Lawfullness vs Lawlessness

TNG Radio, where today's culture and timeless truths come together. It's reasoned relevant content apologetics, worldview, and answers to the questions that you need to know. From Alex McFarland Ministries, this is Truth for a New Generation Radio.

And now the man who preached in 50 states in 50 days, speaker, writer, and advocate for Christian apologetics, Dr. Alex McFarland. I saw a website recently that has a search feature allowing you to compare any two things. Now they could be a comparison of similar things like spaghetti versus lasagna, Ford versus Chevy, or dissimilar things like a sofa to orange juice or a Hershey bar to a washing machine. It was very interesting. And the search engine demonstrates results or generates results rather based on responses people have given and the differences or the comparisons between all sorts of different things. It was very interesting, very informative, and sometimes even kind of funny.

Hi, Alex McFarland here, TNG Radio. And, you know, I was thinking about comparing different things. But interestingly, this comparison generator, do you know what the number one most searched comparison was? It was life versus death.

Isn't that interesting? And different people put in different things. Now, under death, death contrasted with life, says death is the termination of the biological functions that define a living organism. It will eventually afflict all living things, say the people contributing to this public website. Death refers both to a particular event and to the condition that results thereby. Now it says life, life, compare with biota. Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have self-sustaining biological processes or functions from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased, i.e.

death, or else because they lack such functions. Now interesting, on this website that compares all manner of things, life contrasted with death. So the connotation, life generally positive, death generally negative. Isn't that something?

Life is preferable to death, even on this public website. Well, I welcome you to the program, and it's great to have you listening. You know, as I record this show, and certainly as this show airs throughout North America and online, the whole world is just talking, talking, talking about the coronavirus, COVID-19. If you look at the fall of 2019, even CNN, which is not known to be conservative at all, CNN was predicting that Trump would win the 2020 election in a landslide if the economy was strong. Michael Moore, the filmmaker and pundit, who is notoriously hyper-liberal, Michael Moore wrote in the fall of 2019 that Trump would win the election in a landslide unless there was an economic downturn. Now many are theorizing that the COVID-19 may actually be something, at the very least, those that want the president deposed are leveraging this to cause economic instability and really almost public hysteria.

And those that want the president re-elected, as I do, I hope Donald Trump gets re-elected for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is his Supreme Court appointments. And what I want to do on this program is talk about a contrast, just as I mentioned that website, a contrast of not life versus death, not necessarily prosperity versus adversity, but lawfulness versus lawlessness. Because one of the things the president has done, the president very wisely has appointed people that not only believe in the constitution as originally written, but also believe in morals. Now Jefferson in the declaration used the term self-evident truth. Now when the founders wrote about quote, the laws of nature and nature's God, what they were talking about were these undeniable objective moral truths, the ethical and moral boundaries that define life and reality. Now folks, one of the things if you take logic or much philosophy, and if you take logic and philosophy from a teacher that believes in moral truth and what we call epistemic realism.

Now hang with me here. Epistemology is from a Greek word pisteau, p-i-s-t-e-a-u. Pisteau is trust, but it's also knowledge. It's how we know things. And when the Bible talks about putting our faith in Jesus, our belief, it means trust, but it's trust based on knowledge.

What do we know? Well, we know that Jesus is the son of God and he rose from the dead. And we accept that on faith, but we are justified in believing that because there's an empty tomb. There's the eyewitness testimony of the apostles.

There's the changed lives of millions of people. There's even things like the the Jewish Christians in the first and second centuries worshipped on Sunday, Resurrection Day. So there are compelling reasons to make the decision to trust Christ. And yes, it is faith, but it's not a blind faith. It's faith based on knowledge.

And lest you think that that's some kind of a leap into the dark, I want to remind you, we all make faith decisions all the time. We eat in restaurants. We don't interview all the cooks.

We don't look at all the expiration dates of the food in the kitchen. We just trust and we make a justified, measured decision. And that's faith. And if you've ever flown on an airplane, you've really exercised faith. Well, the word for faith based on knowledge is pistuo. Now we get a word from that epistemology. Now your epistemology, if you live in the Western world, as most of us do, is a belief system called realism. In other words, there is a real world and we can know things about it. Now, academics and politics and culture in recent decades has turned away from that to really subjectivism, meaning that we all make up reality for ourselves. And that's just not rational.

That's delusional. Now stay tuned because when TNG radio gets back, we're going to talk about lawfulness versus lawlessness. I want you to stay tuned. I know we're laying sort of a deep foundation here, but it's all going to make sense. We'll connect the dots and we'll talk about our response to a chaotic world when TNG radio gets back.

Don't go away. America today is like a patient struggling to live, yet is being forcibly euthanized by her quote doctors. The life force within the patient fighting for survival is the honest citizens like yourself.

The team of quote caregivers are the local and national leaders actually contributing to the demise of the patient. The economy is crashing. Crime is exploding. The Constitution is being abolished. The assault on America, how to defend our nation before it's too late by Alex McFarland has one single purpose to get you prepared. Learn the real source of America's current problems that no one else is talking about and what you can do now to face tomorrow, regardless of what tomorrow brings. The assault on America, how to defend our nation before it's too late.

Available now at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and local Christian bookstores. Christians don't necessarily agree with one another when it comes to questions of religious pluralism, homosexuality, the role of government, abortion and war. Too often we manage these disagreements by ignoring them. Yet we're called to engage the world for the sake of Christ.

How can we be effective if we avoid society's most pressing questions? In 10 issues that divide Christians, Alex McFarland challenges us to drill down to the biblical core of 10 current issues, such as social justice, evil and suffering, pornography and environmentalism as he echoes the biblical invitation, come let us reason together. Only by engaging the scriptures deeply, thinking clearly and speaking truthfully can we and God's family address our differences and discover the peace that comes with unity of purpose. 10 issues that divide Christians.

Find this book and many others at AlexMcFarland.com. Timeless truths in a soundbite culture. Truth for a new generation radio. Welcome back to Truth for a New Generation. Alex McFarland here and we're talking about lawfulness versus lawlessness and one of the reasons that it is so imperative that our culture rediscover a moral conscience is because of this.

Look, your behavior emanates from your beliefs and if we don't believe that there are things true, if we don't believe there is good to pursue and evil to avoid, we're just going to have a lawless culture. And before the break I was talking about epistemology, how we know what we know from the Greek word pistuo. And the epistemology of our world really for 2000 years has been what's called realism. Now belief in the real world is very godly. There is truth, we can know things, man is made in God's image, man can think, man can reason, and man can not only know truth about this world, by God's grace we can know truth about eternity. We can actually know what God has revealed about himself and we can be prepared to meet God one day through a relationship with his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. But you've got to understand largely since the 60s in America and the West, in academia there's been a radical turn against realism.

To what? To relativism and subjectivism. Now objectivity and realism says that there is truth and I can discover it.

Subjectivity and relativism says that there is not truth, I determine my own reality. That's why we've got people nowadays folks, they may be a genetic female or a genetic male but they identify as something else. Facebook, may heaven help us, has something like 81 genders and oh boy if you really want to create a firestorm you just go to a university campus and declare that you believe in binary gender.

Binary is two, male and female. And my goodness, because people have abandoned belief in God, abandoned belief in objective truth, we are lost in this sea of relativism, subjectivism, slash delusion. I mean I might believe that I could play NBA basketball but at 56 years old, 5 foot 7 and probably 20 pounds overweight, I could believe it as hard as my little heart could muster but I do not have a future in the NBA because realism trumps emotions and feelings and misconceptions any day of the week. We can have tightly held misconceptions but realism plays the trump card.

Now why am I saying all this? It's because we must, we must get back to a humble posture before God and truth and the real world. Maybe this coronavirus that is taking away image and money and rocking the world, maybe it is something God has allowed to bring us back into focus of reality. Now let me just say this, in Deuteronomy chapter 11 the people of Israel are about to enter the promised land and they gather on two mountainsides, Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal and the people along with the priests declare their allegiance to Jehovah God, the one true God and they promised to follow his laws. Now at a time when most of the tribes of the world were polytheistic, in other words they believed in many gods, Israel was monotheistic and God's revealed laws were followed rather than man's subjective customs being followed. This was a very significant moment in Israel's history and so God has them gather on these two mountain tops and Joshua is instructed with very specific detail to build an altar which by the way in 1987 excavations at the northern corner of Mount Ebal, archaeologists found what is believed to be the altar of Joshua.

Now in Deuteronomy Moses had given very detailed instructions regarding the building of an altar and it was to be made of stones parched on the outside with lime and no iron tools were to be used in the building of this altar and the digging out of this area in 1987 revealed the bones of many kosher animals presumably made as sacrifices amidst stone and ash and that may have been the altar that was built there. But the way to remember this, these two mountain sides, Gerizim, Good, Ebal, because God says here now if you follow God in his decrees you'll be blessed, you'll have favor and if you abandon God in his decrees you'll have judgment. So Gerizim were the promises of blessing, Ebal were the warnings about judgment. Now in a similar way the Declaration of Independence and America's founders pledging to build a nation on God's laws is almost like Israel. President Harry Truman in 1948 said that America was based on quote the Decalogue. He really said Exodus, Isaiah, and Matthew formed the foundation for America's government. Now in Exodus he was no doubt referring to Exodus 21 through 17, the Ten Commandments, that's the Decalogue. Isaiah, prophet, priest, and king, that's an allusion to three branches of government. Harry Truman understood what very few understand today and then Matthew, he was talking about the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5 through 7. So this was hugely, the way that we were founded, good civil government meshed with God's word.

This was hugely significant in the history of nations. Now Israel wouldn't always follow God's ways and their vacillations are recorded in the Old Testament and America hasn't always honored the precepts of our Constitution as influential court decisions of the last 30 years document like Roe versus Wade and the Obergefell decision in 2015 that invented not a natural right, not a constitutionally protected right, but a manufactured artificial right, the right to gay marriage. So America hasn't always followed our founding precepts either. But failures and foibles aside, the foundational laws of God are there undergirding both biblical Israel and the USA. So when we come back we're going to talk about truth, morals, objective reality rather than subjective opinionism. We're going to contrast lawfulness versus lawlessness. And the future that we experience, we're in the process of choosing right now.

May God help us to choose wisely. Alex has written many books to help you defend your faith. One of them answers questions from skeptics. It's cleverly titled Ten Answers for Skeptics. Today's skeptics are looking for authenticity, integrity, and straightforward truth. And in the book Alex McFarland identifies the 10 most common types of skepticism that plague doubters' minds and offers believers proven strategies for connecting intellectually and spiritually with those who are skeptical about the claims of Christianity. Learn how to answer intimidating questions, identify the root issue behind those questions, and dismantle the spiritual bombshells dropped by atheists. Plus find encouragement to face hostility by persevering in love. The ultimate apologetic Christians can offer as a witness to our loving God.

Check out Ten Answers for Skeptics when you visit alexmcfarland.com. America today is like a patient struggling to live, yet is being forcibly euthanized by her, quote, doctors. The life force within the patient fighting for survival is the honest citizens like yourself.

The team of, quote, caregivers are the local and national leaders actually contributing to the demise of the patient. The economy is crashing, crime is exploding, the Constitution is being abolished, the assault on America, how to defend our nation before it's too late by Alex McFarland has one single purpose, to get you prepared. Learn the real source of America's current problems that no one else is talking about and what you can do now to face tomorrow, regardless of what tomorrow brings. The assault on America, how to defend our nation before it's too late, available now at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and local Christian bookstores. In the midst of a culture obsessed with relativism, Alex McFarland is a voice you can trust to speak the timeless truths of Christianity in a timely way. You're listening to Truth for a New Generation Radio.

Welcome back to TNG Radio, Alex McFarland. So glad you're with us. I want to continue our discussion of lawlessness versus lawfulness.

But I do want to say this. I want to come to your town and equip your people to defend the faith, whether it's an atheist or a person of a different religion or just maybe a millennial who's been turned against Christianity because of public education or the culture. Listen, we have got to double down, triple down, and be all about our Lord's Great Commission to make disciples of all nations. We've got to rise to the challenge of 1 Peter 3.15 and be ready always to defend the faith and give an answer for the reason of the hope that is within us. So we're here, Truth for a New Generation, AlexMcFarland.com. We're here to help you and to help the church win the lost and equip the saved.

And I just want to say a big thank you to all of the radio stations, this radio network, this radio network that has so graciously given us airtime to help promote the gospel, because we really are, we really are at the crossroad between two futures. Now let me talk about lawfulness versus lawlessness. Part of the reason that America has been the shining beacon to the world is because like Israel of old, we were based on God's laws. Now it's not just the fact that they are the laws of God. These are the moral truths written on the heart of all human beings.

We've talked about many times on this program that all human beings have a moral conscience. And so anytime you talk about moral boundaries, most people that really don't understand our Constitution Bill of Rights, they will say, separation of church and state, First Amendment, Congress will make no law regarding the establishment of religion. But what we need to help people understand, and if I could, I would put it on billboards across this nation, morality and religion are two different things. The non-establishment clause of the First Amendment that says Congress will make no law regarding the establishment of religion, even though clearly Christianity was the pervasive belief system of the founders, and it really was for more than 200 years, only up until the last really 15-20 years has Christianity begun to seriously erode in America due to the unrelenting militant secularism of public education and really the Democrat Party and the liberal judges that they've put in place. But let me say this, while Christianity was the default position of the founders and for our culture for most of America's history, listen carefully, please. In no way did the non-establishment of religion clause in the First Amendment mean that we should abandon morality. It did not mean that we should abandon morality. And so when people cry separation of church and state, that's not in the Declaration, Constitution, or Bill of Rights. But the cultural cry that the government not show preference to Christianity has really migrated into a cultural assumption that we cannot recognize any moral boundaries. And that's why we really are on the cusp of lawlessness.

And let me say this, if the coronavirus doesn't really become contained and get reined in, if we experience shortages and look, the world's stability really could unravel. That's why Reagan called America the city on a hill, and that's why it is in the best interest. The three great Judeo-Christian superpowers, America, Britain, and Israel, although thankfully there are some other nations that are becoming more and more Christian, but that's why it really is in the best interest of people everywhere to care about the preservation of Christianity. Even if you're not a Christian, if you're listening to this program and you're a skeptic or an agnostic, and I know that we have many listeners who are because I hear from you and I'm thankful to, but listen, Christianity is like gravity. You benefit from it even if you don't know about it or necessarily believe in it, because Christianity is that stability, that glue that holds a culture stably together. As my friend, the late great Chuck Colson would say, Christianity is the conscience of the culture. And the coronavirus is an indicator of how quickly the world could digress into panic, hysteria, and lawlessness.

When people become afraid, when people don't know what the future holds, and there's unrest and apprehension that motivates people to do just very irrational things. So let me say this, and we're going to have to pick this up at a future date. In the early church, Tertullian was a Christian leader, and he said this, that the skeptics would say of the church, my, how they love one another.

He wrote a book called Apology, and it was a defense of the Christian religion. And so Tertullian would say that the non-believers would say how they love each other. Now may that be said of the church today, and let's in a world that teeters on the brink of lawlessness, let's show them the rationality, the reasonableness of lawfulness, because truth exists, truth can be known, truth can and must shape our lives, and truth is real, truth is objective, and truth is knowable because of the orderly, revelatory God who created this universe and who put us in it. Friends, this is no time to be in a panic. This is no time to be depressed or despondent.

This is a time to be excited because we have great opportunity. In a world unraveling, we can show the world the stability, the rock-solid security, and yes, the transcendent peace possible available to all through Jesus Christ. From the streets of Beijing to Main Street, USA, Jesus offers Himself to all people.

And you know what? As toxic as the coronavirus might be, what's even more destructive is sin. And through Jesus, we have not only forgiveness of sin, but peace in the midst of life's storms. Stand for truth. Stand for lawfulness.

And let's help the world understand how relevant this is to all people. TNG radio is made possible by the friends of Alex McFarland Ministries, P.O. Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina 27404. That's P.O. Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina 27404. Call us at 877-Yes-God-1.

That's 877-Yes-God and the number 1. Or give online at AlexMcFarland.com. While you're there, listen to program archives, read Alex's blog, invite Alex to speak at your event, or contact Alex with a question or comment. AlexMcFarland.com. Thanks for listening today and join us again next time as we bring you more truth for a new generation on TNG radio.