(By Aiden Humphry-Bungum)
Moral relativism is:
Hypocritical: won’t tolerate Christians.
People who subscribe to moral relativism will tell you that all beliefs are equal. They will tell you that we should therefore be accepting of other beliefs; and that if we aren’t it is a sign that, at best we aren’t very bright, and at worst are intolerant or even a bigot. To people who believe this way, the worst sin in the world is to be intolerant and exclusive, and the enlightened way is to be accepting. Yet, tolerance pushers refuse to tolerate Christians. Why is that? Because Christians are not moral relativists. We do not believe that all beliefs are equal. We believe that there is only one right way to see the world, and that is God’s way. The hypocrisy of this crooked and perverse generation which claims that all beliefs should be equally tolerated, is that it cannot tolerate any belief system except its own.
Moral relativists cannot tolerate anyone except moral relativists.
They are as exclusive as the Christians that they hate. Mind you, I know that there are a great many moral relativists who say they have no ill will against Christians. “Why I know some very enlightened Christians,” they may say. What they mean is that they know of some very tolerant, very accepting people who go to church; people who invite Muslims to give sermon addresses; people who say that God is too big to fit into just one religion; people who say that Christians have no business trying to convert Muslims here in America. Yes, moral relativists like this kind of Christian; for this kind of Christian is just as they are.
Self Contradictory and Self-Refuting:
“There are no absolute truths.” (Is that absolutely true?)
“All truth is relative.” (Does that include the statement that you just made: “All truth is relative?”)
“No one can know anything for sure.” (Are you sure about that?)
“We all perceive what we want.” (Okay, I’ll give you that much; you are living proof…)
Just like the old contradiction : “This statement is false.” (if it is false, then it is true; and if it is true, then it is false! Self-refuting)
Unenlightened: ignorant of the basic nature of the World and Truth Itself: Both are at War.
Moral relativists want to believe that we can all get along; they want to believe that we can all agree to disagree. But the basic fact of this world is that it is at war, not at peace, and that no belief system tolerates any other belief system except itself, including moral relativism. For instance, Moral Relativism is opposed to anything except moral relativism. It also tries to impose itself upon “unbelievers,” and objects if “unbelievers” resist, as when Christians resist accepting that all beliefs are equal. Moral Relativism is just as much at war with other belief systems (most notably, Christianity) as any other belief system.
Again: All belief systems are at war with all other belief systems, including moral relativism. Satan is at war with God and God is at war with Satan. Lies are at war with Truth, and Truth is at war with lies. That is the nature of this world; and that is the nature of truth itself:
Jesus said, (Mat 10:34-36) “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.”
Moral relativists are at work in the media and in our nation’s schools to promote the acceptance of Islam in America. Yet Islamic leaders clearly hope that one day America will be an Islamic republic, and I know of one leader who has publicly said so (without any kind of negative media coverage, thanks to moral relativists in the media who insist that Islam is just as valid as Christianity). Yet if America ever becomes an Islamic republic, moral relativists will be told that they must convert to Islam, for the nature of Islam, and the nature of all belief systems, is to be at war with any belief system other than it’s own. Islam will bite the hand that now feeds it.
Examples: Communism: makes promises of tolerance, until it gets into power, then, violently intolerant of all others. Islam: peaceful and tolerant when powerless, violently exclusive, violently invasive when in power. All belief systems try to invade all others, including Moral relativism. Moral relativism assaults Christianity, imposes and foists itself on Christianity, and claims that Christianity must not resist, and must agree with moral relativism.
Unkind: condemns everyone to hell. (Christians who fall to moral relativism become ashamed of Christ. )
it is not enlightened to let Muslims go to hell;
it is not enlightened to deny the truth that there is only One God;
it is not a virtue to tolerate things which hurt people; things like Islam, things like Buddhism; things like evolutionism.
It is not enlightened to hide from the basic facts of life.
And it is infinitely cruel to the souls who right now know, in hell, that Jesus meant what He said when He said:
(John 14:6) “Jesus saith unto him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.’”
(John 18:38) “Pilate saith unto him, ‘What is truth?’”
(John 8:32) “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
(Acts 4:11-12) “This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”
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I subscribe to Desiring God’s blog and last week, The meaning of true womanhood was the topic. After reading and listening to the lecture I was soooo blessed and challenged. I love the point he drives home…”Wimpy theology makes wimpy women”. I agree with this. Lately I have been really frustrated with trying to understand the deeper things of Christ on my own. I have this incredible desire to learn but when left to myself I get confused many many questions form that arise from the study but not necessarily pertain to the topic… I feel that women really need to be taught church history, doctrine and theology. We’re ALL called to be able to make a defense to anyone who asks for the hope that is in us (1 peter 3:15). Well how can we do this if we are ignorant of what we believe and why we believe it. We can’t just answer with “Have Faith!” There is so much more to it and HELLO….Faith is a gift from God. You can’t just expect people to all of a sudden have Faith. The world, as foolish as it is, is remarkably prepared to defend their position against Christianity. I face it ALL the time. Women need to be equipped! A friend of mine recommended I read “Feminine Appeal” by Carolyn Mahaney. I just ordered it from Amazon and I’m excited to dive into it.
So here is the content from Desiring God. I wanted to share it on here because I’m not sure how many of you visit that site or subscribe to their blog!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BY John Piper
2008 True Woman Conference
My aim in this message is to clarify from God’s word the ultimate meaning of true womanhood, and to motivate you, by God’s grace, to embrace it as your highest calling. What I will say is foundational to the “True Woman Manifesto” which I regard as a faithful, clear, true, and wise document.
The Opposite of a Wimpy Woman
I would like to begin by stating one huge assumption that I bring to this task tonight. I mention it partly because it may give you an emotional sense of what I hope you become because of this conference. And I mention it partly because it explains why I minister the way I do and why this message sounds the way it does.
My assumption is that wimpy theology makes wimpy women. And I don’t like wimpy women. I didn’t marry a wimpy woman. And with Noël, I am trying to raise my daughter Talitha, who turns 13 on Saturday, not to be a wimpy woman.
Marie Durant
The opposite of a wimpy woman is not a brash, pushy, loud, controlling, sassy, uppity, arrogant Amazon. The opposite of a wimpy woman is 14-year-old Marie Durant, a French Christian in the 17th century who was arrested for being a Protestant and told she could be released if she said one phrase: “I abjure.” Instead, wrote on the wall of her cell, “Resist,” and stayed there 38 years until she died, doing just that (Karl Olsson, Passion, [New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1963], 116-117).
Gladys and Esther Staines
The opposite of a wimpy woman is Gladys Staines who in 1999, after serving with her husband Graham in India for three decades learned that he and their two sons, Phillip (10) and Timothy (6), had been set on fire and burned alive by the very people they had served for 34 years, said, “I have only one message for the people of India. I’m not bitter. Neither am I angry. Let us burn hatred and spread the flame of Christ’s love.”
The opposite of a wimpy woman is her 13-year-old daughter Esther (rightly named!) who said, when asked how she felt about her father’s murder, “I praise the Lord that He found my father worthy to die for Him.”
Krista and Vicki
The opposite of a wimpy woman is Krista and Vicki who between them have had over 65 surgeries because of so-called birth defects, Apert Syndrome and Hypertelorism, and who testify today through huge challenges, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well”; and this: “Even though my life has been difficult, I know that God loves me and created me just the way I am. He has taught me to persevere and to trust Him more than anything.”
Joni Eareckson Tada
The opposite of a wimpy woman is Joni Eareckson Tada who has spent the last 41 years in a wheel chair, and prays, “Oh, thank you, thank you for this wheel chair! By tasting hell in this life, I’ve been driven to think seriously about what faces me in the next. This paralysis is my greatest mercy” (Christianity Today, January, 2004, 50).
Suzie
The opposite of a wimpy woman is Suzie who lost her husband four years ago at age 59, found breast cancer three months later, then lost her mom and writes, “Now I see that I have been crying for the wrong kind of help. I now see, that my worst suffering is my sin—my sin of self-centeredness and self-pity. . . . I know that with His grace, his lovingkindess, and his merciful help, my thoughts can be reformed and my life conformed to be more like His Son.”
Wimpy Theology Makes Wimpy Women
Wimpy theology makes wimpy women. That’s my assumption that I bring to this evening. Wimpy theology simply does not give a woman a God that is big enough, strong enough, wise enough, and good enough to handle the realities of life in away that magnifies the infinite worth of Jesus Christ. Wimpy theology is plagued by woman-centeredness and man-centeredness. Wimpy theology doesn’t have the granite foundation of God’s sovereignty or the solid steel structure of a great God-centered purpose for all things.
The Ultimate Purpose for the Universe
So I turn to my to my main point, the ultimate meaning of true womanhood, and start by stating this great God-centered purpose of all things: God’s ultimate purpose for the universe and for all of history and for your life is to display the glory of Christ in its highest expression, namely, in his dying to make a rebellious people his everlasting and supremely happy bride. To say it another way, God’s ultimate purpose in creating the world and choosing to let it become the sin-wracked world that it is, is so that the greatness of the glory of Christ could be put on display at Calvary where he bought his rebellious bride at the cost of his life.
I base this statement of God’s ultimate purpose on several texts. For example, Revelation 13:8 where John refers to God’s writing names “before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.” So in God’s mind Christ was already slain before the creation of the world. This was his plan from the beginning. Why?
Because in being slain “to make a wretch his treasure”—to make a rebel his bride—the glory of his grace would shine most brightly, and that was his ultimate purpose according to Ephesians 1:4-6, “In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ . . . to the praise of the glory of his grace.”
The Glory of Christ at the Cross
From the very beginning, God’s design in creating the universe and governing it the way he does has been to put the glory of his grace on display in the death of his Son for the sake of his bride. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her . . . . that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:25-27). The ultimate purpose of creation and redemption is to put the glory of Christ on display in purchasing and purifying his bride, the church.
True Womanhood: At the Center of God’s Purpose
Now where does this take us in regard to the ultimate meaning of true womanhood? It does not take us to wimpy theology or wimpy women. It is not wimpy to say that God created the universe and governs all things to magnify his own grace in the death of his Son for the salvation of his bride. That’s not wimpy. And it doesn’t lead to wimpy womanhood.
But it does lead to womanhood. True womanhood. In fact, it leads to the mind-boggling truth that womanhood and manhood—masculinity and femininity—belong at the center of God’s ultimate purpose. Womanhood and manhood were not an afterthought or a peripheral thought in God’s plan. God designed them precisely so that they would serve to display the glory of his Son dying to have his happy, admiring bride.
Created to Display Jesus’ Glory
Genesis 1:27 says, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking God created us this way, and then later when Christ came to do his saving work, God looked around and said, “Well, that’s a good analogy, man and woman. I’ll describe my Son’s salvation with that. I’ll say it’s like a husband dying to save his bride.”
It didn’t happen like that. God did not look around and find manhood and womanhood to be a helpful comparison to his Son’s relation to the church. He created us as male and female precisely so that we could display the glory of his Son. Our sexuality is designed for the glory of the Son of God—especially the glory of his dying to have his admiring bride.
In Ephesians 5:31, Paul quotes Genesis 2:24, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” And then he adds this, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” In other words, from the beginning, manhood and womanhood were designed to display the glory of Christ in his relationship to the church, his bride.
A Distinctive Calling to Display the Glory of Christ
In other words, the ultimate meaning of true womanhood is this: It is a distinctive calling of God to display the glory of his Son in ways that would not be displayed if there were no womanhood. If there were only generic persons and not male and female, the glory of Christ would be diminished in the world. When God described the glorious work of his Son as the sacrifice of a husband for his bride, he was telling us why he made us male and female. He made us this way so that our maleness and femaleness would display more fully the glory of his Son in relation to his blood-bought bride.
This means that if you try to reduce womanhood to physical features and biological functions, and then determine your role in the world merely on the basis of competencies, you don’t just miss the point of womanhood, you diminish the glory of Christ in your own life. True womanhood is indispensable in God’s purpose to display the fullness of the glory of his Son. Your distinctive female personhood is not incidental. It exists because of its God-designed relationship to the central event of history, the death of the Son of God.
So let me say a word about what that looks like if you are married and if you are single.
A Word to the Married
First, a word to the married. Paul says in Ephesians 5:22-24, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.”
The point here is that marriage is meant to display the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church. And the way it does this is by men being men and women being women in marriage. These are no more interchangeable than Christ is interchangeable with the church. Men take their cues from Christ as the head, and women take their cues from what the church is called to be in her allegiance to Christ. This is described by Paul in terms of headship and submission. Here are my definitions of headship and submission based on this text:
Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like, servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home.
Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts.
The point here is not to go into detail about how this gets worked out from marriage to marriage. The point is that these two, headship and submission, are different. They correspond to true manhood and true womanhood, which are different. And these differences are absolutely essential by God’s design, so that marriage will display, as in a mirror dimly, something of the glory of the sacrificial love of Christ for his bride and the lavish reverence and admiration of the bride for her husband.
I know this leaves a hundred questions unanswered—about unbelieving husbands, and believing husbands who don’t take spiritual leadership, and wives who resist their husbands’ leadership, and those who receive it but don’t affirm it. But if you—you married women—embrace the truth that your womanhood, true womanhood, is uniquely and indispensably created by God to display the glory of his Son in the way you relate to your husband, you will have calling of infinite significance.
But what if you aren’t married?
A Word to Singles
The apostle Paul clearly loved his singleness because of the radical freedom for ministry that it gave him (1 Corinthians 7:32-38). One of the reasons he was free to celebrate his singleness and call others to join him in it, is that, even though marriage is meant to display the glory of Christ, there are truths about Christ and his kingdom that shine more clearly through singleness than through marriage. I’ll give you three examples:
1) A life of Christ-exalting singleness bears witness that the family of God grows not by propagation through sexual intercourse, but by regeneration through faith in Christ. If you never marry, and if you embrace a lifetime of chastity and biological childlessness, and if you receive this from the Lord’s hand as a gift with contentment, and if you gather to yourself the needy and the lonely, and spend yourself for the gospel without self-pity, because Christ has met your need, then he will be mightily glorified in your life, and particularly so because you are a woman.
2) A life of Christ-exalting singleness bears witness that relationships in Christ are more permanent, and more precious, than relationships in families. The single woman who turns away from regretting the absence of her own family, and gives herself to creating God’s family in the church, will find the flowering of her womanhood in ways she never dreamed, and Christ will be uniquely honored because of it.
3) A life of Christ-exalting singleness bears witness that marriage is temporary, and finally gives way to the relationship to which it was pointing all along: Christ and the church—the way a picture is no longer needed when you see face to face. Marriage is a beautiful thing. But it is not the main thing. If it were, Jesus would not have said, “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:30). Single womanhood, content to walk with Christ, is a great witness that he is a better husband than any man, and in the end, will be the only husband in the universe.
In other words, true womanhood can flourish in marriage and singleness.
True Womanhood for the Glory of Christ
I commend to you this truth: The ultimate purpose of God in history is the display of the glory of his Son in dying for his bride. God has created man as male and female because there are aspects of Christ’s glory which would not be known if they were not reflected in the complementary differences of manhood and womanhood. Therefore, true womanhood is a distinctive calling of God to display the glory of his Son in ways that would not be displayed if there were no womanhood.
Married womanhood has its unique potential for magnifying Christ that single womanhood does not have. Single womanhood has its unique potential for magnifying Christ which married womanhood does not have.
So whether you marry or remain single, do not settle for a wimpy theology. It is beneath you. God is too great. Christ is too glorious. True womanhood is too strategic. Don’t waste it. Your womanhood—your true womanhood—was made for the glory of Jesus Christ.
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Table Talk is a casual event in an intimate setting where Dr. Robert Morey takes a break from delivering an outlined lecture and passes you the mic to ask questions. He takes his best shot at giving a biblical answer usually in a much more full manner such his time is not so limited. With no topic restrictions, Table Talks can cover a wide range of subjects often resulting in a highly educational and spiritually refreshing fun time.
Event: Table Talk 6
Date: This Saturday, Oct. 11, 2008
Location: Calvary Temple in Orange, CA
Time: 11am to 4pm
Cost: $25 per person (with online pre-registration) buy tickets
At the Door Price: $35
Speaker: Dr. Robert Morey
Topic: Open Q&A
What is Table Talk?
Table Talk is like a seminar or conference, except there isn’t any one fixed topic. Instead, the topic of discussion is determined by the questions asked by you, the audience.
With two microphones set up at both sides of the stage, people from the audience can walk up and ask Dr. Robert Morey questions on a range of topics such as theology, apologetics, other religions, philosophy, science, culinary arts and more.
Not only will each person in attendance receive a wealth of knowledge and a complimentary gift pack at the door, but 2 drawings will be held to giveaway Faith Defenders Resource Bundles.
Winners of the drawings will receive a hand-signed and numbered copy (#/500) of the limited edition hardcover book “A Modern Day Apologist.” (a $129.95 value) We have reserved a few of these books that were produced to honor Dr. Robert Morey’s 35th anniversary of Christian ministry, and the winners of the drawings will receive a free copy of their own to enjoy and share.
In addition to the book, winners will also receive the Faith Defenders seminar The Book of Revelation – An Introduction to the Apocalypse (audio and syllabus), a seminar on the ground-breaking research of Dr. Robert Morey. But seating is limited, and once the tickets are sold out, your only shot to participate in Table Talk 6 will be to purchase the audio after the event (which we will make available for purchase and download).
So purchase your tickets now and bring your questions about Reformed Theology, apologetics, general Bible questions, eschatology, the Christian life, and whatever you would like to ask pertaining to what you should believe and how you then should live. And if you are more of a “fly on the wall” type and just prefer to attend to listen, then that is fine too!
This will be only the sixth Table Talk in nearly a decade since Table Talk 1. These are rare, don’t miss out.
We’re looking forward to seeing you there.
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