How Your Theology Determines Your Morality

How your theology determines your morality. That is a topic we'll discuss today here on the Christian Worldview radio program where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to share the good news that all people can be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ.

I'm David Wheaton, the host of the program, and our website is thechristianworldview.org. Well, thank you for joining us today on the Christian Worldview. You know, it's been said that the most important thing about a person is their view of God. The most important thing about a person is their view of God, and I'll add a dot dot dot and whether that view is accurate. And if you think about it, one's view of God from a high and holy reverent view of God based on Scripture, to the atheist who rejects that God even exists, to every view of God in between, that really is the fundamental driver for how one thinks and how one lives. For example, why wouldn't an unmarried couple live together before marriage, or why wouldn't a mother encourage her son to be a girl if they don't believe in the God of the Bible? You just do what is right in your own eyes. There's no higher accountability and authority there to guide your thinking and your living. After all, it seems very reasonable that an unmarried couple should, quote, try things out before getting married.

It seems reasonable that a boy who likes girl things, quote, should just transition to who he really is. Now, some might say, quote, common sense drives one's morality, but common sense is just that, it's just common, or the majority worldview at a given time. God's will, on the other hand, is timeless, unchanging, and true, and unfortunately increasingly less common. So this weekend on the Christian Real View, we're going to discuss how theology determines morality and how that truism explains why we are where we are in America, and also the church today. Now, just a little follow-up on last week's program on Kanye West. We received quite a bit of feedback to that program.

We appreciate the feedback you write to us. And one of the things that someone said to me after the program, as I compared potentially the conversion of Kanye West to the Apostle Paul's radical transformation on his road to Damascus, he said, the big difference though that I failed to mention, should have mentioned this, is that the Apostle Paul, after he was converted, went off for three years to Arabia to be taught by the Lord, actually directly. Apparently he was in Scripture, but he went off for three years and didn't say much. And I think that was a really good point, that that is something that Kanye West should be doing as well. If truly, in fact, he has become a follower of Christ, there should be a time here where he's not on the platform, not saying the things, some of the things he'd been saying in an errant way, as he talked about the Mormon Church and Roman Catholics and so forth.

I think we played that soundbite last week in the program. And also, we find out this week he shouldn't be going to Joel Osteen's church. He's going down to Joel Osteen's church, and he is going to be doing one of his Sunday services there.

Now what's the problem with that? Well, I'm sure Joel Osteen's a nice guy, I don't know him and so forth, but his theology is he teaches the positivity, prosperity gospel. And he says things like this, when your mind is set, positive and hopeful, expecting good things, that's when you go places you've never dreamed. New doors will open, the right people, the right opportunities will come across your path. But if you don't set your mind, negative thoughts will set it for you. So here's my challenge to you. Keep your mind going in the right direction. Learn to think thoughts on purpose. Something as good is going to happen to me.

This is my year. If you develop this habit of having a positive mindset, you can't be defeated. You'll not only live happier and healthier, have more energy, but I believe and declare you will accomplish more than you have ever imagined. You will overcome obstacles that looked impossible, and you will become everything God's created you to be in Jesus' name. Now for sure there's reasons for Christians to be optimistic and positive, because based on what God has done, but that's not what he's saying there in the quote. This is a Norman Vincent Peale power of positive thinking, word, faith. Think positive things and have faith in the word you spoke, and then that thing is going to happen to you.

Not good. And it's, I think, very confusing for someone like Kanye West in such a high-profile position to now be sort of affirming that, you know, just going to another church this weekend, everyone. And so this, again, back to the point of take a couple years off. Take a few years off away from the spotlight until you get grounded in a sound local church under a sound pastor, and you're discipled until you can start discerning what's right from what's wrong inside of the church. So I just wanted to say that as a quick follow-up to last week, because I think it was an omission not to say that about what he should be doing after such a radical transformation in his life. Okay, now to the topic for the day, how your theology determines your morality.

Like I said, this seems like an obvious truism that your theology determines your morality, but I think it really helps explain why things are the way they are in in the church and in our society as well. You remember back in the program we did on Woodstock several weeks ago, at that particular time, people were just shocked. All these young people and coming out to Woodstock and the sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and what's going on with the morality of our country, and what's taking place here? Well, it went from, you know, shock over that to descending down this immoral staircase from Woodstock and what came out of the culture then, to the law of Roe versus Wade in the 1970s, making legal, killing the unborn, and then the rampant divorce and adultery that's taken place in the country, no-fault divorce, and then into the 80s and 90s, we talked about this transition in this country of approval, affirming, of homosexuality, then same-sex so-called marriage, and now it's transgenderism, and I read an article this week, it's about transhumanism.

A homosexual scientist in England is trying to transition himself to being a like a cyborg or something, I couldn't even understand, but it was just this futuristic, I'm going to transition from a human to a robot, I have my body altered and so forth, and it's just bizarre. And of course, euthanasia is part of this, where there's no sense of, we're God. We decide when life will end. So there's been this moral decline in our society, and also to some degree in the Church as well, and particularly on the issue of, just to give an example, on the issue of living together before marriage. You know, the biblical Christian view of this is, right in the Bible, sex outside of marriage is disobedience to God, and even if you are living together celibately, okay, you are still violating Scripture by making provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust, and you're giving the appearance of sin, so the Church should be very clear in this. The biblical Christian view is, you don't live together before marriage, you wait until marriage to live together. So that's the biblical view. Now, the compromised evangelical view on this is that this is becoming very pervasive in the evangelical Church today. I'm going to read you an article about this in a second, but it may not be encouraged to live together before marriage, but it's certainly not rebuked.

It's not pushed back hard against. In other words, divorce has been sort of wink and look the other way now, unbiblical divorces and remarriages, there's no real stance on that in the evangelical Church, so this makes perfect sense why living together before marriage is not rebuked. There's an emphasis on the love of God and forgiveness in the evangelical Church, but there's very, very little emphasis on the fear of God. It's cheap grace.

It's confess your sins and God will forgive you, and just, you know, you'll get over it, you're moving down the road here, so just things will change and things will get better. That's the compromised evangelical view that sort of looks the other way at this particular issue of living together before marriage. Now, the mainstream societal view is totally pragmatic.

This is water over the dam many decades ago. Why wouldn't you want to live with someone to make sure you're compatible? I mean, but why even get married?

I mean, what's the difference? You hear this view all the time. It makes perfect human sense. But there's also what I call the shaking-your-fist-at-God view of this particular issue.

This is the t-shirt that says, blow up the patriarchy, the Christian patriarchy. You know, whatever God has established— morality, marriage, sexuality, gender, those kinds of things— we will purposely go against it. We will pervert it and do what we desire to do.

This is what goes against it. We will pervert it and do what we desire to do. This is the Romans 1 view of life, and it's becoming increasingly more prevalent in our society. Romans 1—just read a couple verses there to give you an idea—and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer—here's the rejection, here's the shaking the fist at God—we won't acknowledge you any longer, God. So God gives them over to a depraved mind. Here's how the theology, here's how the morality follows the theology. So the theology is, we were not going to acknowledge God any longer. Our theology is, we don't care about him.

And so then here comes the morality. God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. They're gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil.

That's interesting for our day. They invent evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful. And this is interesting at the end here, verse 32. And although they know the ordinance of God, they have some sort of theology view of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death. They not only do the same, but they also give hearty approval to those who practice them. Their morality follows their unwillingness to acknowledge who God is. It follows their theology. Now the Bible often speaks of things done in ignorance of God's laws.

You know, like when someone's unsaved, they do things because they just don't know better. And there's certainly a point to that. And I think that is the case today. Many say many are ignorant of God's laws, because the Christian worldview does not hold a prominent place in our society anymore. So there's increasing sin.

It's not rocket science. When there's less understanding of who God is, less understanding of biblical theology, downstream from that there's going to be more immorality. And lack of strong biblical preaching in the church about who God is and what he expects, explains why the church is just close behind what's taking place in society as well. The inability to know right from wrong is why so many young Christians, so-called Christian evangelicals, live no differently from the world.

Morality follows theology. Now I was reading an article this past week from the Biblical Counseling Coalition about this issue of living together before marriage, just using this as sort of the example of how morality follows theology. And the Biblical Counseling Coalition wrote, according to a recent article published by NBC News, 75% of women age 15 to 44 have lived with a boyfriend before turning three. 75%. Sadly, in my experience as a biblical premarital counselor for hundreds of Christian couples, I have found the percentage isn't much lower for professing believers.

Did you get that? 75% of women age 15 to 44 have lived with a boyfriend before turning 30, and in his experience in Christian counseling for Christian couples, the percentage isn't much lower. There's something wrong with the theology that leads to that kind of morality. And when we come back, we'll get more into this issue about how theology determines morality and how we can develop a much higher view of God so that we're more obedient to his morality. I'm David Wheaton.

You're listening to the Christian Real View. David Wheaton here to tell you about my boy Ben, a story of love, loss, and grace. Ben was a yellow lab and inseparable companion at a stage of my life when I was single and competing on the professional tennis tour. I invite you to enter into the story and its tapestry of relationships with Ben, my aging parents, with a childhood friend I would finally marry, and ultimately with God who caused all things, even the hard things, to work together for good. Order the book for your friend who needs to hear about God's grace and the gospel, or the one who has gone through a difficult trial or loss, or just the dog lover in your life. Signed and personalized copies are only available at myboyben.com or by calling 1-888-646-2233.

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You may have heard that spot there during the ad break for My Boy Ben. We're here at the fifth anniversary of the release of that book and they're doing a special online campaign for about the next couple months, so this is the time to be able to take advantage of very low pricing. I think we're matching Amazon right now. The pricing of that book could be a great gift for someone in your life. Of course, the dog lover will enjoy that book, but just even someone who's gone through a hard time or trial, it'll be helpful for them to learn about God's grace in the midst of our most difficult moments. And you can go to myboyben.com. We have a new website for it and you can order it there and get a signed and personalized copy there. You can get it other places.

It's available on Amazon and so forth, but the only place to get a signed and personalized copy is at myboyben.com. So today in the program we're talking about how your theology determines your morality, and we're just using the example right now of the change in our society over the last 50-60 years on the issue of living together before marriage. And this before marriage isn't just something in the society, this is something that is very frequently taking place in the amongst professing evangelicals as well.

We were reading this article from the Biblical Counseling Coalition that the counselor said, yes, 75 percent of people in society will live together, or women will live together before they're age 30 with another man, with a man, but the percentage isn't much lower for professing believers. And then he goes on to say why Christian couples cohabitate. And the first reason he says is basically he gives three or four reasons. I think he has five reasons.

I'll just give three. He said it makes logical sense. It provides a greater body of data for evaluating if this is the one. It saves money, as couples typically split rent and groceries and basic apartment necessities. So that's one reason. Number two reason is society celebrates it. Premarital cohabitation has become common in the church, because many Christians have made today's secular values their own. Instead of questioning such values, if not downright exposing them, countless Christians have adopted them. I'd alter that by saying it has become common in the church, not because they've adopted secular values, because they don't have a high enough view of God. So therefore, something else fills that vacuum. Third thing he writes is church leaders ignore it.

I think this is very much the case. Christian leaders have been relatively silent on this issue. Pastors hint that they disapprove of couples living together during premarital counseling, but they still joyfully officiate their weddings.

Small group leaders know they should confront their cohabitating members, but they turn a blind eye because they feel they lack the relational capital needed to address such a, quote, personal issue. Mature Christian friends and family members, even godly parents, don't want to rock relational boats, so they sweep their loved ones' sinful lifestyles under the rug. Remember the couplet of what describes Christ? He was full of grace and truth. You see, if you're overly full of grace, you won't speak truth. If you're overly truthful, only speak the truth, you won't be full of grace.

And this is the problem here. There's such an undue overemphasis on the grace side that the truth actually never gets there to penetrate the heart and make someone want to turn the way that honors God. Okay, so now that's one article on giving the biblical Christian view on living together before marriage. Now let's shift into that other view from a professing—I believe this is a professing—Christian millennial who thinks, you know, living together before marriage, it's a bit of a complicated issue. It's not so much black and white. This is from the Patheos blog, and the section was called Unfundamentalist Christianity, whatever that means.

I'm thinking it has something to do with not being very fundamental in your beliefs, obviously. And so this young woman writes, over and over again, my world gets turned upside down as I explore beyond the confines of evangelical Christian expectations when it comes to romantic relationships. You can see where this is going.

While cohabitation has worked for many, it's also led to marriages that otherwise wouldn't have happened, oftentimes leading to divorce. So what's the answer? Like all debated topics, we need to dig a little deeper instead of treating it as a black and white issue. Right here, right now, you can see where this is going. The Bible says one thing, but it's not quite such a black and white issue. Here's the lack of theology, the high view of God, the lower view of Scripture. You can see it just coming out in the sentences. It's hard for me to believe that dissatisfaction in relationships, child abuse, and domestic violence are the symptoms or the results of cohabitating, which is how Focus on the Family sensationally frames the statement they made in the article. I didn't read it.

And that's the problem. Christian publications thrive on these unfortunate outcomes because they're blanket proof that they are right and the secular world is wrong. Just as an aside here, I actually don't think it's a good idea to try to say, oh, here are the results, the consequences of living together before marriage. Oh, your marriage isn't going to be as exciting.

Stats say you're more likely to get divorced. Now, you can mention all those things, but you know why cohabitating before marriage is wrong? What the real reason is, the really biggest reason is, is because it dishonors the God who created you. That is the real reason you should not cohabit because you're sinning against the one who created you, and there'll be consequences for that. It puts you at odds with God.

That is the reason. Not so much all these studies and, you know, you won't have children as soon or whatever the evangelical humanistic reasons are for not living together. Those aren't the best ones. The best ones are you're offending the God who created you.

She says, I am 26 years old and I'm not married. My generation has taken a step back. Now listen to this. We question everything. We see how traditional ways of life don't always result in the outcomes they promise. We see our parents divorcing and our homosexual friends and family still scared to love the person they connect with most.

See how there's a drop on that issue as well too. We see minorities ignored and the outcasts of society mocked all for the sake of preserving the status quo. We are frustrated, jaded.

Is anyone truly happy anymore? We want to feel at peace, but we feel the pain, the fear of pain, sorry, we fear the pain of a marriage going awry. We fear we're being trapped in a life we didn't choose and have to gut it out like our grandparents did.

Wow. So we tiptoe around commitment to protect ourselves because divorce is the last thing we want to experience. I'm not so sure that's the case. I think it's what we want to experience is doing what we want to do rather than just fear of divorce. We cohabit because life already told us it won't work out anyway. So then you do it anyway. So is living together before marriage a sin? No, I don't think so, she says. I simply think we're worried about the wrong issue. Living together is not easy.

I have done it before. Again, I believe this is a professing, professing Christian millennial writing this. And it ended not because it was sinful, because we as individuals were not on the same page with what we wanted out of life.

I just, that's hard to read. Just that sort of worldview that has such a low view of God, which leads to the kind of, again, the kind of morality she wants to partake in. Now, moving on from the biblical Christian view to the mainstream softer evangelical view.

Not all evangelicals share that view she just wrote about. But then there's the mainstream human wisdom view about living together. This is from brides.com, an online publication for brides. The title of the article is this, Five Undeniable Benefits of Living Together Before You Tie the Knot. And the subtitle is, In addition to having your partner around 24-7, there are some pretty fun perks about living with your future spouse.

I'll just give four of the five. Number one, you'll find out if living, if your living habits are compatible. You hear that one all the time. Are you compatible? You got to try it out first. Number two, you'll learn to share chores and responsibilities. Oh, yay. Number three, you'll gain insight into one another's sexual appetites. Okay. Number five, you can see what marriage will really be like. That's from brides.com magazine. Those who read that think, oh, well, gee, maybe that's the case. These all sound, there's all good human reason in these things.

And why would I want to get married without trying it out first? Okay. So there, there is the three views from the biblical Christian view and the kind of the weak evangelical view these days to the mainstream secular humanistic view of society today, to finally the fist in God's face view. Although I'm not going to do the example of living together before marriage on this particular view, because living together for those who are trying to stick their fist in God's face is just, that's not a big issue anymore.

That's, that's, that one's already been toppled decades ago. The new issue that we need to stick our fist in God's face and push back against him on is the transgender issue of today. And not only is it a secular view, but it's a view that is pervasive within the church, not necessarily the evangelical church yet, but within the mainstream Protestant denominations, specifically the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. I came across a video of the 2018, so this is last year, the ELCA, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, their youth gathering, where there are, it looked like thousands of people in a room, and they had different speakers coming up to speak about various issues going on within the Evangelical Lutheran Church. And the speaker that I saw was Jamie Brusehoff is her name. She's a ELCA pastor's wife, and she was up there, and she had blogged about celebrating getting hormone treatment for her son, who is trying to transition into a girl, and he's 11 years old. And the mother said on Facebook, today this kid, her son, who's trying to be a girl, showed her strength once again. Today she did something that was hard and scary. Today she made herself proud. Today Rebecca, that's what she calls her son now, had her second surgical procedure to place a hormone blocking implant in her arm to prevent her from progressing further into puberty. This is one example of what medically appropriate, medically necessary, life-affirming, and often literally life-saving treatment looks like for a transgender child. We're going to get more into this story after this break, and just truly see how troubling the direction of a bad theology, where it leads to morally.

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Go to thechristianworldview.org or call 1-888-646-2233 or write to Box 401 Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. How one's theology determines one's morality. That little sentence helps explain everything that's taking place in our broader society, but also the church today. If you have a high theology, high view of God, your morality will follow what God's stated will is in his word.

If you don't have a very accurate or high view of God, if you have a weak theology, then your morality is going to follow human wisdom. And that's exactly what the story is we're reading about before this last break. This ELCA, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, pastor's wife Jamie Brucehoff, was talking about her 11-year-old son, who they're trying to transition into a girl. The picture on the Facebook page was of the son, the 11-year-old son, holding his arms up, flexing his biceps. You could clearly see there's an injection had taken place just underneath the bicep where these hormone-changing treatments are being administered so he won't go through puberty.

I mean, 11 years old. And the mother says, again, ELC pastor's wife says, I'm thankful for top-notch medical facilities and physicians. I'm thankful for ongoing and growing research. I'm thankful for health insurance that covered my kids, medically necessary—medically necessary treatment. And I'm thankful and proud to say that the insurance covering this procedure for my transgender daughter is provided to my husband through his employer, the church. So I'm going to play the soundbites of this mother, Jamie Brucehoff, speaking to the ELCA youth gathering.

It must be a national conference every year that they have. I'm going to play a few different soundbites in this to give you an idea of how one's theology leads to this kind of decision-making morally. Here's the mother first. My daughter went viral. She's 11 years old. She loves to dance, mountain bike, and hang out with her friends. Her teachers think she's an angel.

Her two little brothers disagree. She's a pastor's kid. She loves to acolyte and sing in the choir.

She's also transgender. That means that when she was born, everyone thought she was a boy, but she deeply knows herself to be a girl. From the time she could talk, her favorite color was pink, and she loved all things girly. She used to dress up in my old dance recital costumes. She would twirl and twirl. The first time I took her into the makeup aisle at Target, she actually jumped up and down for joy. When she asked for a bike for Christmas, she wanted it to be pink and purple with rainbows and sparkles and unicorns. We assured her colors are for everyone.

Clothes are for everyone. You can be any kind of boy you want to be. But in the end, she wasn't a boy.

We just didn't know that yet. Wow. Okay, cut to. Now you go from describing how normal her son is, and although he wants to be a girl and so forth, he goes to Target just like you do, and he's got friends and a bike just like your kids do, and so the only difference is he was born a boy and he wants to be a girl. What's wrong with that?

Let's go to the next cut. Now we're going to elicit sympathy for the child. As she got older, things got harder. She got really upset whenever she was grouped with boys at school or in activities. She worried about bullies. At seven years old, she struggled deeply with anxiety and depression. She was so little.

No one had prepared us for this. She was trying to figure out who she was and how she fit in the world, and it was hard. The day she learned the word transgender, she went, oh, maybe that's what I am. We talked to a gender therapist and our doctor. Our heads were spinning.

We read everything we could about transgender kids, and a few weeks later, Rebecca went out into the world for the first time as herself. Now I want you to keep in mind that this is a Christian. This is a church conference. This isn't the human rights campaign in Washington, D.C. putting on their annual conference. This is actually an evangelical Lutheran church youth gathering.

They're their major gathering throughout the year. Let me just interject something here. There's no question that a child can have gender-confused feelings about themselves, but that's where the parent needs to step in. No doubt, that's a hard thing to encounter, but the encouragement of this is the wrong direction they took. But even worse, now the promotion of it on a national stage, within the church, this isn't just a family struggling with a child who has gender-confused feelings.

This is out-and-out promotion of a rejection of the way God made their son. And that changed everything. She was happy. She was confident. She no longer had to pretend she was someone she wasn't. Someone at church came up to us and said, I don't understand this whole transgender thing, but she used to hide behind you and refused to say hi to me on Sunday mornings. And today, she ran up to me, twirled in her dress, and gave me a high five. What more is there to know? Right, exactly. See how your experience is, if there's a perceived positive outcome, the child seems happy now that he thinks he's a girl. Therefore, what else do you need to know? Forget what God's Word says.

Our lowered theology has ended up with this morality. Okay, let's go one more soundbite by the mother, and then we're going to hear from the son, who again now thinks that he's a girl. On the 10th anniversary of her baptism, we gathered with friends, family, Godparents, and our church community to celebrate her as a called and claimed child of God, blessing her and her forever name, Rebekah Eleanor.

She is unstoppable. Rebekah speaks to politicians and policymakers. She advocates for transgender and non-binary youth who are fighting for the right to be themselves in their homes, schools, and communities.

Arts and crafts at our house now looks like making protest signs, and school writing assignments have turned into speeches. By being an out and proud transgender young person, Rebekah helps make space for other kids to be themselves, and I am so excited to introduce you to her. Okay, we'll introduce you to her, or to him, in just a second. This is a very sophisticated, well thought out, purposely chosen words, the flow of the context and the paragraphs. These people were very much coached, either that or they're extremely brilliant in the way they portray this rejection of the gender that God made their son, and how they promote it now within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.

And you'll hear the same thing with the son as well as he comes out now on stage to talk about his transition, so to speak, to a girl. To me, being transgender just means being myself. It means being who God made me to be.

It's not about how I act or what I wear. It's who I am. I've learned that by being who God has called me to be, and by telling my story, hearts and minds are changed.

I can change the world. I hope for a church and a world where people are not just welcomed, they are celebrated, no matter their gender identity, sexuality, or anything else. I hope that the church is a place where we can make friends, all kinds of friends, a place where we can make friends.

All kinds of friends. A place where we can discover who God made us to be, together. People always tell me I'm brave for being myself, maybe, but I hope that the church is a place where everyone can bravely be themselves in all their uniqueness to be safe and loved. My congregation loves and supports me, but that's just the first step in becoming a faith community that truly welcomes all people.

Years ago, when the ELCA affirmed marriage between two people of the same sex, that maybe they'd reached their end point, but of course they haven't. When your theology rejects God, your morality just keeps on going deeper and deeper and deeper. And I played a lot of that audio, but I think it's very, very instructive as to how one's theology leads to one's morality, but not just in that family, but look at how it's being portrayed across that whole church denomination. This will be coming to an evangelical church near you.

Maybe not this year, maybe not next year, but it's coming. And what they said in that particular video will be heard, I believe, in evangelical conferences, I don't know how many years down the road, unless a recapturing of a high view of God, a higher theology takes place, it will lead to that sort of morality. Back on the Christian Real View after this. David Wheaton here to tell you about My Boy Ben, a story of love, loss, and grace. Ben was a yellow lab and inseparable companion at a stage of my life when I was single and competing on the professional tennis tour. I invite you to enter into the story and its tapestry of relationships with Ben, my aging parents, with a childhood friend I would finally marry, and ultimately with God who caused all things, even the hard things, to work together for good. Order the book for your friend who needs to hear about God's grace and the gospel, or the one who has gone through a difficult trial or loss, or just a dog lover in your life. Signed and personalized copies are only available at myboyben.com or by calling 1-888-646-2233.

That's 1-888-646-2233 or myboyben.com. There's an abundance of resources available in Christian bookstores and online, but the sad reality is that many of them, even some of the most popular, do not lead to a sound and strong faith. A key aim of the Christian world view is to identify and offer resources that are biblically faithful and deepen your walk with God. In our online store, we have a wide range of resources for you to learn more about the Christian world view. In our store, we have a wide range of resources for all ages, adult and children's books and DVDs, Bibles and devotionals, unique gifts, and more. So browse our store at thechristianworldview.org and find enriching resources for yourself, family, friends, small group, or church. Call our office toll free at 1-888-646-2233.

That's 1-888-646-2233. Or visit thechristianworldview.org. Final segment of the day here on the Christian worldview radio program.

I'm David Wheaton, the host. We're talking today about how your theology determines your morality. And I think this truism explains so much of what is going on, not only in society, but as you heard in that last sound by what is taking place in the church as well. We've talked about sort of the four different views on the moral issues of our day. There's the biblical Christian view based on what God has said in his word. There is the increasingly compromised evangelical view where things like living together before marriage kind of look the other way, unbiblical divorces look the other way, you know, don't bring truth to people, just sort of be nice, be graceful, and so forth. There's the mainstream cultural view, which just is basically rejected. They don't even know about the Bible basically anymore, and just live the way you want according to human reasoning.

You know, get your morality from brides.com magazine about whether you should live together before marriage. And then there's the shaking your fist at God view, and you just heard that in the last segment with this mother and son advocating for transgenderism to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America Youth Gathering Conference last year. And make no mistake, they may sound like nice people, and it's a mother and her son, and you may feel sorry for them, and I actually do feel sorry for them that they're resisting and going against the way God actually did make her son, but they're advocates for it. They're promoting it, and they need to be pushed back because of that. It's not just struggling with it in their own family. That'd be one thing.

Compassion, truth, help, grace, yes. This is not that. They're trying to change the theology of their church and everyone who's listening to say, God may have said this, but we know better. We're going to say that, the opposite.

So how do we develop in this last segment today? If theology determines your morality, how do we develop a stronger, higher theology? What does a high view of God mean? Well, a high view of God means that we accurately interpret Scripture. We accurately handle the word of truth, as the New Testament says, and understand all aspects of the character and nature of God, and not just focus on one side of God, like the love and compassion of God.

That's very important. God is loving, and he is compassionate, and he's merciful, and he's forgiving. He's all those things. But the Bible also presents God equally so as he's holy. He's angry over sin. He is full of wrath. He is a God of judgment. He will judge us someday, each one of us.

We all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, the Bible says. So emphasizing one side over the other, the loving side over the love of God, over the fear of God, basically, you're going to end up with a wrong theology, and that's going to impact your morality. You know, the fear of the Lord is something that is mentioned so frequently in Scripture, and yet so infrequently in the church today.

Let's give you a couple examples. Look at Proverbs 16, 6. By loving kindness and truth, iniquity is atoned for, and by the fear of the Lord, one keeps away from evil.

You see this right there? Theology leads to morality. If you fear the Lord, you'll keep away from evil or immorality.

See how they go together. Or Romans 3. Most of you have heard this passage.

This is a well-known passage in the New Testament. Paul writes, There is none righteous known at one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become useless.

There is none who does good, not even one. And this is Paul saying that we're all under the curse because we have broken God's law. We're not good. We're inherently sinful. We need to be reconciled to God. The only way we can be reconciled to God is through what God did for us by sending his Son Jesus to come to earth and live a perfect life, the life that we should have lived, but didn't. And he offered himself on the cross to pay the price, to pay the penalty, take the punishment we deserve for our sin, so that when we repent of our sin and put our faith in what Jesus did to satisfy God's wrath, God will forgive us of our sin. He will account Christ's righteousness to us, because all of our sins past, present, and future will be accounted for in the accounting of God. And we can be forgiven and made right with God. But if you don't fear God, if you don't believe that Gospel message, your morality will be changed. But at the end of Romans 3, he goes on to say how all man and women are under sin, and the destruction and misery are in their paths, and the paths of peace they have not known. Listen to this last sentence here.

Have you ever noticed it? Romans 3.18. There is no fear of God before their eyes. If you don't fear the Lord, you won't keep away. As it says in Proverbs 16, you won't keep away from what God calls evil.

Your morality will always follow your errant theology. That's why just talking about loving God or preaching about the love of God is not enough. People and children need to be taught to fear God, to revere him, to have him hold him in awe, to actually fear his judgment if you disobey him.

That's why the Bible talks about both the love of God and fear of God. So how do you develop a higher view of God? How do you develop a stronger theology so your downstream morality will reflect that? Well, number one, you just need to be taught by the most sound teachers, the most sound biblical teachers. This is why who you are influenced by spiritually is so important, because you'll never get beyond your teacher, Jesus said. And I think it's in John 15.

Don't have the verse in front of me. You're never going to go beyond kind of what level of theology your teachers in life are teaching you. If you're hearing from kind of the softer, emphasizing only the love of God teachers, you're never going to have a high view of God. And conversely, if you're only hearing from those who talk about God's judgment, you're never going to have an accurate view of God either.

You need to hear both sides of God. I remember hearing Ken Ham from answers in Genesis, his faith story, and why is he such a person who's so convicted? Why does he have such a high view of Scripture? Why does he stand in the Word of God when the rest of society scoffs at him for believing in a young earth and so forth?

Why is he mocked for saying that the days of Genesis, the creation days, are six literal, seven literal days? Well, because Ken Ham grew up with parents and he was in a church who taught him that God and his Word are to be revered and respected and obeyed. And he internalized that, he personalized that, he believed it for himself. And that's why he, downstream, that's why his morality follows his theology. You have to know who God is, and you have to believe what he says in his Word. That's how you have a higher view of God, and that's what will change people in the church and change our society when churches and pulpits start having a higher view of God and preaching that truth from the pulpit. And that will change in society, maybe some as well too, when Christians stand up boldly and don't turn away from these truths that need to be spoken boldly in our society today. Thanks for joining us today on The Christian Rule of You.

We're out of time. Again, just a reminder, special on myboyben.com, or myboyben right now leading up to Christmas. You can go to myboyben.com. Fifth year anniversary of the book. We'd love to send you a signed and personalized copy.

Just go to myboyben.com. You know, we do live in a changing and challenging world. I hope you realize that by listening to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and that audio from today. If you missed any of the program, go to our website, theChristianworldview.org.

Until next weekend, everyone have a high view of God and think biblically and live accordingly. We hope today's broadcast turned your heart toward God, His Word and His Son. To order a CD copy of today's program or sign up for our free weekly email or to find out how you can be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, go to our website, theChristianworldview.org or call us toll free at 1-888-646-2233. The Christian World View is a weekly one hour radio program that is furnished by the Overcomer Foundation and is supported by listeners and sponsors. Request one of our current resources with your donation of any amount. Go to theChristianworldview.org or call us toll free at 1-888-646-2233 or write to us at Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. That's Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. Thanks for listening to The Christian World View. Until next time, think biblically and live accordingly.