In a World Where Things are Relative

	What about religion at the door of the year 2000?  As we have pointed out in our last two discussions, Biblical revelation is adequate for our time and beyond.  The Bible is complete, not partial.  We do not need to fall all over ourselves in an attempt to reconcile religion with modern philosophy.  Don't forget that, by religion, we mean what comes from the Bible and not what is invented by men.
	As we face the next few years, how should we feel about norms, rules and the Scriptures in a society where things are relative?  Many people may not even know that we are living in a society where things are relative.  Many people may not realize that the basic beliefs of our society today are not the same as those of 200 years ago, or even of a few years ago.
	When our country was first being formed by groups such as the Puritans, society operated with  a very deterministic attitude.  In other words, they believed that everything which happened was the direct result of God's intervention and was therefore out of their control.  Man was thought to be by nature evil.  Although they were correct in focusing on salvation as the purpose of life and on truth being found in the Bible, they had trouble grasping the roles of works and grace.  And their belief left no room for the free will of each individual.
	By the mid 1700s, however, we were entering the age of reason.  According to this philosophy, God created the world but then left it to operate according to natural processes.   The job of society was to understand these laws.  Man could resolve all problems through reason.  People were born neither good nor evil.
	Our country was expanding during the mid-1800s.  As the wilderness unfolded the emphasis turned to nature.  This was the Romantic age when people were seen as basically good.  This philosophy ended abruptly with the Civil War.   We weren't as great as we thought we were.
	Before long, we were building huge factories and our outlook changed once again.  This was the age of realism.  The purpose of life was not to be saved but rather to get through and understand what we could.  Ideas were being shaped by Darwin, Marx and Freud.  People were simply victims.
	Most recently, we have been under the spell of existentialism.  This philosophy holds that man is totally free and is responsible for his acts.  There is no higher being or higher authority.  If it is right for me, then it is right.  Consequently, everything is relative.  What may be wrong for you might be right for me.
	How, then, do we handle norms,  rules and the Scriptures in a society where things are relative?  We do it, quite simply, by denying the premise that things are relative.
	We deny this, first of all, because the Bible denies it.
	"There is a way {which seems} right to a man," Solomon warns in Proverbs 14:12, "but its end is the way of death."
	"The way of a fool is right in his own eyes," the wise man has already noted in Proverbs 12:15, "but a wise man is he who listens to counsel."
	"But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise," Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 1:27-29, "and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God."
	"You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men," Jesus tells  the Pharisees in Luke 16:15, "but God knows your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God."
	"No one can serve two masters;" Jesus instructs in Matthew 6:24, "for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."
	"For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks;" Paul points out in Romans 1:21-32, "but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.  Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.  Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them.  For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.  For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; {they are} gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and, although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. 
	"You adulteresses," we read in James 4:4, "do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God."

	The Bible makes it clear that there is such a thing as right and wrong.  It is not up to each individual to make up his or her own rules.   
	But those who accept existentialism don't care what the Bible says, do they?  Lets look at the discussion, then, from the standpoint of logic.
	One of the classic examples of the failure of the existentialist philosophy is the fate of the Jewish people during the Nazi rule of Germany.  According to defense arguments at the trials following the war, Germany was right in what it had done.
	"Our society had its own needs and desires," the German defense claimed.  "Our society made its own laws based on those needs and desires.  Our society commanded us to exterminate the Jews.  It would have been wrong for us not to have obeyed.  But now you try to condemn us with a law of an alien society, a value system which had absolutely nothing to do with us.  You are therefore condemning us by the use of an ex post facto law which you force upon us."
	Of course, the Nazis were wrong.  There IS a higher law and they had violated it.  But those who accept existentialism must agree with their argument, no matter how distasteful that reality might be.
	Is the atrocity of the holocaust too great, or is WWII Germany too remote?  What, then, are the arguments being used today in defense of abortion?
	"This is my body.  No one has a right to tell me what I can or cannot do with it."
	Does this sound familiar?  "I can do what I want to...in spite of how it effects other human beings."
	Right and wrong are not relative.  Morality is not relative. Perhaps most importantly, salvation never was, is not, and never will be relative.   It does not depend, for example,  on how much money we make during a lifetime.
	"And someone in the crowd said to Him, 'Teacher, tell my brother to divide the {family} inheritance with me,'" we read in Luke 12:13-15.  "But He said to him, 'Man, who appointed Me a judge or arbiter over you?'  And He said to them, 'Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not {even} when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.'" 
	"For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it," Jesus notes in Luke 9:24-25, "but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.  For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?" 
	Salvation is not relative.  It does not depend on how "good" we are during a lifetime.
	"What then?" Paul asks in Romans 3:9-10.  "Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; as it is written, 'There is none righteous, not even one.'"
	"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," Paul adds in verse 23. 
	Salvation is not relative.  It is the same for all who simply obey God and serve Him.  As we noted in a recent program, the same thing which saved people nearly 2000 years ago will save us today.
	"He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved;" Jesus states in Mark 16:16 "but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned."
	Condemnation is not relative, either.
	"Dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus," Paul says in 2 Thessalonians in reference to the judgment day. 
	The choice is ours.  We can be selfish and try to make up our own rules.  Or we can submit to the truth and be set free.  

Unless otherwise noted, "Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE(R), (C) Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977. Used by permission."