The Need To Ground Law In Transcendent Truth – Pt 2 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Who defines what laws to obey when deciding life or death for a defendant?

The judges faced that question in the famous Nuremberg Trials after World War II. There's a desperate need for a baseline on which to enact all laws, but the baseline has to be what Erwin Lutzer calls Transcendent Truth. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, today we conclude the final message in your series, The Eclipse of God.

Do you see any chance that we will ever ground law in transcendent truth? Well Dave, first of all I want to say that evil never retreats on its own. It only retreats when it is confronted with a more powerful source. That's another way of saying darkness does not retreat unless there is light. And when we think of light, we have to think of the church and its role in the world. I've written a brand new book entitled The Eclipse of God. Al Mohler, who is the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote the intro, and he says, by design this volume comes as a direct hit.

It aims at the center of our cultural crisis. At its heart, it is a theological crisis. That's why I've written for the need for us to get back to the God of the Bible. For example, the last chapter is entitled Returning to the God of Wrath and Grace, Not the God of Unconditional Love. My friends, we have redefined God to make him more acceptable to us. We must get back to the God of Scripture. For a gift of any amount, we're making this book available for you.

Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. And let's remember, God is the source of all truth and all law. But the Nuremberg trials, okay, the war is over. World War II has ended. Twenty-one Nazis are tried in Nuremberg at those famous trials. Fifteen were Protestant. Six were Catholic. There was a chaplain from St. Louis who spoke German, a very conservative Lutheran, who was asked by our government to go there and to be a chaplain to them.

It's a fascinating book that was written about him. And he discovered that many of these knew the Lord's Prayer. They were able to quote Psalm 23 because they had all been brought up in church.

But here was the question, and this becomes very critical now. By what laws should these men be tried? Should they be tried by the laws of England?

Should they be tried by the laws of America? The henchmen of Hitler argued, we didn't break any laws. To quote Eichmann, he was not at Nuremberg but found elsewhere, he said, I was just obeying the laws of my country and the laws of my flag.

So what he was really saying is that you can't try me. I'm guilty of nothing, none of these crimes. Well, there was an American attorney by the name of Robert Jackson who stood up and gave a marvelous speech and said that there is such a thing as a law above the law. There is a transcendent law that applies to all cultures. And you're going to be tried by that law. And ultimately, as you think about it, that transcendent law is really rooted in the fact that God exists. And that's why, indeed, there is a transcendent law. Now what does the Bible say about law?

Well, there's much to be said. I want to read some passages of scripture. It says in the book of Genesis that if someone sheds blood by others his blood shall be shed. And then it says in Deuteronomy, a single witness shall not suffice facing any crime in any way. You had to have a number of witnesses. And there's even instruction as to what happens if you have a malicious witness.

So there had to be evidence. But let me read some other verses. You shall not pervert justice.

You shall not show partiality. And you shall not accept a bribe. For a bribe binds the eyes of the wise and subverts the justice that should follow. It is not good to be partial to the wicked or to deprive the righteous of justice. Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand it completely. For the Lord is our lawgiver and the Lord is our king.

He will save us. And then this verse, I wish I could camp on it for a moment. Justice is turned back and righteousness stands far away for truth has stumbled in the public square and unrighteousness cannot enter. I do have to say this very quickly that when it comes to social justice, this is the verse that we need to apply to what's happening. You see, if truth stumbles in the public square, if justice is cut off from transcendent values, justice can be whatever you want justice to be. So you can have such things as environmental justice which is the Green New Deal. You can have marriage justice which is same sex marriage. You can also have economic justice which is socialism. You can take the word justice and you can apply it wherever you want it to be applied. And the verse says, it is important that people recognize that justice must be based on truth.

And if it isn't, of course, it is perverted. Now all that about Nazi Germany, about the role of law and the power of law. Laws can enable people to do evil.

Laws are intended, hopefully, biblically for good, but they can certainly go otherwise. Now what I'd like to do is to talk about America. You know, I was born and raised in Canada and I am a naturalized American citizen. And I don't know too much about the founding of this country because I didn't have the same education that all of you have had. But I tell you this, the more I contemplate the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, Americans have no idea of how fortunate they are. These documents are intended to reign in human nature because the founding fathers knew that the history of the world was basically tyranny.

And they were aware of that. And so what they did is to make sure that they would have a form of government that would be under control in such a way that it could correct itself. The president would have a lot of power, but he would also be reined in by the Supreme Court. And then of course you have justice and they are brilliant documents. But one of the phrases that is most famous and most important is that we are created equal and we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights.

And that is of course life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So we have a constitution that balances freedom of religion with laws, necessary laws, and oftentimes there is conflict and we can expect there to be conflict. But by the 1800s, a man by the name of Christopher Landell of Harvard University began to teach that what the Constitution said was not the important thing, it was how it was interpreted. And he began to promote the idea that it's not what the Constitution says as much as it is what the justices say that it is. And then you have none other than Oliver Wendell Holmes saying, laws are beliefs that have triumphed and nothing more.

Truth is the majority vote of the nation that can lick all others. So what you have now is the beginning of sociological law where law is no longer directly based upon our founding documents, but it is rather malleable. That is to say the Constitution is malleable and it can be interpreted in different ways. And that's of course why you have the abortion rights and so forth, which are not found in the Constitution. The great threat that we are facing in America today has to do with the so-called SOGI laws.

That's something that you should be acquainted with. S-O standing for sexual orientation and then G-I for gender identity. SOGI laws. And these laws oftentimes are not intended to protect these classes of people, but they are written in such a way that they want to coerce others to agree with their lifestyle. And this may be instituted by the government. It may also be instituted by businesses, as you well know. So these kinds of laws are being imposed upon people with the intention of silencing any opposition and people going along with the lifestyles of people with whom we of course disagree.

May I take you to the great and the wonderful state of Michigan. Here's House Bill 4474. It has to do with the intimidation of people, the harassment of individuals, and that goes on to say that you know you can't harm them bodily and so forth, which of course we agree with. These laws are always written in a way that you can agree with part of them, but the intention is to sneak in some very serious matters that have to do with freedom of speech. For example, it says that you cannot intentionally harass this individual or intimidate someone because speech now is a crime.

Hate speech is a crime. You cannot speak about these people and intentionally target them in these ways. And then it lists all the people who are covered by this.

Those of different race or color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical or mental disability, age, ethnicity, national origin. And then the last thing says, and if you associate with anybody who does this, you can be equally guilty of a crime. What this means is a tremendous amount of intimidation. What it means is that when this is passed, you have no idea how it's going to be interpreted by the judges. It can be passed and says, well, obviously we want to be kind to people who disagree with us in these things and all of us agree with that.

But if I might use this illustration, it has a hole in it big enough for a truck to drive through. In other words, a judge can interpret this however he wishes. Any objection to the SOGI laws or to such things as same sex marriage can be deemed as a violation of this kind of a law. Some time ago I studied the law in Canada that had to do with conversion. That law is so broad that it could be interpreted that if you have a daughter, for example, and she wants to become transgender and she wants to be a boy and she wants surgery to become a boy and if you try to talk her out of it, you could be guilty of a crime.

Now, isn't it interesting if you talk people into this kind of a lifestyle, you would not be deemed a criminal, but if you try to talk people out of it, you would be. It can be interpreted that way and as darkness descends upon our land, as darkness descends, what you will find is that the radical left becomes less and less tolerant. We have people in our country who scream tolerance, but that is only used as a bridge for power and once they have power, they become very, very intolerant. That's where we're going and I don't want you to be discouraged because of that.

I'm only telling you what is happening. As a matter of fact, it could come to the point, and I know that this sounds extreme, where if you are a Christian family and you're raising your children in Christian values, you could be deemed that you are actually being a person whose children need to be taken from you because you are being abusive and you're teaching them the wrong things, etc, etc. I know that that sounds extreme, but once a nation no longer acknowledges God, therefore there is no stopping point along the way.

Ask the folks in China, in Russia, in Albania, where Rebecca and I were in April, and you will find that the intrusion of the state into the lives of people and the insistence that everyone march according to the same drum is absolutely overwhelming. Now, how is antichrist going to rule the world? And I realize that we have a difference of opinion regarding prophecies. Some of us believe that there is going to be an antichrist and some of you perhaps go to churches where they teach that that will not happen. But it says in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 that the lawless one, the lawless one is going to be revealed. And obviously he's going to be lawless because he will be making his own laws. And in Daniel 7 25 it says he will speak words against the most high, he will wear out the saints, we can understand that, he will wear out the saints of the most high and change times and the law. So law is going to be used and some of us believe that that might involve that you cannot buy or sell unless you have the mark of the beast. That's easy to understand actually.

When we were in Albania, we went through a museum that talked about life under communism and when you went into a courtroom, there was the picture of the dictator that was on the wall and you had to in effect swear allegiance to him before your court case would be heard. So it's not hard for us to see how there could be certain demands made as we live in a society that is moving towards a digital kind of prison. Now you say well what do we do as a result of this? Well, God is calling us to faithfulness.

Remember this, we were born for this generation, for this era, for this reason so that we might be a light in the midst of it and to prove that Jesus means more to us than anything else including a job. That's what it's coming to for some people and we have the privilege of representing him. There is a story I want to tell you about Niemöller, as much that I could say about him, but he was tried in Germany for not hate speech but abuse of pulpit. Abuse of pulpit meant that he spoke against the Reich, that is the kingdom, that's what Reich means, the third Reich, the third kingdom, the third empire.

He spoke against it in church because he was a pastor so he was going to be tried. So he was taken into a prison cell and his trial was about to begin and a young Nazi soldier came to get him. And as they were walking underground in the tunnel, through the tunnel, suddenly Niemöller hears this verse of scripture bouncing around, the name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run into it and safe. And he's wondering where is it coming from? And then he realized that the young guard was quoting that in his ear as they were walking there in the tunnel toward the courtroom and then Niemöller said suddenly they were in the courtroom, there was a picture of Hitler, he knew of course that he would be tried and he went to a concentration camp, though he did, as you may know, survive the concentration camp. But I've often thought of that young soldier. Obviously for him to know Proverbs chapter 18 verse 10, he must have been brought up in a church, he must have been brought up in a Christian family. What went wrong so that he was caught up in what I like to call this Nazi stream, the stream of propaganda, which is so powerful that it's almost impossible to resist.

What happened to him? At what point did he make compromises so that he went along with the regime? So I want to leave you with a challenge. Think through, especially if you're in a business, think through at what point would you be willing to compromise or not compromise? Where do we as Christians draw a line in the sand and say, I can do this, this, this, but I cannot do this and I'm willing to pay the high price of obedience to Jesus Christ? That's the challenge for the young people that we are raising.

That's the challenge actually for all of us. At what point are we willing to prove that Jesus is more important to us than even the food that we eat? Christians around the world are having to prove just that. Jesus said this, he said, take up your cross and follow me. And we say that so glibly, don't we? But let's remember that the cross was an instrument of execution.

I think it was Bonhoeffer who said that the idea of taking up the cross seems like a very nice idea for Christians until they realize where the cross led Jesus, namely to Golgotha, namely to a crucifixion. I'm leaving you with a challenge. I want you to have hope because beyond this life, everything is going to get better. As a matter of fact, let me challenge you with this. No matter what you are going through, this is the worst, if you're a believer, this is the worst that life is ever going to be.

Because afterwards, it's going to be mighty, mighty fine. If you're an unbeliever, this is the best that it's ever going to be. Rebecca and I were at the grave of Frank Sinatra many years ago in California. First of all, I was surprised that the gravestone was just so ordinary. I thought he'd have a mausoleum or something, but it was one of these gravestones where you could run a grass cutter, a lawnmower right over it. And on the tombstone were the words of one of his favorite songs, the best is yet to come.

Now, I'm not Frank Sinatra's judge, but I do have to say this, that if he did not put his faith and trust in Jesus, the best for him was not to come, the worst was yet to come. We live at a very wonderful time here in America. We still have a lot of freedom.

Look at how we are able to gather. I can preach on whatever I want, say whatever I want. We have so much to thank God for, but as the darkness closes in, the question especially for the coming generation is how much is Jesus worth to us, even as we represent him in a darkening culture.

This is Pastor Lutzer. Do you feel the darkness encroaching upon us? Do you feel the weight of what is happening in our society?

I think all of us do. In my new book entitled The Eclipse of God, I have an epilogue entitled A Glorious Darkness. That phrase actually was used by Adrian Rogers, who was a pastor, a tremendous pastor actually, he's now with the Lord, because he wanted to emphasize that in the midst of the darkness, God always has a remnant. Are you a part of that remnant? The remnant that is going to stand against the darkness?

I wrote my book entitled The Eclipse of God, Our Nation's Disastrous Search for a More Inclusive Deity, that we might get back to the God of the Bible, that we might stand, but first we must kneel. For a gift of any amount, we're making it available for you. Here's what you do. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now because this is so important, I'm giving you that contact info again. Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337.

You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Pastor Lutzer has now concluded the five messages on the eclipse of God. Next time, Pastor is joined by Pastor Larry McCarthy. Together, they'll take a deep dive into the issues raised in this compelling series. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.