Jesus replied, "Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard hearts, but it was not what God had originally intended. And I tell you this, whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery--unless his wife has been unfaithful."-- Matthew 19: 8-9 (NLT)
God did not intend for man to design his own level of morality. Why? Because we will always make exceptions for our own sin. The Israelites got to the point where they wanted divorces for virtually no good reason. Jesus cuts past the symptom and addresses the disease. The certificate of divorce is irrelevant in light of the sin of adultery. Yet even today these words from Jesus are used by divorcing church members as an excuse. The hypocrisy is not lost on the world.
If everything is morally relative than anything can become morally acceptable. Maybe not on an individual basis but the damage moral relativism does is that it removes the right to say something is wrong. I know this personally. Someone close to me remains agnostic and fancies himself "more reasonable" because he refuses to take a stand on what is right and what is wrong outside of what society says. If that Christian thing works for you, great! If that Muslim thing works for someone else, great! If that Atheist thing works for someone else, fantastic! What is the problem with that line of reasoning? Someone in the end will be right and the rest will be woefully wrong. I do not understand how someone can believe in God but seemingly not care what He might want. The hard truth is that standing for nothing does not make you more reasonable. There is no reasonableness in hell.
I feel bad for the world sometimes because Christians often muddy the waters when it comes to matter such as these. One of the laments heard most after the Connecticut shooting was the notion that God had been kicked out of the schools, so what did you expect? This misses the mark on so many levels. Just the notion that God is pacing around outside a school building because He has been "removed" is ludicrous. God has never been removed from anywhere, let alone the school system. What was removed was mandatory prayer. The idea that thousands of unbelieving children praying is somehow relevant is equally silly. Adam Lanza still would have existed if kids were still praying in school or not. The problem is not that kids are not allowed to pray anymore. It is the systematic removal of God from society. It is the purposeful blurring of the lines between right and wrong. It is the belief that what God has made black and white man can turn into shades of grey. We do this because within the shades of grey we can feel better about our sin. We can apply moral relativism to make us feel better about what deep down we know we should not be doing.
There is a morality chasm in this country that grows larger every single day. The crimes that exist today you simply never heard of 50 years ago. We have an entertainment complex that over-glorifies death, violence and sex. Think I am kidding? Take a good look at the games your kid is playing. Take a good look at what shows they are watching. Take a good look at their internet activity. Adam Lanza did not just appear one day. He was systematically desensitized by society. He was broken down morally by a culture that has filed for moral bankruptcy. There is an absolute right and an absolute wrong. There are no shades of grey. The Bible warns us:
Don't let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. -- Colossians 2: 8 (NLT)
Our society is indeed held captive right now by empty philosophies that say "if it feels good, just do it." We are held captive by arguments such as allowing moral "whateverism" to be perceived as reasonableness. It all comes from human thinking that sets itself up against God. It comes from the spiritual powers of this world. That is the problem with all of the well intended pundits and experts. They are trying to provide a carnal solution to a spiritual problem. There are spiritual powers in this world that are constantly trying to lead people away from God. The Bible says that Satan is the god of this world and here is the description of him being cast out of heaven:
"How you are fallen from heaven, O shining star, son of the morning! You have been thrown down to the earth, you who destroyed the nations of the world. For you said to yourself, "I will ascend to heaven and set my throne above God's stars. I will preside on the mountain of the gods far away in the north. I will climb to the highest heavens and be like the Most High.' -- Isaiah 14: 12-14 (NLT)
