No Morality Without the Transcendent Foundation of Jesus and His Law

In the Rich Christiansen film The Time Changers the story is told of the Christian college professor of the 19^th century who writes a book encouraging morality in society apart from the law of God and Jesus Christ. This character is then transported through time to the present, where he encounters the society that tried this formula. To his horror, the morals of churchmen have degenerated to a level barely above that of the world. This is the logical conclusion when you build your house on a weak foundation.

It is bad enough that the teenage girls show up at church in revealing dresses, and high-cut skirts or, worse yet, low-cut jeans and high-cut tee shirts. It is much too common to see ladies in the worship team in churches around the country who pay no attention to the modesty of their dress. Listen to the fellowship before and after church and you are more likely to hear conversation about less than edifying TV shows or movies, than you are to hear an uplifting debate over scriptural interpretations or theological issues. But of course our churchmen today are standing against school shootings, homosexuality, and abortion. These are the really depraved activities in the 21^st century.

Remember the story of the frog in a pot of water sitting on a hot stove. At first he is cool sitting in the pot of water, but as it begins to heat up he becomes more and more comfortable until he lies back to enjoy warmth. Eventually he falls asleep and is boiled to death. This is a picture of what has happened to morality in American society. Little by little perversion of the law of God became acceptable, until today even churchmen reject the transcendent standards of God's law, becoming more and more antinomian (against the law).

When you reject the law of God as the standard for practice in your own life and society at large you have rejected The Rock. The house that was built upon the rock in Matthew Chapter 7 stood firm when the winds and rain came. A moral system built upon a solid foundation will withstand troublesome times. Troublesome times are sure to come. If you remember that story, the fool who built his house on shifting sand lost his house to the wind and the rain. By building your moral system on the shifting sands of man's sense of right and wrong you have guaranteed the destruction of your society. Morality built on a shifting foundation is inevitably overrun by the waves of man's autonomy.

Eliminating Jesus and His law as the foundation for an ordered society you have left the door wide open for the supremacy of man. It is the natural state of man to want to replace God, this was the allurement in the garden after all. Unfortunately even Christians are not immune from this allure. As a result of the churches' willingness to allow society to build its moral system apart from Jesus, even churchmen are susceptible to destruction caused by the shifting sands.