ChristianObserver.org » T. M. Moore

For Pleasure Born? – Our Lawless Age (11)

thousandhills — Thu, 24 May 2012 04:01:46 +0000

For Pleasure Born?

Our Lawless Age (11)

Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. 2 Thessalonians 2:11, 12

Of the three components of the Lie which has captured the imagination of our postmodern generation–sensualism, materialism, and big government–surely the most powerful is the first.

Freud’s “discovery” that the majority of human ills are rooted in a constrained libido has set generations of our contemporaries free from traditional and Christian morality to pursue pleasure with abandon, wherever they may find it, and, in particular, sexual pleasure in all its forms. As Paul noted, those who reject the Truth of God in order to take pleasure in things contrary to His Word are deluded and living a lie.

But this facet of the Lie has become widespread and is flaunted and encouraged on every hand, so that it is easy to believe that, as followers of Jesus Christ, we are simply out of step with the times. When we insist on the value and legitimacy of marriage as traditionally practiced; when we deny that homosexuality is a valid “alternative lifestyle”; when we counsel or preach against pornography, casual sex, and adultery, we are reviled and scorned as hopelessly out of touch and, by implication, altogether irrelevant to the needs of our modern society. Why can’t we just allow people to do what, as consenting adults, they want to do? Who do we think we are to label some pleasurable practices or arrangements as sin, especially when they bring such happiness to those who engage in them?

When the Law of God is rejected, the restraints it imposes are thrown aside. And the Law of God counsels us to restrain our fleshly appetites according to the holy and righteous and good standards of God. On every hand we see how our society flouts the seventh commandment and indulges its every lust. The Scriptures agree that we are for pleasure born, but the desire for pleasure in the presence of God is easily corrupted and debased in an age of lawlessness and unbelief.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Captive to Whim – Our Lawless Age (10)

thousandhills — Wed, 23 May 2012 04:01:50 +0000

Captive to Whim

Our Lawless Age (10)

The lawlessness which characterizes our age in flight from God has become enshrined in the minds of many Americans. It has also officially become the law of the land.

Our Supreme Court has declared it a cardinal American right that every American should be able to live as he chooses. In the “mystery clause” of the case Planned Parenthood v Casey, the Court, somehow deriving this from the Constitution, declared that it is each American’s right to determine his own worldview without undue pressure from outside forces.

Of course, that idea is utter nonsense, or why do we have police, courts, and prisons? Why are there public schools? Why is it necessary to put restraints even on freedom of speech (hollering “Fire!” in a crowded hall, for example)? The Lie insists that there is no God; He is merely a construct of the human imagination, a source of comfort and security for weak people. Nor is there any truth, save that which each individual determines to be necessary for his own happiness.

Therefore there can be no law except provisional law, law that is subject to change whenever a consensus of society agrees that the law must change. But to live by laws that are always subject to change is to live by no law except the law of the spirit of the age, that “rough beast,” as Yeats had it, which rises from the deserts of unknowing to tyrannize the very people who created it.

In our lawless age people gleefully declare themselves free of God, truth, and Law. But free unto what? Only the whims of an age fettered to sex, success, and supremacy over our neighbors in one form or another. This is an age, not of Law and love, but of fear and the Lie.

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Trusting in the Lie – Our Lawless Age (9)

thousandhills — Tue, 22 May 2012 04:01:03 +0000

Trusting in the Lie

Our Lawless Age (9)

Early in his history of the 20th century, Modern Times, Paul Johnson, anticipating the folly, destruction, and terror which he is about to relate, asks the question why men should be so foolish as to put their trust in such false ideas as Freudianism, Darwinism, and Marxism. He has no doubt as to the answer: Men must believe something, must have something larger than themselves to make sense of and guide their lives. If they will not trust in God and submit to His Truth, they will be prey for whatever worldview can allure and capture them.

In the 20th century, Freudianism–with its sensual license–and Darwinism–with its liberation from transcendent realities–and Marxism–with its promise of a workers’ utopia–captured the imaginations of men and women who rejected God. The result was the bloodiest, most violent and degraded chapter the human story has ever witnessed.

Most of those who held, or continue to hold, to the tenets of these diabolical worldviews did so unconsciously. They learned from school, the media, pop culture, and their peers that it was good to embrace the lifestyle suggested by this troika of lies without worrying about whether or not it was true. Thus, Freud’s views taught people to throw off all restraint in sexual matters. Darwin allowed people to make sense out of life without God or His Law. And Marx encouraged the belief that government is the solution to every human ill.

People continue to live, love, vote, and work in an environment fouled by the lingering stench of these malevolent harbingers of death. When people will not believe in God, it’s not that they will believe anything; rather, it’s that they will believe everything. This is the great Lie which holds our unbelieving contemporaries in its thrall: I am the captain of my fate; I am the master of my soul; I can believe and embrace everything I want, as long as it makes me happy.

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The Need for Faithfulness – Our Lawless Age (8)

thousandhills — Mon, 21 May 2012 04:01:15 +0000

The Need for Faithfulness
Our Lawless Age (8)

…and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 2 Thessalonians 2:10

We live in an age of increasing lawlessness, in which “truth” is regarded as relative and personal, morality is mostly a matter of preference, and law is a standard to flex and flux as need be. In this lawless age truth and the Law of God languish (Hab. 1:4), and evil is an idea reserved for only the most heinous of acts.

In such an age, even the Church has come to believe that the Law of God, while very much a part of Scripture, is not all that relevant to the life of faith.

But if men will not acknowledge truth, then nothing can be a prescription for wholeness to meet the need of every human being. This, of course, is what the Gospel claims; but in an age when truth is merely personal and relative, the Gospel is likewise regarded as personally or relatively true. And, since the Gospel, as Jesus taught it, entails unbending moral obligations, most people either choose not to embrace the Gospel or to take it on their own terms. They may profess faith in the Gospel, but their ethics and morality they will imbibe from the spirit of the age, from the pop culture, secular media, and the postmodern academy, so that they regard themselves as the masters of their fates and the captains of their souls.

The mystery of lawlessness is already at work among us, as Paul explained. And it entails the denial of evil and truth as absolute realities, leaving people to fend for themselves in the quest for meaning, purpose, and happiness. The Gospel is just one of many options in a lawless age like ours, and not one that many people will find all that appealing.

Unless, of course, those who embrace the Gospel are somehow able to demonstrate, by their lives and words, that here is truth which conforms to the way the world works, heals the deepest injuries to the human soul, engenders lasting peace and abiding hope, and points the way to a world of true beauty and goodness.

This is the great challenge facing Christians today. Paul was careful to warn the Thessalonians not to stray from the Word of Truth he had taught them (vv. 14, 15), for he knew that a lawless age, an age in flight from God, would ultimately discover its blunder and begin looking for something more substantial to ground its hopes. Only the Christian faith provides such a beacon of goodness and Truth, but it requires faithfulness on our parts if it is to have its full transforming effect.

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Turning from the Truth – Our Lawless Age (7)

thousandhills — Sun, 20 May 2012 04:01:15 +0000

Turning from the Truth

Our Lawless Age (7)

…and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 2 Thessalonians 2:10

Powerful forces of deception are at work in our secular age, espousing worldviews which deny the Truth of God and encourage men to make up their own approaches to such matters as right and wrong, good and evil, truth and lies.

These have found their way even into the temple of God, the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In his book, The Death of Satan, Andrew Delbanco traces the history of the concept of evil in America and shows how it has all but disappeared in our day. He writes, “In this world emptied of metaphysical meaning… our insurance policies may still include clauses covering (or more likely, exempting) ‘acts of God’ as well as storm, fire, flood, and the like; but the fact is that such events are regarded by most people as inscrutable misfortunes.” He continues, “There seems to be growing agreement that there was once such a concept as sin—broad and capacious but still meaningful—and that it has faded.”

Mr. Delbanco concludes his study with these words: “My driving motive in writing… has been the conviction that if evil, with all the insidious complexity which Augustine attributed to it, escapes the reach of our imagination, it will have established dominion over us all.”

It’s true that the sense of “evil” has made something of a comeback since 9/11, but only in its more spectacular versions. Evil is something done to us, not something we do to others. Like the concept of evil, the idea of truth, as an objective and unchanging reality, has also faded. Truth these days is only what one person finds agreeable or workable in his or her particular situation. “True for me” would be a better way of talking about whatever idea of truth survives in our lawless age. The idea that the Bible is truth, God’s Law is truth, or that God is able to reveal truth to us in any kind of absolute way is largely rejected, even by many people who claim to have faith in Jesus Christ.

So it’s no wonder that, even in the Church, people have become persuaded that the Law of God, while it may once have been “true,” if only for some people, is no longer something to which we must pay heed.

But where truth is denied and evil is downplayed, the shape of things will be determined not by that Kingdom not of this world, but by the priorities, pursuits, and pleasures of our secular and lawless age.

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A Course of Delusion – Our Lawless Age (6)

thousandhills — Sat, 19 May 2012 04:01:11 +0000

A Course of Delusion

Our Lawless Age (6)

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. 2 Thessalonians 2:9, 10

In Romans 1:18-32 Paul wrote that people, knowing God through the things He has made, will nonetheless turn from Him to embrace created things as their source of hope, delight, and satisfaction. They make “gods” out of all kinds of cultural artifacts, sensual experiences, and vain aspirations, and they pursue these with a fervor and devotion usually associated with those who are earnestly religious.

Which, in fact, is what they are—zealous in pursuit of their chosen deity, deceived and determined to have their own way in life, and altogether indifferent or even hostile to the teachings of God and Christ. Why believe in Jesus, and be bound by the moral requirements of God’s Law, when they can choose their own deity and determine their own standards for how they ought to live, standards more agreeable to their preferred moral behavior?

Thus, deceived by the “signs and wonders” of our secular age and the impressive array of choices before them, they refuse the Gospel, reject the salvation of God, and set themselves a course of delusion, disappointment, and death.

We should weep for those thus deceived, and make it our business so to live the truth of God and the Christian worldview, that those around us can have no doubt but that the hope that is within us is far richer and more compelling than whatever false hope they cling to in their daily lives.

As they see us thus living out this hope, we must not be surprised when they ask us a reason for the righteousness, peace, and joy which characterize us day by day (1 Pet. 3:15; Rom. 14:17, 18). Instead, we must be ready to give a reason for our hope and to call those deluded by the gods of this secular and lawless age to turn in repentance and faith to the living God of Scripture.

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Signs and Wonders – Our Lawless Age (5)

thousandhills — Fri, 18 May 2012 04:01:25 +0000

Signs and Wonders

Our Lawless Age (5)

Our lawless age is characterized by many influences such as the Apostle Paul describes in these verses—people and institutions capable of impressive, amazing, even spectacular achievements, things so dramatic that they captivate the minds and win the hearts of the very people Christians are seeking to persuade to saving faith.

We make a mistake in this passage if we focus on the “signs and wonders” part rather than the result described in verse 10. The “signs and wonders” Paul had in mind were works inspired by the devil, works of such influence that they deceived people into thinking they were the form of truth.

It is important that we remember that such “signs and wonders” need not be of the miraculous sort so often depicted in popular end-times scenarios. Jesus told Peter that he was in the grip of Satan because he thought he could improve on Christ’s redemptive work (Matt. 16:23), which he presumed to do at the end of a sword (Matt. 26:51). Paul condemned Elymas as a “son of the devil” because he tried to persuade the proconsul not to believe in Christ (Acts 13:8-10). The work of the devil is unto deception, to keep people from turning to Jesus Christ. His methods and means are always appropriate to the time and place in which he chooses to work, and he sticks with what works for as long as it does.

Thus, in our day, when pop culture, technology, the secular media and academy, the worlds of entertainment and marketing, and large sections of the scientific community have proven to be so impressive and so adept at sowing doubt and deception into the population, why should Satan resort to more “supernatural” devices? In our lawless age, there is no shortage of distractions, diversions, and other secular “signs and wonders” which keep people from considering the claims of Jesus Christ as of any real importance.

Couple these with church leaders who allow people merely to believe and then to indulge all the worldly diversions they choose, and you have a script that Satan, having written, will be content to follow for as long as it holds firm.

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Lawlessness in the Church – Our Lawless Age (4)

thousandhills — Thu, 17 May 2012 04:01:04 +0000

Lawlessness in the Church

Our Lawless Age (4)

For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4

What does Paul intend by saying this “man of lawlessness” will be taking “his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God”?

Is it possible that he means to warn the Thessalonians against those who lead in the Body of Christ according to a mindset more attune to worldly principles than the Law of God? Is he saying that church leaders will arise who, like wolves in sheep’s clothing, will lead congregations away from the truth of God, even as they use the terms of truth and the Gospel to ingratiate themselves on the followers of Christ (Acts 20:29-31)?

Certainly this was the case on Crete, where Paul charged Titus with suppressing false and worldly teachers who had appeared within the churches of that island and who were turning the Truth of God into word games designed only to attract a following.

It was also the case in Philippi, where false men had found their way into the worship of God, but whose only “god” was their belly (Phil. 3:19). Since these churches, and others, had been invaded by men calling themselves Christians but espousing worldly doctrines, why should the Thessalonians not expect the same?

In our lawless age teachers and preachers have taken seats of authority in the churches of the Lord, but what they are teaching has more affinity with a secular and postmodern worldview than with the Word of Truth. Men who deny the validity of God’s Law, who rail against sound doctrine, who invite people to make God their servant for the sake of whatever they hope to get from Him, who refuse to practice church discipline, who change the worship of God into a theatre of “feel-good” religion and therapeutic faith, and who run their churches more like CEOs than shepherds of God’s flock—all such pastors and teachers infest the churches with the ways of the world, denying the wisdom of God, and are content to have made something of a name for themselves.

These are hard words, and if they do not fit you or your church, then give thanks to God. But if they do, perhaps it is time to face up to the reality that our lawless age may have found a spawning ground within your own church through the hand of leaders who believe they know better than the Lord how to build His Church.

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Lawlessness in the Temple of God – Our Lawless Age (3)

thousandhills — Wed, 16 May 2012 04:01:29 +0000

Lawlessness in the Temple of God

Our Lawless Age (3)

One of the characteristic elements of much “end-times” writing and preaching is a kind of Biblical literalism that cannot easily be justified. This is particularly the case when end-times prophets treat of the Book of Revelation, but it shows up as well in their interpretations of a good many passages of Scripture.

Now I’m all for a literal interpretation of the Scripture, wherever justified. But when it comes to interpreting any text of the Bible, the rules of hermeneutics require that we understand texts in the larger context in which they appear. For example, if you want to understand a word used by, say, the Apostle Paul, the best way to arrive at a sound interpretation is to study all the other uses of that word in their various Pauline contexts.

Take, for example, the word, “temple,” which appears in our text. It’s clear that, on at least four occasions, Paul chose that word to refer to the physical temple of the Jews in Jerusalem. All these uses are in the Book of Acts and have reference to Paul’s arrest within the temple precincts (Acts 22:17; 24:12, 18; 26:21).

Outside the Book of Acts, however, Paul uses this word to refer to the Church, the Body of Christ. Thus, the believers in Corinth were to consider that they were the temple of the Lord, both individually and as a congregation (1 Cor. 3:16, 17; 6:16, 19). He taught the Ephesians that they were part of a larger, world-spanning temple of God which the Holy Spirit is building (Eph. 2:20-22).

In our text, therefore, it is not improbable that Paul, in mentioning the temple of the Lord, intended by that word the Church, particularly since he was addressing people who lived far from Jerusalem and for whom the temple there was probably of little interest or relevance.

When Paul says that the “man of lawlessness” would be taking “his seat in the temple of God,” he seems to be referring to the Church. The age of lawlessness would find its way into the Church through a “man of lawlessness” who embodies its rebellious and secular ways.

But what can he mean by this?

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An Age of Secularity – Our Lawless Age (2)

thousandhills — Tue, 15 May 2012 04:01:46 +0000

An Age of Secularity

Our Lawless Age (2)

For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. 2 Thessalonians 2:7

We live in a lawless age, an age in flight from God. Since the days of the Apostle Paul the world has been infused with the “mystery of lawlessness,” which is increasingly evident throughout our culture and society. We need to understand these days if we are going to be effective as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What are the characteristics of this age? And how should we as Christians respond to it?

The most outstanding feature of our age of lawlessness is its increasing secularity. In his masterful work, A Secular Age, Charles Taylor describes ours as a day in which “God’s presence receded” from the stage of history and events. In His place, “something other than God” has determined the standards and meanings by which everyday life must be lived. Secular men “oppose and exalt” themselves against all forms of belief, especially those, like the Christian faith, which include strong moral convictions, such as are encoded in the Ten Commandments.

Instead of God to show us how we ought to live, secular man proposes his own best ideas of how the world should work. Rejecting the Law of God, men become a law unto themselves; denying God as the object of their adoration and service, they recognize only their own minds and desires.

As we shall see, the Church is not immune from this lawless frame of mind.

Ours is an age of lawlessness, defined in the first instance by a commitment to secular, pragmatic, and relativistic values. We don’t need to wait for some speculative end-times scenario to begin to unfold; the mystery of lawlessness, dear friends, is already at work, and the evidence of it can be seen in the many ways that God and faith are pushed to the margins, set aside, and supplanted by “reason” and “science.”

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