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The Harvester Podcast is brought to you by the Florida School of Preaching. Listen weekly to take a dive into biblical topics and thoughtful studies on things that matter to our eternal souls.
Welcome to the Harvester podcast.
We are here for our second season and this is episode three.
I am Brian Kenyon and with me is...
Forest Antemesaris
Steven Ford.
And we are glad to be coming to you on this podcast.
And this season, we're talking about cultural things, how things relate to culture.
And our last episode, we talked about views of ethics that culture kind of brings up down
upon us.
And we talked about several things last week, such as cultures that are based on
Talked about what is culture.
I know I spent some time doing that.
Talked about different ideas of ethics that exist.
know ethics is kind of the bedrock culture.
Yeah, like might makes right.
We talked about man being the measure.
We talked about, you know, right is moderation.
We talked about some people say there is no right or wrong or right is what brings
pleasure.
So a number of them, but we want to follow this up with episode three here about the
Christian view of ethics, the Christian view of ethics.
And so we want to talk about that because when that and really that might be a
a misnomer or not maybe miss a redundant by saying christian view of ethics because really
when you think about it there's only one system of ethics that works and that's what is
revealed in the bible new testament christianity
Yeah, that's true.
So we want look at this.
We've got five points here that we can talk about.
And so the first one is that Christian ethics or ethics, true ethics, is based upon God's
will and His nature.
Now sometimes this is...people refer to this as a form of divine command theory, but what
we want look at here is that God never wills anything that's contrary to His unchanging
moral character.
In fact, 2 Timothy 2 and verse 13 says that he cannot deny himself.
And I remember very young – oh, actually, it was before I went to preaching school, as a
matter of fact.
Very young and moved over to Louisiana, didn't know anybody, and just a babe in Christ,
probably two years a Christian, and they throw me in a teenage class.
And they say, yeah, why don't you teach us teenage class?
And so one of the wise guy teenagers, she was a girl, she asked – well, her boyfriend,
yeah, she brought her boyfriend.
It's always the boyfriend.
yeah
always.
And he asked this question, he says, can God make a rock so big that he cannot move it?
And I'm like, man, I don't know how to answer that.
Yeah.
So I went back and studied and all that.
Fortunately, he asked a question at the end of class.
And so I was saved by the bell.
And then I went back and read it, read and studying stuff.
And the point is God cannot deny his nature.
And so by making a rock so big that he can't move himself, that's like making a three
sided square.
or a spherical pyramid or something like that.
But one of the verses that you come across is God cannot deny himself.
And of course there's several things that God cannot do, the scriptures say.
Cannot lie, cannot deny himself.
A number of other things he cannot do.
that's because.
change.
Yeah, cannot change, he's immutable.
And that is because he cannot go against his nature.
the nature of god is such that his system of ethics is obviously based upon his nature
And we know there has to be a standard and the standard, you know We're gonna get to this
is God's Word, but God's Word flows from God's nature is nature, you know and That really
I think is where you see if you the scriptures God's ultimate goal is for us to be like
him In that we are to be godly.
We are to be holy.
We are to be loving We are to be right all those commandments really go back to his moral
attributes, you know more lecture.
Yeah, and
He obviously communicates those through revelation, which we'll get to, but there really
is a standard for, you know, God, that God is the standard in His nature and the way He
does things.
I was listening to a debate once and the guy was trying to ask about morality and ethics
and that and he was trying to make it seem as though God sought morality and then made
rules based on this morality and it's like no, it doesn't flow that way.
As you were saying, whatever comes from God is moral and ethical because it's an
outpouring of the nature of.
who and what God is.
And I was kind of thinking about Psalm 119, 172 that says, tongue shall speak of that word
for all that commandments are righteousness.
Everything that exudes from God is righteous because God himself is righteous.
Everything that exudes from God is holy because he himself is holy.
And it's not that he says, hmm, let me think of a holy law.
Then I'll make up a holy law.
If it's gonna come from him, it's going to be moral and ethical and holy and those things.
And you run into issues if God, you know, if there is a standard of morality outside of
God, then you don't really need God for morality.
Exactly.
Because that exists independent of Him.
Right.
But if the standard is Him, which the Bible teaches it is, then you need Him, you need
what He says, you need to know Him, etc.
And that's what that person is trying to put out.
the morality is outside of God, then God himself would be irrelevant relative to morality.
God is as subject to it as we are.
You know what I mean?
God will never not be moral because it's his very nature.
We're the ones trying to conform ourselves to him.
Yeah.
And there's never been a time that God is not what he is now.
And there will never be a time that I know God does not approve.
He does not diminish.
He is the ultimate and all those attributes eternally.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so we, we on the other hand are not.
Yeah.
And so we do have passions like be perfect.
You know, King James, Matthew five 48 as
your father in heaven is perfect.
Which of course, God is sinless and all that, but the idea that the teleos is a word
there, be complete, be mature, be full grown, which is something we constantly are
improving on as we go through life.
And we looked at this last episode, but, you know, speaking of the nature of God, anything
that's your standard of morality other than God is going to change over time.
You know, if it's culture, if it's your feelings, if it's what the majority says, whatever
it is, all those things are constantly changing.
God never is changing.
So if you have, if there really are moral prescriptions, if there really are things we
should not do and things we should do, you would have to have a standard for that that is
unchanging.
And the only thing that meets that is
God's nature.
Good point.
Alright, so secondly, first of all, ethics, true ethics, Christian ethics if you want to
call it that, is based on God's will and His nature.
And then secondly, notice that Christian ethics or ethics, the only working standard of
ethics is absolute, absolute.
That is, the moral principles are binding everywhere on everyone.
However, within that
immutable or within the absolute standards of God, there are options within that on some
things that we'll talk about here in just a moment.
And of course we also realize that everything that God wills does not necessarily apply to
us.
We have 2 Timothy 2.15 that says we must rightly divide the word of truth, and so we must
make sure that
build thee an ark of gopher wood, that does not apply to us as we rightly divide the word
of truth or handle it right.
And so we realize that there are some things that don't apply to us, there's some things
that do apply to us but are optional, like eating meat, for example, in 1 Corinthians 8
and Romans 14.
Eating meat is good, however, if it causes your brother to sin or violates our conscience,
then we don't eat it.
And so it becomes immoral to eat it when
In most cases, it's a moral thing to do.
Even with that though, it still falls into the realm of the nature of God.
For example, if you say, well, the eating of meat.
Well, there's still the ethic of loving your neighbor, which is the idea behind not eating
the meat when the weaker brother is around.
So it still goes back to the fact that it's all coming from the nature of God, though his
commands at times may, like you mentioned Noah.
but there's still this ethic of obedience to God and accepting God's grace and his love
being demonstrated to men.
And so even though there may be some coloration with his commands for different people at
different times, they're all going to come out of the same morality pool that is God's
purview.
And the principles behind them are objective and absolute still.
You know, the application of them or whatever might change with culture and time and
stuff, but you still have the absolute standard.
And something Steven, when Steven was talking, I was thinking, wow, that's pretty awesome
because with the eating of meat, know, in the beginning of 1 Corinthians 8 is what I'm
thinking of, you know, God says there's no other God, you know, we know that.
You know, of course, don't let knowledge puff up and all that.
so based upon the first part of that greatest commandment, love the Lord thy God with all
the heart, soul, strength and mind, you know, we understand that there's only one God.
so it's not, even though that meat has been
Using a pagan ritual doesn't mean it's unclean or anything.
Yeah that pagan God doesn't even exist, right?
You know, however the second part of that great command love your neighbor as yourself as
Steven pointed out that affects How we're gonna eat that meat if we're eat that meat if
there's someone who's gonna be offended Because it's the love of neighbor that's there,
right?
And it's interesting because on these two commandments hinge the whole law.
Yeah, so he does say
You know, there's one commandment, the second commandment, but then think it's James or
one of the other epistles talks about the whole laws fulfilled in this one thing, love
your neighbor as yourself.
Cause you can't really love neighbor as yourself unless you understand what loving self
means, what neighbor is.
You can't love neighbor as self unless you love God first and foremost.
And so the two go together, even though only one may be explicitly expressed in a certain
context.
so that fits in with this.
God's ethic is absolute.
than you'd expect it to be.
I think about God is not, the God of the Bible is not just like some local deity.
He's the God of everybody everywhere.
And everybody everywhere is made in His image and His likeness.
So it would make sense that everybody, this applies to everybody.
This isn't just for some people.
And even see that like when God is dealing with Israel, where there's some instances where
maybe He held them to a higher standard, but
The things that the Canaanites did were still wrong, even though they didn't acknowledge
Yahweh, right?
They were still going to be punished for those things.
And God says they should have known better one way or the other.
They should have known better on some of that stuff.
So, I mean, it makes sense that God, it would apply to everywhere, everyone, because, you
know, what is God's jurisdiction?
It's everywhere, everybody, you know?
Jesus, obviously, all authority in heaven and on earth.
So he has that right.
And we would expect that, I think.
Yeah, that's a good point as well.
And so the absolute nature of God's ethics, which is the only ethic that actually works.
Thirdly, let's look at God's ethics as based on God's revelation, God's revelation.
And of course, there's least two kinds of revelation, know, nature through nature and then
through revealed, the revealed Word of God.
But when I think of general revelation, for example, of course, in the Old Testament,
Psalm 19, 1 through 6, but even in the New Testament, in Romans chapter 1, when Paul is
going to be talking about the sins of the Gentiles and so forth, he appeals to nature.
And that's one of those verses that we use a lot in Christian evidences.
And it's a verse that really, really has a great application to this topic here in verse
19, because that what may be known of God is manifested in them, for God has shown it to
them.
For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they
are without excuse.
And that passage is pretty awesome, especially if think about the invisible are clearly
seen, his attributes.
And so this is general revelation in chapter 2, verse 12 through 15.
for not the hearers of the law are just before God in the sight of God, but the doers of
the law will be justified.
And then this statement, for when the Gentiles who did not have the law, by nature do the
things in the law, these although not having the law are a law to themselves who show the
work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and
between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them." And I like to point out
here, you know, people talk about, what about
in the bush in africa and never heard the word of god you know are they'll be lost in a
course answers yes i mean because we're not lost because we didn't hear the word god or
lost because it's a right and so the question should be to those in the bush of africa sin
can be sinned if so they can be lost right but with the gentiles here i think it's worth
noting that god does not condemn them for what they did not know
but god condemns him for what they did know through nature even and still went against it
yeah and so you know the he that knows to do good and does not do it to him in the sand
james four seventeen and has an application with this as well
For sure.
And it always jumps out to me that Romans 1, it's not just that they knew, you know, if
you just follow that phrase without excuse, I mean, it comes up, you know, four or five
times, but always it blows my mind in verse 18, in there unrighteousness, suppress the
truth.
So it's like, we know the truth.
It's inconvenient.
That's not what we want to do.
We're going to push it down, you know?
And I love that idea there.
And it really, I knew this, but for some reason it didn't jump out to me until you're
reading those passages.
You know, Paul really says,
In chapter one, there's things you can know from nature about God's attributes, right?
His power, His majesty, you know, the divine nature or the Godhead as it's translated
there in the New King James.
And then chapter two, there's things you can know about morality.
So you really, I mean, you really can have a lot, those people who are paying attention
just from nature.
Obviously you don't know about Jesus and some of the most important things, but you at
least know there is a God.
He is powerful.
There are some things that are right to do.
There's some things that are wrong to do.
And you haven't even opened your Bible yet.
And I think that really speaks to the fact that God, like you said, there's a lot of
people who are without excuse, even though they might not be as reached as other groups,
they still have a standard that they should be submitting to.
And God has made it abundantly evident.
So if you look at a few passages like Psalm 19, the heavens declaring the glory of God,
it's like the universe is screaming out that there's a creator.
And then you look at this passage, Romans 1, it's like that natural, if you call it
natural revelation, should lead us to
pursue this inspired revelation, which leads us to salvation.
So was like, if I can see that there is something in this universe, what can I see?
Well, Paul makes it clear that we can see God's eternal power in Godhead.
So I can look at the universe around me, I can see its design, I can look at the earth, I
can see its design, and I have to know that if I've created something, whoever created
this has to be far more powerful.
You know, like, I can create certain things, but then I need other.
Implements and tools to help me build a lot of power so I know whoever could build
something bigger and greater is more powerful and then I have to know that They have to
exist outside of this created thing.
So I think you know, you have to have some logical conclusions when you look at the
universe around us so we see is eternal power and Godhead I don't think is
this super theological thing that people are able to see, but you're able to see if you
walk into a restaurant and you can tell, hey, look, somebody set the table here, somebody
cooked a meal.
And the table didn't set itself, nor did the food cook itself, so you have to see
something.
But then that should cause us, looking at Acts 17, to say, okay, since there is something
bigger, greater, more powerful, I need to go and pursue this thing.
And if I pursue it,
Paul tells us that we will find God if we're seeking after him.
if we just look at the clues and follow the breadcrumbs, then I think we'll follow God.
But that's why you have other passages that say the fool has set his heart, because they
do see the breadcrumbs and they sweep them to the side instead of follow them to the
conclusion.
Yeah, that's a good point
You know, think recently I was re-studying the background of the word Lagos in John 1-1,
and you'll find out that there's a couple of Greek philosophers way back in the day who
would use that way before the New Testament, who would use that term Lagos to refer to the
reality behind the reality or the thought behind what we see, and they were pretty close
in some cases.
they didn't have all the details right about the god but they at least realize that Steven
talked about they realized there was something beyond this life something beyond this
world that has to be behind it all yeah because I mean you know and I think that's
cosmological argument or the design argument all that stuff goes into play with that but
it's just amazing how they work for sure
mean, you can see in those pagan philosophers how they're, obviously they don't know the
God of the Bible, but they have this conception of like a supreme, all-powerful first
mover who created everything.
And that's just through sitting down and thinking about it.
You know what I mean?
So God, I'm thinking of the VBS song about the hippo, know?
yeah.
His fingerprints are everywhere.
they really are.
I mean, if you take a second to stop and look, I mean, you can see them.
Yeah, it's impossible for him not to exist.
It's also interesting that every culture has a mythology or some sort of system that they
are looking for something bigger or greater than themselves.
Every culture that has ever existed, they all have something where they're attributing
what they see to something bigger and greater.
And some of it is misplaced, obviously.
People worship the sun or worship rivers or certain animals even, but everybody's looking.
There's something outside of me as a human.
that is responsible for the things that I'm seeing.
And so that itself should be a sign that mankind has always been the very least curious
and searching for, which we should be, who God really is and what he really is.
But the great thing, which I love about this, that Acts 17 makes it so clear that if you
are seeking for God,
Like if you're earnestly seeking for God, you will find him.
He is not a fervor, it's not like he's elusive, you know, like trying to find the, what is
it, the pot of gold at end of the rainbow, know, finding a leprechaun or four leaf clover,
a bigfoot, you everybody says they caught bigfoot on film, no.
You don't have to do that with God.
If you're earnestly seeking for God, he will make a way that you can find him.
Yeah.
And he made the world in such a way that that would be the case.
Before we leave Romans 1, because it's always kind of struck me as being pretty cool, but
well, not cool for them, but notice how much time nature comes up in here.
For example, verse chapter 126, God gave them up to vile passions for even their women
exchanged the natural use for what is against nature.
And likewise, the men leaving the natural use of the woman
burning the less one for another, men with men committing what is shameful and receiving
themselves a penalty of their error which was due.
And then also the verse 31, when he's listing some of these characteristics, but the New
King James says unloving right there in verse 31.
But I believe the Old King James says without natural affection, without natural
affection.
And so, you know, how could they go against nature
in the male-female roles of sexual intimacy without nature teaching them.
Here's what nature shows, but here's what you're doing.
And so again, they went against what they knew, so they're not condemned for what they did
not know, but what they did know through nature and still went against it.
And that's a great point even going back to Genesis 1, or excuse me, chapter 2, Adam is
seeing all of these animals that are biologically complementary and then he doesn't see
one for himself.
And it's like, well, where's the biologically, physiologically complementary one for me?
And so then God creates one for him, not that Adam asks a question, not saying Adam, but
he has to obviously see and name the animals that there's not one complementary for him.
take a
Right, take a rest.
Just get some rest.
But when he creates Eve, there's one now biologically complimentary for him.
And so when in Romans one, they go against it, it goes against not long standing practice.
It's not like, well, this is what a lot of people have been doing for a long time.
No, this is the way that God created the human body to be able to sustain itself or
continue to perpetually go on, you know, so that you can reproduce.
And if that isn't evidence enough, man, I just don't know what would be.
That's why love that Romans 1, like you pointed out, is so plain.
And when you talk about the whole gender stuff, it's like, that is against nature.
That's what God made it to be.
I think we had a whole episode on that coming up.
So if you're listening, be sure to catch up.
Stay tuned for future episodes.
Indeed, in this season, as a matter of All right, so that was general revelation, but then
there's a special revelation which comes from God's Word, comes from God's Word, and so
that's more precise, and that gives us sometimes the reason behind it.
But like, for example, in Romans 2, 18, talking to the Jews here in verse 17, indeed, you
are called a Jew and rest on the law.
and make your boast in God and know His will and approve the things that are excellent
being instructed out of the law, but knowing His will, knowing His word.
And then in chapter three, verse two, much in every way chiefly because to them, that is
the Jews, were committed the oracles of God.
And so they had special revelation that came from God, you know, through the law of Moses,
primarily is what the focus is here.
But throughout human history, God has revealed things, whether patriarchal, Mosaic law,
Christian age, of course now with the New Testament at the end of the first century being
complete, God reveals His word to us through the Bible, the written word, and so we have a
system of ethics described in here.
Yeah, I always think about, you know, just the fullness of the way it's described in 2nd
Timothy 3, 16 through 17, where God's word is profitable for doctrine, for proof, for
correction, for instruction and righteousness, that the man of God may be complete,
thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Where you see, and there's things in my life where it's like, man, if the Bible didn't
tell me how to do it, I wouldn't know.
You know, I really like
Maybe through trial and error I could figure it out, you know, but it's like God really
does help us out with it to say here, here's how you do that, you know.
And I think just if you sit down and just read the book of Proverbs, I mean, you're going
to learn some stuff.
You're like, wow, I've been doing all kinds of stuff wrong, you know, where you can just
see the wisdom.
I mean, really, and that's what we need where there are some things where, you know, maybe
naturally I wouldn't pick up on it.
But God shows me, this is what's moral.
And I'm thinking of things like loving my neighbors myself.
Sometimes that won't come naturally to me because I might be in self-preservation mode or
whatever.
And without that call to love and sacrifice, there's times where I'd be unmotivated to do
so.
But God's special revelation comes in and shows us, hey, this is the way.
And you have to have faith that God knows what he's talking about.
That revelation also gives us, I guess is kind of what you're saying too, just once you
know that there is a God, there is a powerful, self-existent creator, it's like, well,
man, how do I respond to that?
Creator and you know his special revelation has given us that.
I was thinking of a second Peter chapter one which says according to his divine power has
given us all things that pertain into life and godliness through the knowledge of him
that's called us to glory and virtue and in that chapter alone knowledge is mentioned
several times and Peter wants us to know I think that we can know about God, we can know
about his will, we can know how
to respond to him and how to respond to each other.
It's like Psalm 119 is one of my favorite chapters in the book of Psalms because it gives
us all of these aspects of God's word which tells us that he's revealed information to us.
And so that we can know as much as we need to know about him, we can know as much as we
need to know about creation itself, as much as we need to know about heaven, about hell,
about life, about everything so that we are
One left outside, we're not left ignorant, ill-informed.
We have every ability to know everything that we need to know.
And like Romans 1 going back, we'll be left with no excuse.
So nobody will be able to say, well, God, but you didn't tell me this.
So if there's any expectation for eternal life, we have everything that we need to know
for it.
And because he has revealed it for us.
Right.
And I always think about this passage is on here in the notes, but, you know, first
Corinthians two, where Paul essentially talks about how God's word is the spirit of God
revealing the mind of God, which is
no pun intended mind boggling.
actuality, yes.
if I'm gonna have my mind renewed, I've gotta have God's, like input from God's mind into
my mind, which is what happens when you read the scriptures.
Like, it really is mind-blowing that I can have God's mind, you his thoughts enter my
mind.
And that's gonna transform you.
That's gonna change if you let it.
It'll change everything.
That's a heavy concept.
Like God says, okay, my thinking is this, I'm going to allow you to have a portion of my
thinking to help override whatever you have done to corrupt your own
exactly.
get it back up to snuff where it needs to be.
And when you think of all the different passages that allude to something like that, let
this mind be in you, which was in Christ Jesus, all the different ways and times we're
taught to be changed with our mind, thinking of Romans 12 and all these different ways
that God has said, hey look.
Look, you're not doing it right.
Let my thinking be the thing that kinda changes your course and gets it back on.
Which makes this revelation now even much more important for us.
It's not just like, I'm gonna just boss you around and give you what I think.
I'm like, yeah, you need it.
there's a degree to which I know we're spending a lot on this point, but there's a degree
to which like it's almost like medicine because I'm thinking of like Ephesians four where
in sin our minds are darkened, right?
And like things that we used to naturally be able to see are right or wrong.
Now it's like we're looking at them dimly through use of practice or habit or whatever.
So now it's not just that I need to know, like I need that almost like a reboot, right?
And that's where in Christ,
That's what I have.
put on the new man and I'm able to be renewed by the renewing of my mind, transformed by
the renewing of my mind where it's not just like, need to hear what's right and what's
wrong.
I need to get, I need to, I need to heal essentially.
You know?
That is, what you just mentioned about the light and dark, I love that motif in
scriptures.
And it just reminded me, you know when you have an old light bulb, you know, it's going
out, you kinda flick it and you tighten it back up.
It's not connected to the power source correctly.
And when it gets back connected, then the light comes back on.
But when it's not, the light goes out.
It's darkened and when you think about all the different passages, especially when jumps
in my mind, it's Ephesians five, about this light and dark, and Christ will give you
light.
Just thinking about how if we are connected to Christ in every way in our lives that we
could possibly be connected, then darkness is gonna be the result in one way or another.
It's gonna be darkness.
Absolutely.
by walking the light as he is in the light.
1 John 1 7.
And so Christian ethics is based on God's revelation.
And then fourthly, notice biblical ethics, which is the only system again, is
prescriptive.
Prescriptive.
And what that means is, you know, it's the difference between something is versus
something ought to be.
And God's system of ethics, we can always say, truly,
A person ought to do this or a person ought not to do that based upon what God has
revealed.
Yeah, and I even think even if like, you know, if you're pragmatic about it, even if
you're like, okay, I disagree with God on this or whatever.
I always think of Ecclesiastes 12, 13 through 14.
Or even if you're like, I know God says this, but one day you'll have to give an account
to him, not to anybody else, right?
Like not to your culture or to whatever, like you're be giving an account to him.
And when I think of prescriptive, it can be prescriptive because there is accountability.
You know, and that's where if you take away judgment, you lose morality.
Because if you say, hey, you ought to do this, says who?
Says the one who created you, says the one who will judge you, says the one who, right?
And then you actually have, that's why it can be prescriptive, because God is actually
going to hold us accountable.
And there's going to be a day of reckoning.
There's going to be a day of judgment, you know?
yeah when you take god out of the equation which is what you know
chaos results in writing book of judges never man who was right in his own side you look
at our country over the past several several decades who trying to remove god take god out
and what's that leave you and just as chaos right and that's why a girl can say he's a guy
or she's a guy and vice versa and and if you speak out against the year than you're the
not case you know it's it's just and messed upset system which you know as they talked
about a long time ago what to them to call the evil good and good evil
Put sweet for bitter and bitter for sweet, light for dark and dark for light.
And so it's not anything new to our culture.
Yeah, absolutely.
It seems like I want to say that morality does demand, or ethics, it demands an ought.
I don't think that you can have actual morality in the way that we're talking about,
because if it is what it is, and that is a kind of a system where we know what is right
and wrong, but it's all based on the nature of God, if that is the case and it demands
oughtness, it can't just be, well, I know I should...
there's this standard of treating my neighbor right.
But I don't wanna do it right now because I'd rather rob you or just treat you.
Well then I can do that.
But that would say something about the one who's given the law.
And so it seems like if there is a system of morality and it comes from God and it is,
that means that it demands that I adhere to it.
And I was just trying to write it out.
Well I got it from your desk.
Right, yeah, I was going to rob my neighbor.
But I was thinking about, you know, John 12, Jesus says, listen, if any man hear my words
and believe not, I judge him not.
For I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.
He that rejects me and receives not my words has one that judges him.
The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.
And so, and Jesus made it very clear, he's preaching the same word to his father.
I gave him to preach the Holy Spirit was gonna give those same words that Jesus preaches
they all on one accord with with with that But it's not going to be like there's no
accountability at the end, right?
And it won't be arbitrary Jesus is the righteous judge Yeah, and so that is again also
going back to what is righteousness?
It's those things that exude from God so I'm 19 and so he's gonna judge according to that
same standard that we've been given the same standard that we should know and we can obey
so that there's gonna be no excuse for anybody.
And everybody will be treated the same.
It'll be the same standard for every person.
Yeah, I remember Melvin Ote.
I don't know if he was either preaching at South Florida Avenue.
I don't know if it was a lectureship or a gospel meeting.
I think no, it was definitely South Florida Avenue.
But I remember he talked about and it blew my mind.
I'd never heard, you know, he talked about the judgment being an open book test where it's
like you, you know, you were able to have the study guide, if you will.
You know what I mean?
And this idea of it's not like God's like waiting and trying to
Surprise you right where it's like he's literally told us and then if anybody wants to
make an excuse like The book just happens to be the all-time bestseller, know what I mean?
So it's like, okay So, you know and I think there's when you talk about prescriptive
there's a big difference between This is what God says Versus this is what God says you
must do and I think that's where sometimes people forget I know the Bible says XYZ.
No
The Bible says that to you.
Like the Bible is saying you need to do these things, right?
Not that like, this is bad.
No, you are bad.
Like you need to change, right?
I need to change.
We need to, it's calling out to all of us, not just to tell us how things are, but to tell
us how things should be.
And that's a big difference.
Some people make it like God was just in a cave somewhere just writing down arbitrary
things.
If you choose to go in the cave and be with him, well then you'll be subject to it.
But if you out of the cave and you don't want to read it, well then you're not subject to
it.
Nothing would be farther from the case.
God spoke to mankind through the person of his son Jesus Christ.
And so we're all going to be held to that same standard.
Amen for all time.
That's a good segue to our last point here, this episode about God says, for me to do it
individually, you must do it, you must do it.
And so the fifth point about biblical ethics, which is the only system that works, is that
it is duty-centered, and sometimes it's called deontological.
But what it means is the rule that is God's Word determines the result.
God's Word is the basis of the act.
We do it because this is what God said.
God's Word is good regardless of the result, even if someone does good and it's not
accepted, but regardless what God says is good.
And then, you know, the result of what God says is always calculated within what He says.
And I'm thinking of, you know, there will be persecution when we live for God.
God has already warned us, they that live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
it's duty-centered.
each individually have an obligation and a duty to fulfill what God says.
Absolutely.
Or there'll be some serious consequences.
Even the way we think about that too, though that is 100 % true, and I'm not rebutting
that at all, but if we truly come to first see who God is, you know, we see his power in
Godhead, alright, then we seek him out, okay, we see who he is, I wanna know him more
intimately, I see who he is through the person of Jesus, that should compel us to have
this...
more than this sense of altness, it's just like, what else could I do?
This one who loves me, who gives me life and all this stuff, it should compel me to do
whatever he asks me to do because he loves me, first of all, to give me the life that I
have and let me enjoy, have a mind and all this kind of stuff.
But then he says, I want you to be a part of my family and then come and spend eternity
with me.
Enjoy, I won't say spend, because then that's kind of redundant to eternity.
But he says, I want you to be with me in eternity.
And so if I truly know who he is, then it should compel me to love him.
And if I love him, it should compel me to obey him.
so yes, there is this sense that you ought to do it, and you never want to detract from
that, but it should also come to the point where we learn about God to the degree that we
just love him without bounds.
you ought to do it.
But if you love him with all of your heart, soul, and strength, you'll want to do it.
Right, exactly, just like with your spouse.
It's not like, don't buy my wife flowers, like, oh, I gotta get her flowers again, or take
her out to dinner again.
It's like, I can't wait to do those things because I know it will make her happy and it
bring her joy.
And so if I can do anything to make my spouse happy, how much more can I do for the one
who allowed me to even meet my spouse, to have a spouse?
That's right.
That's a great point.
And so Christian view of ethics, know, God's ethics, which are the only ethics at work,
they are based on God's will and His nature.
They are absolute.
They are based on God's revelation.
They are prescriptive and they are duty centered with accountability from us.
And so we thank you for joining us on this third episode of our second season and look
forward to next episode being with you.