The Commandments of God in Stone and the Hearts of Men

Most people are not aware that God gave Moses the Ten Commandment not once but twice. The first time is described in Exodus 24:12: "The Lord said to Moses, 'Come up to Me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.'" And again in 31:18: "And He gave to Moses, when He had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God." These tablets were the ones shattered by Moses in anger at the idolatry of the Israelites in their worship of the golden calf (chapter 32).

After shattering the original tablets, Moses was then tasked with replacing them with a new pair of tablets, which he himself fashioned. "The Lord said to Moses, 'Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke'" (Exodus 34:1). As when Adam fell into sin, when Moses broke the commandments, literally, he was cursed with an increase in labor, having to carve and carry the stone tablets himself. 

This historical event came to my mind during a recent Sunday school lesson at my church. Part of that lesson dealt with the law of God written on human hearts. We see this in two places in the New Testament. First, Paul mentions it in Romans 2:15: "[Gentiles] show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them." Then the writer of Hebrews mentions it again as part of the new covenant, which he, in turn, borrowed from the Prophet Jeremiah: "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put My laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds" (Hebrews 10:16, from Jeremiah 31:33). 

Notice the parallels between these two pairs of events. In each, God gave His holy commandments, but they were broken by men. And then God gave them again. 

By this pairing of breaking and restoration, we see two magnificent things. First is that God does not lower His standards merely because men cannot meet them. To do so would be to betray His own holiness. And second is His mercy. While the breaking of the law naturally incurs the death penalty (Romans 6:23), God's work is restorative, not punitive, for His elect. He restores His law (Isaiah 42:21). And He restores His elect through the imputation by faith of the perfect obedience of His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ (John 1:17, II Corinthians 5:21, Romans 3:21-22). 

Lamentations and the Identity of the Whore of the Revelation

In his Revelation, the Apostle John gave us this description: "One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, 'Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.' And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: 'Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth's abominations.' And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I marveled greatly" (Revelation 17:1-6). 

This woman is identified in various ways, according to the interpretive system of the interpreter. Futurists may take the reference to Babylon literally, and claim that it refers to a future restoration of the city of Babylon. Others take it as a coded reference to Rome, and claim that there will be a future restoration of the Roman Empire. And yet others believe it refers to Rome, but in her ecclesiastical manifestation, rather than political. Even the Westminster Confession, to which I hold, identifies the Papacy as the Anti-Christ, and head of the great Whore. 

In contrast, those who hold that the Revelation refers to events in John's time, either in part, as I do, or in its whole. We hold that Babylon is used as a code word, not for Rome, but for unbelieving Jerusalem. And in this post, I wish to point the reader to an Old Testament parallel which supports that interpretation. 

Let us look at a series on verses in the Book of lamentations, which was written by the Prophet Jeremiah to mourn the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. 

"How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave!...Jerusalem sinned grievously; therefore, she became filthy; all who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns her face away. Her uncleanness was in her skirts; she took no thought of her future; therefore, her fall is terrible; she has no comforter. 'O Lord, behold my affliction , for the enemy has triumphed!'... Zion stretches out her hands, but there is none to comfort her; the Lord has commanded against Jacob that his neighbors should be his foes; Jerusalem has become a filthy thing among them...'I called to my lovers, but they deceived me; my priests and elders perished in the city, while they sought food to revive their strength'... All who pass along the way clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem: 'Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?'" (Lamentations 1:1, 8-9, 17, 19; 2:15). 

Read the rest of the passages to get proper context. However, what I have quoted here is plainly parallel. The Holy Spirit inspired John to see the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians as a preview of the soon-coming destruction by the Romans in 70AD. He even mentioned Babylon in the passage to reinforce the parallel! 

Wicked America in Scripture

"Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading." - Lamentations 2:14 

As I read this verse again recently, I was struck by how well it describes today's America. Ours is a country in which an overwhelming majority of the people describe ourselves as Christians. Yet immorality is rampant, and our government is progressing further and further into fascism. How can these things coexist with that Christian profession? 

When Europeans first colonized our continent, they brought with them a vigorous and all-encompassing faith. the settlers on the Mayflower signed a compact, an early form of constitution, committing themselves and their new colony to the glory of God. Later, the Puritans of the New England colonies built their laws on the Scriptures, conscientiously establishing a society which practiced the justice of God. 

Yet, now, we their descendants look on a country which celebrates "pride" in the very things which were crimes in those days. And their church-centered communities have evolved into a society in which naming the name of Christ is considered to be a sign of fanaticism. 

The answer is seen above, spoken to Israel an estimated twenty-six centuries ago. Due to liberalism, dispensationalism, and pietism, our clergy have turned silent about the sins of our culture. Instead, they preach nice things, uncontroversial things, inoffensive things. There is little talk of sin, except to criticize those who still speak biblically. The sin is no longer the wicked acts of men, but rather the wicked act of pointing out the wickedness. 

Ancient Israel was punished for her apostasy by the destruction and exile perpetrated by the Babylonians. What is the judgment waiting for America? 

The Scriptures as the Basis of Our Apologetic

 Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible, with 176 verses. Of those verses, only three don't contain a word referring to the scriptures, such as law, commandments, or testimonies. The Psalm is 176 references to the benefits of God's Word in the life of the believer. I will focus on the section labeled "Waw," verses 41-48. 

"Let Your steadfast love come to me, O Lord, Your salvation according to Your promise; then shall I have an answer for him who taunts me, for I trust in your Word. And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for my hope is in Your rules. I will keep Your law continually, forever and ever, and I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts. I will also speak of Your testimonies before kings and shall not be put to shame, for I find my delight in Your commandments, which I love. I will lift up my hands toward Your commandments, which I love, and I will mediate on Your statutes" (Psalm 119:41-48).  

The Psalmist here uses the same encouragement that Jesus gave to His disciples: "Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in the synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for My sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you" (Matthew 10:16-20). 

In both passages, it is the source of our answers that should give us confidence, because it is the very Word of God, inspired  by the Holy Spirit. The rest of Psalm 119 relays the means to this end, the constant study of, and obedience to, the Word of God. 

What is often forgotten in our apologetical confrontations is that there is no promise in Scripture that God will give success to our clever response. Rather, He promises His power to attend His word: "So shall My word be, that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11). 

Is Rape a Justification for Abortion?

Rape is a horrible crime. Not only does it violate the physical wholeness of the victim, but it is also an assault on her mental wholeness. It often causes an unjustified sense of shame, and it always deprives her of a sense of security, especially around men. Some people claim that those consequences justify making rape an exception to the immorality of rape. Doesn't that baby cause the mother continuing emotional damage from the attack? 

And a moral person can agree with that statement. A baby resulting from rape is a constant physical reminder of the worst experience most people can imagine. However, the question of whether that justifies aborting the baby is a step beyond sympathy. 

"Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin" (Deuteronomy 24:16). 

This verse is an expression of God's justice, one with which most people would otherwise agree. Contrary to the custom in the ancient world, no person is responsible for the criminal act of his kin. In the example before us, that applies to the child of a rapist. No one claims that there is any moral culpability in the child from the circumstances of his conception. It is the father alone who should receive the legal penalty for the crime of rape. 

Therefore, from the perspective of God, rape is no justification for the additional act of violence against an innocent preborn child. This would apply as well to babies conceived by incest. 

God's Judgment on Abortion

"They [i. e., Israel] served their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and daughters to the demons; they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood" (Psalm 106:36-38).

I have been reading of  "progressive Christians" who claim that the Bible says nothing about abortion. Yet here we have God's wrath spoken against the sacrifice of the children of Israel to pagan deities. If that is not the essence of abortion, I don't know how we could put it more clearly. 

Are Americans not aborting our sons and daughters as sacrifices to something - the universe, maybe - as an act of worship in exchange for prosperity? Our jobs will be better, we will have more money, we will avoid embarrassment, however we justify it. It is that paganism which is judged by God, because it is the shedding of blood - innocent blood - as an exchange for personal prosperity, the ultimate act of self-involvement!

Book of Numbers and Sprinkling as the Mode of Baptism

Most Christians would say that Numbers is a book that they avoid reading. And I admit that the censuses of Israel, from which the book gets its name in English, are tedious, and I usually skip over them. However, to skip the entire book is to miss some hidden gems within it. 

What struck me recently is the rite of purification, described in chapter 19: "Now the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 'This is the statute of the law that the Lord has commanded: Tell the people of Israel to being you a red heifer without defect, in which there is no blemish, and on which a yoke has never come. And you shall give it to Eleazar the priest, and it shall be taken outside the camp and slaughtered before him. And Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle some of its blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times. And the heifer shall be burned in his sight. Its skin, its flesh, and its blood, with its dung, shall be burned. And the priest shall take cedarwood and hyssop and scarlet yarn and throw them into the fire burning the heifer... And a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place. And they shall be kept for the water for impurity for the congregation of the people of Israel; it is a sin offering'" (Numbers 19:1-6, 9, emphasis added). 

So we have a ceremony described by God, in which a heifer, that is, a cow that has not yet been bred or worked, is to be sacrificed. Its blood is to be sprinkled before the tabernacle, the symbol of God's presence among His people. It was then to be burned and its ashes gathered and saved for "the water of impurity." 

"'This is the law when someone dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent shall be unclean seven days... For the unclean they shall take some ashes of the burnt sin offering, and fresh water shall be added in a vessel. Then a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on whoever touched the bone or the slain or the dead or the grave. And the clean person shall sprinkle it on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day. Thus, on the seventh day he shall cleanse him, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and at evening he shall be clean'" (Numbers 19:14, 17-19). Reference to sprinkling can also be found in verse 21. Thus, the rest of the ceremony is that the ashes from the heifer would be mixed with water and sprinkled on the unclean person, and he would be cleansed. 

Finally, in Isaiah 52:15, part of the Suffering Servant passage, we read the words of the prophet to Israel of the coming Messiah who would cleanse His people from their sins. How? "He shall sprinkle many nations." The blood of Jesus is to sprinkled by faith on unclean sinners just as the ashes of the heifer were sprinkled on the unclean under the law of Moses. That is no coincidence! The one is a type of the other. 

To my Baptist brethren, I would also point out that the recipient of cleansing wasn't dipped in the water of impurity. On the contrary, it was the finger of the priest, who would then sprinkle both the blood of the sacrifice and the water of cleansing. This strongly refutes the claim of Baptists that baptism is properly done only by immersion. Rather, the type in Numbers indicates that the proper mode of baptism is by sprinkling (by which I do not mean that baptisms by other modes are, therefore, invalid). 

This Scripture points to what the Westminster Assembly would say on the subject of baptism some three millennia later: "Dipping of the person into the water is not necessary; but baptism is rightly administered by pouring or sprinkling water upon the person" (Westminster Confession of Faith XXVIII:3).

Pentecost and the Christian Sabbath

In Leviticus 23, God reveals to Moses the holy festivals that He has given to Israel for His worship. He introduces these festivals with a renewal of the Sabbath: "Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do not work. It is a Sabbath to the Lord in all your dwelling places" (Leviticus 23:3). That opening may strike us as odd, because we don't think of the Sabbath as feast day. However, it is significant, because it sets the context of what is to follow, a not accidental introduction. 

Moses then describes the Passover, perhaps the most important of the Jewish festivals. Then the Feast of Firstfruits, a holiday much like our American Thanksgiving. 

Then, in verse 15, God turns to the Feast of Weeks, better known to us by its Greek name, Pentecost. "You shall count seven weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering. You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to the Lord" (Leviticus 23:15-16). So fifty days was to be counted from the Sabbath of Passover. That would be seven weeks, each ending on the seventh day. Then one more day, the first day of the eight week. "You shall make a proclamation on the same day. You shall not do any work. It is a statute forever in all your dwelling places throughout your generations" (Leviticus 23:21). 

So we have the account of instructions to Moses, in which he was to celebrate the day of Passover, the anniversary of the day that the angel of death passed over every Israelite household that was marked by the blood of a sacrificial lamb. To whom did that point? To Jesus, the Lamb of God who would mark the elect with blood so that God's judgment would pass over us. Then another holiday is commanded, following seven Jewish Sabbaths plus one day. What happened on the day to which the feast pointed? The coming of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2) as the gift to His people from the resurrected and ascended Christ. 

That next day was Sunday, just as Sunday was the day on which Jesus rose from the dead, and just as the Apostles made Sunday the day of Christian gathering and worship (Acts 20:7 and I Corinthians 16:2). After a transitional period in Acts, we never see again a Christian activity on a Saturday. 

Did the Apostles use the word "Sabbath" for that day? No. We can grant that without affecting the argument presented here. However, we have a saying in America: "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck." In the same way, as Moses foretold the shift of the Sabbath from the last to the first day of the week and the Apostles treated the first day like the Sabbath, then it is the Sabbath, whether the word occurs there or not. 

God's Judgment on Human Sacrifice: Abortion

"Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. I Myself will set My face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make My sanctuary unclean and to profane My holy name. And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, then I will set My face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech." 

-Leviticus 20:2-5 

There is a lot in this short passage. 

First, what was it to give one of ones children to Molech? Molech was a Canaanite deity. After the Conquest, he was adopted by the degenerating people of Israel, and that adoption flowered into a cult to an idol, marked by the sacrifice of small children, their own children, to the idol in return for material prosperity. Of course, no one walks into Planned Parenthood for an appointment with a priest of Molech, but the mindset is the same. The mother, at least, expects that her life will be better if she executes the child within her womb. The father may or may not be party to that choice. 

Second, what is the reaction of God, the true and living God of the Bible? His judgment is severe, demanding the public execution of the father of that child. And that itself is interesting, that He directs his judgment less toward the mother and more toward the father. After all, he conceived a child on this woman, and then failed to give her the material and emotional support necessary for her to sustain that new life. Not, of course, that we can assume that He places no blame on the mother. It is a matter of the greater accountability for fathers, the same fathers that are denied a legal right to block the murder of their children in modern America. Yet no law requires fathers to be silent. 

Notice, third, that God does not stop merely at the parents of the aborted child. Rather, He castigates the community which turns a blind eye to the horror of human sacrifice. Ignoring murder is a crime in its own right. Not as severe, perhaps, as the murder, but bringing, not material blessings, but rather material curses on that community. Do we not see this in America? As we have devalued life in the womb, we have devalued life everywhere in society, even as many act bewildered at the cheapness of death in these times. 

John Owen on the Sabbath as a Day of Worship

"Thus, the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day, God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because, on it, God rested from all His work that He had done in creation" -Genesis 2:1-3 

At the completion of the creation week, it was culminated by a day of rest. Which is not to say that God was tired. Rather, the implication is a cessation for the sake of enjoying the product of the preceding labor. For which enjoyment, God blessed the seventh day, and made it holy (KJV, "sanctified it"). We must ask what those actions mean for God. To bless that day was to make it a source of blessing, not to Himself, since God can never be more blessed, but for those to whom He gave it, the humans, male and female, the creation of whom would be recapitulated in the next verses. To sanctify it, or to make it holy, again, cannot be for His own sake, because God is the standard of holiness, the standing apart from mere creation. So, again, His action could only be for the man and woman, created the previous day. 

That distinction is essential, because there are some, influenced by antinomianism and dispensationalism, who claim that the Sabbath, as the day came to be called, was for God alone, and the human elements were created under the law for Israel, not the church, and that it was never properly a day of worship. Yet the words applied, and the attributes of God, preclude the use of the Sabbath for Himself. 

As Puritan John Owen comments on the passage, "'Sanctified' is further instructive in the intention of God, and is also explanatory of the former [word, i. e., 'blessed']. For suppose still (and the text will not allow us otherwise) that the day is the object of this sanctification, and it is not possible to assign any other sense of the words, than that God set apart by His institution that day to be the day of His worship, to be spent in a sacred rest unto Himself, which is declared to be the meaning of the word in the decalogue" (A Treatise on the Sabbath). "He set it apart to sacred use authoritatively, requiring us to sanctify it in that use obediently." 

Owen continues by pointing to Exodus 16:22-23: "On the sixth day, they [i. e., Israel] gathered twice as much bread, two omers each. And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, 'Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord...'" Owen remarks, "The reason of it is plain and evident, for, there being a previous institution of the seventh day's rest (the observation of which was partly gone into disuse), and the day itself being then to receive a new peculiar application to the church state of that people [i. e., Israel], the reason of the people's act, and the rulers' doubt, and Moses' explanation, is plain and obvious." 

Yet, Owen did feel a need to deny that the Mosaic law added ceremonial elements to the sabbath, though he denied that the Sabbath, per se, was part of those Mosaic ceremonies. "The command of the Sabbath, in the renewal of it in the wilderness, was accommodated to the disciplinary state of the church of the Israelites. I admit, also, that there were such additions made to it, as to the manner of its observance and the sanction of it, as might adapt it to their civil and political state, and thus bear a part in that ceremonial instruction, which God, in all His dealings with them, intended... It is no argument, therefore, that this command was not in substance given before to mankind in general, [simply] because it has some modifications added in the decalogue to accommodate it to the existing state of the Hebrews." 

Owen's comments point us to the formulation of the Fourth Commandment, as it is found in Exodus 20:8-11 [emphasis added]: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." Not only does the commandment begin with a command to "remember," but it the makes explicit what is to be remembered, that is, the actions of God on the seventh day of creation. 

Furthermore, though Owen does not mention it, I would refer the reader to Leviticus 19:30: "You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary: I am the Lord." The keeping of the Sabbath is explicitly connected to their revering of His sanctuary, making that connection explicit, though still not exclusive. 

Apostle Peter on the Perseverance of the Saints: Trinitarian and Gracious

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in Heaven for you, who, by God's power, are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (I Peter 1:3-5). 

What a blessed passage, promising to us that God the Father has reserved for us a salvation in Christ that can never be lost. Among the Reformed, this is called "perseverance of the saints" (not identical to "once saved always saved," the Arminian version). 

First, let us consider to whom Peter is speaking. Lazy Christians often ignore the audience in determining the meaning of a passage, but it is essential here. We see it in verses 1-2: "To those who are elect... according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling with His blood." So, Peter is not speaking to men in general, but specifically to believers. And notice how he marks believers, as the elect! 

Peter is making  a logical argument. He assures God's people of our eternal security, not from anything found in ourselves, but as a logical conclusion from his prior assumption of gracious election, bringing all three Persons of the Trinity into the activation and sustaining of the salvation of the church. He starts with election, to effectual calling, to perseverance. 

Apostle Paul on Irresistible Grace

One of the distinguishing doctrines of the Reformed Faith, the "I" in the so-called Five Points of Calvinism is irresistible grace, the biblical assertion that an elect person does not have the ability to refuse to be saved. We see this doctrine in, for example, the answer of Paul to a hypothetical opponent of God's sovereign grace: "You will say to me, then, 'Why does He still find fault? For who can resist His will?'" (Romans 9:19). 

And that opponent is correct. No mere creature can resist the will of God. Yet this doctrine was formulated in response to the assertion of the Arminians that is actually possible for men to resist God's will. Astounding in the light of Paul's statement! How can this be? 

Ever since the temptation and fall of our first parents, the hearts of men have naturally set out to establish the illusion of autonomy. That is, it is now natural to men to believe ourselves to be sovereign, the captains of our own fates, the creators of our own destinies. After all, that was the promise of Satan to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:5, that eating of the forbidden tree would make them like God, the interpreters of reality and masters of good and evil. 

I have never understood why Arminians are not more cautious of advocating the explicit doctrine of Satan. Except of course, to know that it is God's purpose that they do so. 

How does God respond to the declaration of the sovereignty of men? "Who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, 'Why have you made me like this?' Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?'" (Romans 9:20-21).

Abortion and God's Love of Life

"Do not boil a goat in its mother's milk" -Deuteronomy 14:21. 

I remember the first time I read this verse in an Old Testament course in college, a long time ago. It struck me as very odd. 

Another one was, "If you come across a bird’s nest in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young" (Deuteronomy 22:6). 

Why, I wondered, would God put in His Scriptures such commandments about what we might have for dinner? And it has taken until now, my mature years, to understand what seems so plain now. 

There are many passages in Scripture that show God's concern for the family. They start with the creation mandate in  Genesis 1:28: "God said to them [i. e., Adam and Eve], 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'" The welfare of the family is the concern of the Fifth and Seventh Commandments, and of such extended portions of Scripture as Ephesians 5:22-33. 

The two verses from Deuteronomy above reflect that concern. Notice that the command is not to avoid cooking a kid in milk, or to avoid eating eggs. In both cases the restriction is against the relationship between the animal mother and her offspring. The perpetuation of life is precious to God, both for mankind and for the animals. 

The reason that this has become clear to me in the past few years is because I have become more involved in the fight against human sacrifice in America, nicknamed euphemistically as "abortion." When a baby is aborted, that is the new generation murdered not just with his mother, as in the animal texts of Deuteronomy, but by his mother. What can more destroy the family than does mothers, often with the concurrence of fathers, who kill their preborn children. 

"Religious Neutrality" in Government Is Treason Against King Jesus

One of the stories which we best remember about the Prophet Elijah is his confrontation with the prophets of Baal (I Kings, chapter 18). The people of Israel had reached an historical point in religion in which they had eschewed fanaticism, giving equal devotion, in their own eyes, to Jehovah, their covenant God, and Baal, a fertility deity popular in much of the region around Israel. They chose to be neutral, giving both gods some attention, in the hope that one or the other would reward them. 

However, Elijah rejected the religious neutrality of the rest of Israel, challenging them, "How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him" (I Kings 18:21). His challenge was outside the cultural norm of that time, in which Israel was lackadaisical about religious devotion. Neutral, if you will. Trying to cover all of their bases. 

However, Jehovah rejected the neutrality of Israel. While the prophets of Baal received no answer from that deity, Jehovah certainly responded: "Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench" (verse 38). When the Israelites saw that Jehovah answered while Baal remained silent, they saw the emptiness in their illusion of neutrality: "When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, 'The Lord, He is God; the Lord, He is God'" (verse 39) Then, in the words of Elijah ("my God is Yah"), "'Seize the prophets of Baal, let none of them escape.' And they seized them. And Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon and slaughtered them there" (verse 40). 

What Israel learned that day is that there could be no neutrality between the living God of their forefathers, and the pagan idols of the peoples around them. "Limping between two opinions" did not rescue them from the consequences of equating truth with falsehood. 

In a similar way, we in the United States live on land that was dedicated to that same God of the Bible. Then, when our nation was founded, our leaders included a provision in the Constitution saying that the new federal government could not establish a religion. Did they mean to equate Islam, Hinduism, and atheism with Christianity? Not at all. Rather, they intended for the federal government not to show favoritism among the Christian denominations of the new country. 

That plan did not remain in force, especially since the 1960's, when the courts unilaterally decided to eliminate the Christian religion from public forums. Those courts decreed that no establishment of religion meant neutrality toward all religions and irreligion. Prayer and bible reading were removed from government schools, and Christian symbols, such as crosses and placards of the Ten Commandments, were removed from government buildings, parks, even from "polite" discussion. 

Has this "neutrality" fared any better than did that of Elijah's day? Not by any definition. Rather, we have discovered the awful fact that neutrality toward God makes the state the new arbiter of all absolutes. As should have been anticipated. Where Jesus told us, "Your word, [Father], is truth" (John 17:17), now the state is the dispenser of truth. And where Jesus told us, "All authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to Me" (Matthew 28:18), the state says that all authority now belongs to it. Thus, "neutrality" has become an opportunity for tyranny, and our health as a nation sinks further every day.

How Does the Bible Define Sexual Immorality?

"Let marriage be be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous" -Hebrews 13:4. 

When warning the wicked of the consequences of sexual immorality, we often get a response of, "What's immoral about what I am doing? Everyone else is doing it! The Bible doesn't even define 'sexual immorality.'" Who are you, we are asked, to judge what I do? 

First, let us ask what consequences the Bible warns us will apply to sexual immorality. Is it important enough to worry about it? Here is the Bible's answer: "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God" (I Corinthians 6:9-10). So, the Apostle tells us, the sexually immoral are precluded from the kingdom of God. That is, from eternal life with the godly. No more serious consequence can be imagined! 

So what, then, constitutes sexual immorality? We see it in Hebrews 13:4, quoted at the top. The author does not give us a list of forbidden acts (for such, refer to Leviticus 18). Rather, this is one of the few cases in which we are given one moral answer, leaving all others to be excluded. He explicitly tells us that sexual immorality is that which is outside of or besides the marital relationship. And who can be married? "[Jesus said], have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh" (Matthew 19:5-6). In these two sentences, Jesus tells us that marriage in God's plan consists of one man joined to one woman, precluding any other combinations, regardless of the tides of political or social opinion. 

It has become defined among the politically correct, whether they claim to be Christians or not, that speaking against any "alternative lifestyles" is judgmentalism, and to be excluded from social discourse or the teachings of church leaders. Yet, what can we say of people who refuse to warn people of the consequences of their choices, given what we know from I Corinthians 6? What could be more hateful than to allow the wicked to go in ignorance into an eternity in Hell?  

The Consequences of Sexual Sin: Are They Hate?

"Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience." - Ephesians 5:1-6 

America is a country which has become unrecognizable, just in my own adult lifetime. As I write this, we see schools and libraries sponsor sexually-explicit "story times" featuring drag queens performing for audiences of schoolchildren. There is a new push to normalize child molestation as a sexual orientation as valid as any other. The new name for it is "minor-attracted individuals." 

Where is the church in this process? There are some churches who are promoting "diversity" by ordaining, not just female pastors, but openly gay and transgendered pastors. In such "churches," the only sin is to criticize such ordinations. Supposedly, Jesus accepted everyone as they are, so we are hateful not to do the same. 

Of course, the Bible is not the standard for making such declarations, because the Bible qualifies as "hate speech," according to such Christians. However, as we see in the passage above, it is the "tolerant" church member who is the real hater. In the holiness of God, sexual immorality is an insurmountable barrier to entry into eternal life. Yet, these Christians choose to withhold any warning of the consequences of sexual sin. They even go further to point the finger, not at perverts, but at true Christian who strive to warn the wicked of the consequences of their wickedness (Ezekiel 3:18-19).