Michelle Obama doesn’t want us to eat high calorie foods. To her I say, “Keep your laws off my body.” Hollywood doesn’t want us to smoke. To them I say, “Don’t impose your morals on me.” If I want to be a big fatty with lung cancer, who are they to tell me what to do with my body?
While the liberal left has no problem playing the “keep your laws off my body” card when we defend life and marriage, they have no compunction about imposing their values on us. Frustrating? Yes. Annoying? Certainly. But that does not rise to the level of danger that the seeker sensitive church possesses when it does the exact same thing.
By removing God’s laws, both church and state will inevitably replace God’s dictates with laws of their own. Here’s how it works.
No society or organization can run for long without a leader and laws. This is true for two reasons: disorganization leads to disaster and inevitably some power hungry type-A personality will seize control. If we are not a nation under God, then whoever is in power will impose their values in lieu of God’s. The same thing is true for the church.
When a church determines that God’s laws are either out of date or just not working any more, then that church will quickly replace God’s laws with human legalism. No Law, no Gospel. No Gospel, no church. When you have no Gospel, you have no rallying cry and no reason to exist. Quickly the true Gospel must be replaced with another message; typically that message is a life-enhancement gospel.
Unfortunately, what sounds like good news is merely legalism. “If you want your marriage to be better, do this. If you want to be more successful, do that.” Because there is no Gospel to motivate this behavior, these so called life-enhancement messages are mere moralisms.
How ironic! Those who claim that we are living under grace and therefore have no need for the law, end up acting like Michelle Obama and Hollywood. They become legalists who impose their values on us in place of God’s and ultimately rob us of grace.
Galatians 3:24-25 tells us that “the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.”
Do not let an ostensibly nice church put you under their laws. If a church does not use the law as a schoolmaster to lead people to grace, grace, amazing grace, then look for the red sign that spells E-X-I-T and run.
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