within us to actually have the motive to think the way God thinks, which then leads us to perform the way God performs. Without thinking it, we can't perform it. So it has to do with the heart. The heart comes first. Man shall not live by bread alone. That word, live, is not a word. It is a word that doesn't mean man shall worship by every word that comes out of the mouth of God, but it rather encompasses our entire life, not just our worship of God. And that's where the rubber meets the road. That's where we tend to slip up. And that's where Satan tends to get us every single time. And this is nothing new. In fact, as we will see, this is where Satan started out in the Garden of Eden. It's something that today we have a term that's called moral relativism. Moral relativism. Where did it begin? It began in the Garden of Eden. It is an idea that was invented by Satan himself and sold very skillfully to mankind. When in the Garden of Eden, he said, you can take of that tree and you will know for yourself good from evil, right from wrong. So that's what we're going to talk about today. The Word of God should govern every aspect of our lives. And, brethren, the reality is sometimes it just doesn't. Right here in the Church of God in 2014, the Word of God does not always govern the way we think. And so I want to talk about some practical applications of that. Before I do, let's discuss this idea that Satan introduced to mankind in the Garden of Eden. It's called moral relativism today. It is being bombarded, especially at our youth. All right? So I'm going to give us an action item today to help us build a community that is healthy for our youth. Because of something we do with this moral relativism, because of the way we slip into it, we actually create an environment that's harmful to our youth. And then we wonder, why did they leave the Church? Moral relativism.

Have you ever heard the expression, it's all good? Or that's for each individual to decide.

Here's a definition of what moral relativism is from the great scholarly source of Wikipedia.com.

Okay, so it's not so scholarly. But it is a decent definition. Quote, moral relativism may be any of several philosophical positions concerned with the difference in moral judgment. I'm going to stop there. I can tell that the person that wrote this quote believes in moral relativism because he even defines things in relative terms. Okay, back to the quote. Moral relativism may be any of several philosophical positions concerned with the differences in moral judgments across different people and cultures. Descriptive moral relativism holds that some people do in fact disagree. Really? About what is moral. However, meta-ethical moral relativism holds that in such disagreements nobody is objectively right or wrong. And normative moral relativism, it goes even farther, normative moral relativism holds that because nobody is right or wrong, we ought to tolerate the behavior of others even when we disagree with the morality of it. We're talking about morality. We're talking about right versus wrong. Now, another way to say that would be black versus white. And what Satan does is he says, no, no, no, no, no, there is no black and white. It is gray. Everything is gray. It's up to you to decide. Essentially, that's what moral relativism is. And they go on to quote the fact that ancient scholars, 400 and 500 years before Jesus was ever born, came up with this philosophy of moral relativism. It came from India. It came from Greece. I'm not going to try to quote them because I can't pronounce their names and I would seem more ignorant than I even am. But the reality is that's not true. Moral relativism, or you get to decide what's right for you and I get to decide what's right for me, came from Satan the devil in the Garden of Eden. It is a very old concept. But does moral relativism work? Why is it such a big deal? No. Moral relativism causes human failure. Almost all human failures can go back to the fact that man has decided for himself what is right or wrong. Almost all arguments between husband and wife. Almost all wars. Just about everything that man considers a conflict, suffering, disease, ill can be attributed back to mankind deciding for himself what is right and what is wrong. Moral relativism doesn't work. Even the staunchest advocates of moral relativism unwittingly admit the failure of their philosophy when they are seriously wronged. It's amazing. I read from an article from a Christian apologetic research ministry. The article entitled, What is Moral Relativism? by Robin Shoemaker. He gives a great example of how even those who advocate moral relativism don't believe in it when things go wrong. Okay. Quote, A grand example of this philosophy in action can be seen in the 2007-2008 meltdown that occurred when the American financial and banking industries, those who taught relative morality in their philosophy and business ethics college courses, proceeded to live out those teachings on Wall Street and in other corporate avenues, taking risks not representing the truth openly, seeking monetary gain, etc., with the outcome being devastating for those who are receiving the end of their relative and financial morality.

Oddly enough, many who believed in relative morality at the time were outraged and absolutely sure that those who engaged in deceptive business practices ought to be punished for their unethical moral behavior. This type of reaction speaks loudly to the importance of truth. Moral relativists have rather a dim view of moral relativism when it negatively affects them. Let the moral relativists be lied to, be a victim of false advertising or a crime, and he instantly becomes a moral absolutist, a person whose reaction to what he considers to be unfair or unethical treatment always betrays his true feelings on the matter of relative versus objective moral laws, when things go wrong for him." Okay, so when the people who are preaching to us, and especially to our youth, our young adults and our teenagers, tell us that it's all relative, it's all good, it's up to the individual, will different societies have different ways that always breaks down when they face a real dilemma themselves. Then they say that was morally wrong. Let's say a moral relativist gets robbed, and he's beaten up and his money is taken away. Who says that's right or wrong? Well, they have ways to answer that, and I want to address those ways that they answer that, because the ways that they answer that I find in conversations here in our own congregation. We tend to be affected by society around us, so that when they face a moral dilemma that works negatively against them, they have four basic excuses that they use to justify saying that was wrong. How do they determine right or wrong if everything is relative? Well, the first thing they say was it's the laws of nature, right? It's the universe. Will they say it's against the laws of nature? But no one has ever seen or explained to me how atoms, molecules, chemicals, or electricity can produce moral guidelines. It's not there. The physical universe cannot produce information, let alone determine right or wrong. There's no such thing as laws of nature.

Oh, there are laws in nature, but they're not laws of nature, right? Those laws did not come from atoms, molecules, chemicals, or electricity, and scientists have even proved that information can't come from those things. So the universe answer doesn't work, that universal answer. Well, there's just things that we accept as universally right and wrong. No, there is no such thing. And when you question them on that, the answer breaks down.

And every one of us in this room will agree with that first excuse. I have never, okay, I will say, I have rarely heard a church member say, well, that's just the laws of nature. Because we accept the laws of God. We accept that there is a God. We know there's a God. We know that His laws are in the universe. And there is a definite and objective right and wrong. So their first excuse goes right over our heads. Hopefully we will teach that to our children. And they will not fall for the old, oh, the universe made me do it. But the second guideline, we're not so, or the second excuse that they use, we're not so immune from. Brethren, I hear this one all the time in the church. And that is that society determines right and wrong. Really? But that doesn't work either, brethren, because there are many different societies in the world with very different rules on right and wrong. Some societies will allow you to steal from someone who's not a member of your own community. In fact, some societies reward people who do. In fact, some societies expect that the men in the family will go out and rob from the other communities. So let's take this moral relativist who gets robbed. Who's to say that robbing him was wrong? Because obviously, the robber thinks that it was right. He came from a different culture. But brethren, we get trapped in, this is where I see a lot of us get messed up, and we divide our spiritual life from our personal life. And we do not let the Word of God guide us in everything that we do, but we have a delineation where this is my worship life and this is my personal life. My worship life is governed by the Word of God. My personal life is governed by society, quite a bit of the time. And the one thing I'm going to pick on, and not going to pick on any one individual, but I go clothes shopping with my wife a lot. And she expresses to me the frustration in trying to find something off the rack that's appropriate. It's really difficult. Now, I'll just pick on the men for a second. Men who wear tight pants. I mean, what can we say? It's like the most interesting man in the world. If I can count the change in your pocket, you need to hire a tailor. Okay. In Texas, we do not accept men wearing tight pants. Alright. We will kick that bubba right out of town. Alright. Okay. But, oh, men. Oh, we like it when women wear tight pants. And we shouldn't. But men do in general. Right? And women. Women. You are just pressured into wearing the sexiest possible clothes. What determines how you decide what clothes to wear? Are there moral aspects to wearing clothes? Does the Word of God apply when wearing clothing, when dressing yourself? Well, of course it does. Do we, as a congregation, know where to go to find the moral guidelines on clothing? Do we? It's so simple. I mean, I'm going to show you in less than five minutes a really quick guide from the Bible on how to dress. You want to do it? It's simple. Okay, we'll go to Genesis. Start in Genesis, chapter 3. The Word of God should guide every aspect of our life. I don't know if I've said that already. Genesis, chapter 3, and verse 20 through 21. By the way, you all look very nice today. I'm not picking on any one individual. I think you look awesome. Don't worry about it. But, Genesis, chapter 3, and verse 21. So Adam and Eve find out they're naked. And what do they do? They build bikinis, but just the bottoms. They're called aprons in the Bible. They take fig leaves and they fill them together, and they build bikinis. And so they're running around topless. Okay, that's just Adam and Eve, right? But God says no, and He builds clothes for them.

And what does He clothe them in? Verse 20, and Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living things. Also, Adam and his wife, Adam and his wife, the Lord God made tunics of skin and clothed them. What does the word tunic mean? Anybody know?

I looked it up. Something that hangs from the shoulder. It doesn't say how long it was, so we don't have a length issue here, but we do have a starting point. God covered them from the shoulder down. So God considers appropriate clothing, not an apron that goes around your waist, but rather to cover from the shoulder down, which means cleavage is out. Private things need to stay private. What's private? Well, God said it starts at the shoulder. So anything down here is not private. It's private and needs to be covered.

So it needs to be up here. Okay, that's point number one. Pretty simple, right? Private things stay private. But then God gave a prophecy to Isaiah, and in Isaiah 47, God showed what He considered to be shameful, what He called naked. And it's something that our society would go, huh? Really? And brethren, you might be shocked by this. You may not know this, and you may not realize that there's a biblical guideline on skirt length, or shorts length, or whatever you want to call it. But there is. It's been in the Bible the whole time, just before you and I were born. Who determines right and wrong? Who sets the guidelines in our life? I know this is a small point. It's not trunk of the tree. It's out in the branch. I am intentionally staying out on a branch on this one, so that you will come back to the trunk of the tree, and you will think for yourself, every aspect of my life must be governed by the law of God. Okay? So, what is the skirt length that God requires?

Isaiah 47, verses 1-3, Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon. All right? So this is a condemnation of society, of the world. And what does God consider a shame? Sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans. For you shall no more be called tender and delicate. Take the millstone and grind meal. Remove your veil. Take off your skirt. Uncover the thigh. Pass through the rivers. Your nakedness shall be uncovered. Yes, your shame will be seen. The thigh must be covered. And if the thigh is not covered, God considers you naked. And He considers it to be a shame. So if you walk around with a skirt just below your butt, God considers that naked. He just does.

Shoulder to thigh. How far down on the thigh? I don't know. Ask a woman. For men, please cover your entire thigh. Or move to another state, one of the two. Yeah. So do we have two separate lives? Does society dictate part of our life and God dictate the other? Not in the church of God. Not in the house of God. This is His house. We live by His rules. And you would be surprised. I wonder how many never knew that that Scripture was in there. That it's a shame to uncover your thigh. So the French bikini is out as far as God is concerned. It uncovers quite a bit of things that God considers need to be covered. Okay? But the third excuse. So we tend to snuggle up to that second excuse that moral relative is used. But you know that excuse doesn't work because there are different societies with different rules. So there is no one-step law that helps people to get along. And when different societies have different rules, conflict always happens.

Third excuse, it's up to the individual. Oh, we buy this one also. We buy the three. We don't buy that whole universal thing in the church. But we buy the last three. It's up to the individual. Oh, we hear this one all the time. You know what? It is up to the individual. It is if it's not a moral issue. We should not judge each other on things that are not moral issues. Like, let's take clothing again, for example. What about style? What if a guy walks in out of the Texas Hill Country wearing overalls, absolutely clean, and good work boots, no scuffs on them, and a good shirt? You would think he was a hillbilly, most of you who live in the city. But that might be his very best clothes that he put on to come to church. And to God, that's awesome. That's awesome. That's a style issue. That's not a moral issue.

Some lady might like to dress like they do in New York. And you might think, ow, that's no New York. That is none of your business. That's a style issue. It's not a moral issue.

Or she's too California. It's not your business. But when it's a moral issue, all right? I'll get into how we respond to that in a minute. It's up to the individual. I have heard that so many times. You know where I hear it the most? You know how I know it affects us? It affects me. It affects you. Because I talk to you all the time. And you talk to me all the time. We hear each other. But I also see it on Facebook. Oh, oh! Watch the rant on Facebook. When somebody makes a comment, and then there's a thousand other comments, and if you don't have Facebook, you are so blessed. But most of us do, and most of us see it.

And there will be a rant on Facebook. You name the topic. I'm not going to pick one because I have to eat with you at lunch today. But you pick any topic on there, and you watch a whole litany of complaining going on. And what always happens almost every single time in these rants? Oh, it's up to the individual. Oh, everybody's different. Oh, it's all good. Really? Did you just say that? Go into the bathroom, look into the mirror, and slap yourself in the face. No, not really. It's not up to the individual. If everything is left up to the individual, think it through, brethren, think it through. Then it's okay to do evil to anybody, because it's up to you. Anybody can walk up to you and take away anything, or do anything to you. And that is morally wrong. Why? Why do we know it's morally wrong?

Because God put that in us. The Apostle Paul even said that, that even the Gentiles who do not have the law of God have a law inside them that tells them right for wrong. Where did they get that from? We are children of God, made in the image of God, and there is a line that He draws in the sand, a moral line, that governs every aspect of our lives.

The Word of God should govern every aspect of our lives. I don't know if I said that yet or not. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. So, it's not up to the individual. It's not all good. When it comes to morality, it's not up to me and it's not up to you. It's up to God. There's three opinions. And when you see those conversations where we get into where we say, oh, it's up to the individual, we're generally leaving the third opinion out of the conversation. And that's our problem. And the third opinion is, what does God say? Oh, we don't want to judge. You shouldn't judge. I shouldn't judge, because I'm not the judge and neither are you. So I'll make a deal with you. You don't judge me and I won't judge you. But God is the judge.

His way works. More on that in just a minute. His way is awesome. It's not heavy. It's not hurt and some... it works. This moral relativism is for the dung pile. It doesn't work. The fourth thing, and we fall for this, brethren, we do science. Ooh, science tells us what's right from wrong. Oh, okay. We know that we didn't evolve and science says we did. So we reject that, no problem. We know God created the universe and He created all the physical laws and so we say that science points us to God, which is true. That's absolutely true.

But then, somehow, we lose our mind and when it comes to certain issues like our health or our food or... what do we turn to? The Word of God? Well, no. The Word of God is not a diet book. It's not a health book and it's not. It's a moral book. But what if the scientists are telling us to do something that's immoral? Do we then turn to science and say, yeah, but it's scientific. It can be proven scientifically. But the Bible says not to do that, not to eat that, not to touch that. But science says, do we have two different lives? Do we have the spiritual life and our personal life? Does science govern our personal life and God govern our spiritual life? Or is He in every aspect of our life? What does God's Spirit guide you to answer when that question is given to you? Man shall live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Not man shall worship by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. But man should live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Science does not have the answer, believe it or not. And I'm not against science. I love science. Science is not our moral guide. God is our moral guide.

Science is awesome and it does point to God. And I'm a Star Trek geek because I love science and they get into science all the time. But they also get into moral issues that I just attest. But scientists themselves admit that science is not our moral guide. And I'm not a moral guide. So why do we use it as one? We do. I'm going to quote that Shoemaker article again a little bit farther down about science. Quote, some moral relativists try to say that science can be used to dictate ethics. But even secular scientists admit that science is a descriptive discipline, in other words, explanation, not a prescriptive one, in other words, setting obligation. In addition, its empirical methods are impotent to answer such moral questions such as if the Nazis were evil or not, or if murder is really wrong, or why rape is morally reprehensible. Einstein sums it up with the correct position in this matter when he said, quote, you are right in speaking of the moral foundations of science, that you cannot turn round and speak of the scientific foundations of morality. It's no such thing. Science only determines what is, not why it is or what you should do with it. Okay? So science is not the answer to any moral question, and it should not be our underlying foundation on making any decision on what is right or wrong, what action we will take.

We should primarily seek the advice from the Word of God and then let science help explain.

That's all we should use it for. So what is the solution? Well, the solution is to let God's Word govern every aspect of our lives. And Jesus answered when he was starving. What was on his mind? Food? No. He said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. The Word of God should govern every aspect of our lives. Not just our religion or our spiritual life, our worship, our marriages, our child-wearing practices, our entertainment, our TV and our movies. Every aspect of our lives. Our music choices, our clothes, our food choices, our health care, every aspect of our lives.

We should seek moral guidance from the Bible. You know, I don't think anybody in the room would actually disagree with that. Not one of us would. We do tend to slip into that, and I'll get into how we slip into moral relativism in a minute. But I don't actually think that any of us disagree. Why would we be here if we disagreed with that? I suppose some of you might, but it is a puzzle to me why you would come to church. So my assumption is we all agree with that. What about our kids? What about our youth? They are bombarded by this world at a fever-level pitch now about moral relativism. It's a really big deal in media, music, the government is getting involved, the schools and education system. It's detestable.

What about our children? How can we help them see that God's word is absolute? How can we show them that God's moral judgments are good, beneficial? In other words, they help people, they reduce conflict, they increase peace, and they make people happy. How can we show them that? What we believe? Oh, it's easy to say it. We have to do it. We do it by creating a community, a church culture, where people put the word of God above all other opinions.

We can't just be hearers of the word. We have to be doers of the word. But you know what? We also need to be thinkers of the word. And in our conversation, we need to be speakers of the word. It needs to be in our conversation with each other. We need to show our children in action and in word, and by our thinking, that God's law is not a burden. 1 John 5, 1 John 5, verses 1-3. 1 John 5, verses 1-3.

1 John 5, starting in verse 1. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever and anyone who loves Him, Him who also loves Him, who is begotten of Him. By this we know that we love Him, love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. So John is equating love with keeping the commandments. Okay, so the first way that as a community we can help build the environment where the Word of God is absolute is we can stop saying this morally relative thing that we tend to say, and that is, well, the important thing is that we love. Well, it's, you know, okay, we might disagree, but the important thing is that we love. And what we really mean is, the important thing is that we get along. But that sometimes means we have to accept when something is morally against the Bible. And our kids hear that, and that's the way they interpret it. And then they have to go out into the world that is preaching that to them every day. And they hear Mom and Dad saying the same thing. But John is equating love with keeping God's Word. You cannot separate the two. There is no such thing as love without the Word of God. The Word of God is love, and it's not a heavy thing. It's not a burden.

Let's read on. We'll pick it back up. When we love God and keep His commandments, for this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. They're not heavy. But we have to show that to our children. And we have to show that to them as a community. We have to show them that the Word of God will prolong our life, will improve our life. Deuteronomy 4, verse 40. Moses is here talking to the next generation. Remember, Deuteronomy is not written to those who came out of Egypt. They died because all they did was complain and murmur against God.

So when their children were grown and all the parents were dead, except for Joshua and Caleb and Moses, Moses said this, "'You shall therefore keep the statutes and His commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you, and that you with your children after you, and that you may prolong the days in the land which the Lord your God is giving to you for all time.'" And what Moses is saying is God's law, His absolute, is actually a benefit, a lifeline to you.

If you will just keep it, it will prolong your life. We must teach that to our children. It blesses us with enormous blessings. Moving down just a little bit farther in the passage, Deuteronomy 7, Moses still talking to those children. Deuteronomy 7, verse 12, "'Then it shall come to pass, because you listen to these judgments, and keep them and do them, that the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant, and the mercy of the mercy which he swore to your fathers.

And he will love you, and bless you, and multiply you.'" And let's skip down to verse 14. "'You shall be blessed above all peoples.'" Do we show that in our community? I think we do, but I think we can do a better job, because we let moral relativism slip in, creep in. How do we create this community? Well, there's a consequence, brethren, to saying things that are morally relative. And here are some of the things we say.

Well, that's up to you. And why do we say that? Well, we say that because we don't want to have conflict with each other, right? It doesn't mean, I agree with you. It means I'm not going to get in your face over it. The problem with that is our kids are listening, and someone gives us a moral issue, and we say to that moral issue in front of our children, it's up to you.

And we proclaim the lie that Satan gave to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, right in front of our kids. It's up to you. You just put your moral stamp of approval on moral relativism. If someone in our community says, I'm going to do something, and we know that it is against God's law, we must stand up and say, actually, I think that's against God's law.

And that's going to create a little bit of discomfort between you and that person. It is. No doubt about it. Right? That's why Paul said, fight the good fight. It's a struggle. Christianity is a struggle. It's not easy. It's mostly an internal struggle. We don't need to struggle with each other. I'm not suggesting that we become a bickering group, but that we, as lovingly and gently as possibly, hold the moral ground that God has given us. And if you get some comment back to you like, well, who do you think you are?

Your answer should be nobody. I think God is somebody who makes the rules, and I think we need to follow those rules. I didn't write the book. I just follow it. That should be our answer. I didn't write the book. It's not my book. It's not my law. God wrote the book. I just follow it. If we find ourselves saying, oh, it's all good, no, it's not all good.

Brethren, we can call evil good. What does God say about that when we call evil good? What happens when we say, it's all good?

What are we doing between us and God? What are we doing to our children? Verse 20 of Isaiah chapter 5, those who call evil good and good evil are as good as dead. That's what woe to you means, because you're probably reading woe to you in your version. They translated a little bit more hard-hitting here in the next Bible. Those who call evil good and good evil are as good as dead, who turn darkness into light and light into darkness, who turn bitterness into sweet and sweet into bitter. It is not all good. Evil is evil, and good is good. I don't determine right and wrong, and neither do you. But God does. We need to be a community who honors God and His word, and we develop an environment that our kids can come to and see that God's way works. How do we do that? Tammy and I were listening to a sermon by a pastor up in Detroit, Mr. Malcolm Murray, and he told the story of Nehemiah, how Nehemiah was sent from the king to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple to God. In rebuilding the temple, he found out that there were raiding parties from the people in the neighboring communities that would come in and steal from them and tear things down. Every time they built it up, it got torn down because there was no wall protecting the temple, protecting the city. So the people had to become the wall. The people had to stand on the moral line that God had set as the perimeter around the temple. Brethren, we are the church. We are that temple today. And sometimes we let the wall fall down, and there's holes in that wall. Who is going to stand in the gap? Us. We become the wall. We have to be the ones that stand up and say, no, that's not morally correct. We don't do that in the house of God. And the reply might come back, oh, who do you think you are? Don't worry about it. You're a child of God. You didn't make the rules. You didn't write the book. God did. Be confident to stand in the gap. And do not let Satan, the enemy, throw you in the gap.

Prove that wall to hurt the church. Don't be the one who's overheard saying, it's all good. It's up to you when it comes to a moral right and wrong issue. When it comes to an issue of personal preference, you should be tolerant. You should let it go. Your opinion doesn't really count in somebody else's life. But God's opinion counts in all of our lives, and this is His house. We don't judge each other on matters of preference that are not moral issues. God even wants you to have everything that you desire. Remember, God wants you to have choice. God wants you to have options. He's the one who invented options. You go to the Feast of Tabernacles and you're supposed to save second tithes. What are you supposed to spend your second tithe on? Whatever your heart desires, God loves choice. Loves it!

You may not like a gray suit with a green tie. I don't care. I do. I love it. It's my choice. Mrs. Matt, you're giving me this tie. It's pretty sharp, I think. It may not be your favorite tie. That's okay with me. It's not a moral issue. I'm dressed the best that I have before God. Fill the moral issue. This is my style of suit, not your style of suit. We're good. So, God is not opposed to us having choices until those choices venture into a moral issue. I see things that sweep through the church that are moral issues.

They oftentimes come through health-related issues. They come through dress-related issues. They come through all kinds. We get bombarded. There are gaps in the wall. We need people to stand in those gaps. That's us. That's you and me. What does the Word of God say about that? Don't worry about the argumentative reply that you might get in return. There was an article, a really good article by Larry Walker in The Good News magazine, called, What Laws Did Jesus Break? The laws of man never broke the laws of God. Great article.

In that article, he talked about how Jesus said, I've come to not come to destroy the law, but I have come to fulfill the law in Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount. The word for destroy means absolutely obliterate. Later in that passage, he uses a related word that is the Greek concept of loosen, to loosen. The Greeks had this concept of, the way to destroy something was to loosen it or untie it. You don't destroy something by smashing into it with a tank or a sledgehammer. You destroy it one stone at a time. That was the Greek concept of destroying something. So when Jesus said, I didn't come to destroy the law, he meant I didn't come to even loosen it. And that's how Satan gets us in the gray area. There's still a wall there, mostly. There's just a gap there and a gap there and a gap there, which lets the enemy come in and steal and plumb to the temple so that it's no longer the church of God. It's just a social group. That's how Satan gets us. He loosens us. He moves us into the gray area. Oh, he loves that gray area. Just like sharks love to swim in murky water. That shallow murky water. That's where those bull sharks get you. We need to create a community of believers, a safe place for our children to see God's loving words in action, proof that God's way works. How can we do that? Brethren, we cannot do that if we are accepting every single thing that everybody does just because we don't want to have conflict with each other. Brethren, there is a moral right and wrong, and you and I don't set it. We don't need to be defensive about it as a result. The God who created the universe was smart enough to make an atom work. So smart that we haven't quite figured out yet how it works. Smart enough to balance this earth. I've studied enough about science that I know that mankind could actually destroy the earth, blow up the surface of it, and in a couple thousand years the earth would be absolutely restored, all by itself, back to normal. It's an amazing machine when you look at the earth that God has created. It is so far above anything you and I could have even thought of. There's no way it happened by chance. There's too much information and design built into it. An awesome God created it, and that God created it for us. It's a gift. It's a present for us to have a place to live and learn to become like Him. Isn't He worth defending? Isn't His word worth standing up for? He loved us. He gave us His law. We broke His law to smithereens.

Then Jesus Christ came, died for us, was the wave-sheep offering, went up to God, and now pleased our case on our behalf for us to what? Stand back and say, oh, it's all good.

We've got the sacrifice of Jesus Christ now. You can do whatever you want to do. No. So why do we let that in? Let us not, brethren. We need to create a community of believers. We need to create a community of believers, a safe place for our children, to see God's loving words in action. Moral relativism is a formula for absolute human failure, conflict, disease, and suffering. We don't have two separate lives. We have just one. So let us live by every single word that comes out of the mouth of God.