Moral Madness: Replacing Truth with Feelings

Truth, Objective Morality, and the Problem of Feeling

Be seated. I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to 2 John. We are continuing this morning in our short series on the book of 2 John. As I mentioned when we began this series, it was going to span the time between Mother's Day and Father's Day.

I feel like we can get all the way through the book. Today is our third lesson on 2 John. We have noted already that the theme of the book is truth. I've entitled the series Moral Madness because we live in a day where people have come to the incorrect belief that truth is relative to every individual and that there is no such thing as propositional or objective truth.

All truth is subjective to the individual and as a result this has led to all sorts of moral madness. It's led to all sorts of decay in our very foundations of who we are and has led to a problem in even being able to understand the very gospel itself because if we do not understand objective morality, then we cannot understand what sin is.

If we do not understand what sin is, we cannot properly articulate the work of Jesus Christ because He came to take away sin. And if we can't identify what that is, if we cannot give a definition as to what it means to sin against a holy God, then we have truly devolved into a just practical madness.

And so, that is the overarching theme of the series that we are in and it's taken from the second letter of John. Now, I want to begin this morning with somewhat of a different introduction. I want to talk to you about a picture that I saw and because I didn't bring a copy of the picture, I'm going to have to describe it to you and hopefully my words will at least be able to identify what I saw in the picture and you'll be able to follow along.

I guess I could have brought one and put it on the screen, but I was afraid it would be a little obscure and hard for you to read. We don't have giant screens like they have at the ball theater, or the ball theater, obviously not a sports person, at the theater or the ball game.

We don't have giant screens, so bringing the picture I didn't think was going to be very helpful. But it was a picture of a church sign and I just want to, from the outset, say my subject this morning is not on the subject of homosexuality.

It's not the focus of the message in any way, but it does have to do with the picture, so I want to address it simply to say it was part of the picture. On the picture, there was a sign of a church. You've seen the signs that they write on the signs and they have the different lettering and they were able to put up different things.

Our sign doesn't allow for that, so we don't get to get into the crazy mayhem of all the church signs, but some people do and they put all kinds of, you know, CH, space, space, CH, what's missing, you are, haha, everybody thinks that's hilarious.

Well, this church sign was trying to make a political statement, well at least somewhat political, a statement of position on the issue of homosexuality. And what it said was, it said, a gay Christian is not an oxymoron, but a hateful Christian is.

I'll say it again. It says, a gay Christian is not an oxymoron, but a hateful Christian is. Now, I looked at the picture, I was sort of studying what it was trying to say, it had the name of the church above it, it was a liberal denomination, which is not surprising, but it did have the name of the denomination and the church above it, and the sign was very clear as to what it was trying to say.

And I got to thinking, well, you all know what an oxymoron is. An oxymoron is two words that go together that mean opposite things, they don't normally go together, but they can be put together to mean sort of a juxtaposition between the two things.

So like a jumbo shrimp is an oxymoron. A Dodge Ram, if you dodged it, you didn't ram it, so, I mean, really, it's an oxymoron, right? Well, think about it, a little mental, haha, these two words go together don't mean the same thing.

And the argument of the sign, or at least the statement, not that it was making an argument, the sign can't make an argument, but the statement of the sign was, a gay Christian is not an oxymoron, as if to say that a person can be a homosexual and be a Christian and that's not opposed to one another.

But a hateful Christian is an oxymoron, those two things are opposed to one another. And I just want to address the statement of the sign, and I hope you'll understand where I'm going with this in the moments to come.

Because an oxymoron is two things that mean the opposite things, and someone says, well, a gay Christian is not an oxymoron. Well, for very quickly, just for a reference, homosexuality is a sin. If this is not really up for debate, even though there are those today who would say it's not a sin, Romans chapter 1, 1 Corinthians, tell us very clearly that it's not a natural way for people to live and that it's unnatural and it's against God's design for man.

God created the man and woman to be in a relationship with one another. And so when a person lives in that lifestyle, they are living opposed to the way God designed them, they are living in a way that is opposed to the way God created them, and they are living in sin.

In 1 John it tells us if a person continues to live in sin, claiming to be a believer that their conversion is not real. I mean, it simply is. If a person is living in sin, and this is any sin, not just homosexuality.

If you're living as an adulterer and claiming to be a Christian, guess what? Your confession is not real. Because your lifestyle has denied your confession. If you're living as a thief, you're not a Christian.

You're a thief. I don't say this to judge you, I say this based on the book of 1 John, tells us very clearly if a person continues to sin habitually, living in sin as a lifestyle, after claiming to know Jesus Christ, their confession is false.

So the idea of a gay Christian, that is an oxymoron in a sense because a person is saying, yes, I'm happily living as a person who's in my sin, I don't have a desire for repentance, I don't have a desire to change, but I'm living as a sinner and yet I'm a Christian.

It's false. But here's the part that makes it even worse. As it goes on it says, but a hateful Christian is an oxymoron. I agree with that in a sense. I agree that a person who lives as a hateful person as much as a thief or a liar or an adulterer or homosexual, anyone who lives in a continual repetitive habitual sin is living a life that is antithetical to their faith and thus their faith is not genuine.

I believe that. But here's the problem, the insinuation from the sign is this. The insinuation is that if you don't believe that a person can be gay and be a Christian then you're hateful. See, that's the insinuation.

And that's what's being told is that if you don't believe that a person can be a gay Christian then you are a hateful person and you're not a Christian, you see. And that's the problem. And my point in all of this is to simply say that this sign is meant to stir up the emotions of the reader, the passerby.

When he sees a sign that is so charged with such a modern issue and such an issue that has so caught the emotions of a nation, it is meant to excite the emotions. In fact, in the picture there's a lady next to the sign with her arms spread out wide and a big happy smile.

What's her expression indicating? This is correct. This is truth. I believe this. And that's her reason for the display of happiness. But a critical analysis of what the sign is saying shows, as I have shown you, that both of the phrases are ultimately untrue because a person who is a gay Christian is an oxymoron because it's opposed to Christianity.

And a hateful person, if you're saying that the person hateful because they say a gay Christian can't be a Christian is hateful, then that's wrong too because it's insinuating something that's not correct.

When you place them under the microscope of critical analysis, you see that what this is is it is an attempt to play on people's emotions and keep them from thinking. And that is the problem with our modern world.

We have replaced thinking with feeling. And they are not the same thing. Thomas Sowell, the author, wrote this. He said the problem isn't that little Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that little Johnny can't think.

The problem is little Johnny doesn't know what thinking is. He confuses it with feeling. Sowell was right. Many people have become incapable of thinking. They are consumed with feeling their way through life and as a result their decisions, their actions, their affections, their life is motivated by their emotions rather than their intellect.

The other day my wife was writing an email and we both do this to one another. If I write an email to someone and it's an important email, I'll often stop and I'll read it to her and I'll say, baby, tell me what you think of this.

Or she'll do the same thing and I'll read it back and forth just so we sort of have a little bit of second set of eyes looking at whatever it is. And she was writing an email and in the email it began with the words, I feel thus and so.

And I love my wife, she's a very brilliant woman, but I stopped her. I said, baby, I said, don't write that. I said, this isn't about what you feel. Put, I think this. Because that's what you're saying.

We have given in to the lie, the lie of the existentialist that says that it's all about our feelings. And it is not. Today we're in 2 John and we've seen so far the first few verses of this book. He uses the word truth, aletheia in the Greek.

He uses it over and over five times in four verses to describe the theme of what he is talking about. As Christians, we are to yearn for the truth. We are to walk in the truth. We are to love the truth.

We are to recognize that absolute truth does exist and it is bound up in the person and the work of Jesus Christ and the very nature of God himself. Truth is a precious possession. The Bible says if you don't have the truth, sell everything you have and go buy the truth.

Of course, that being an allegory. You can't purchase it. But it's saying it's worth more than anything you have. The truth is more valuable than anything. Well today, as we get to verses 5 and 6, we're going to see that the author of John, John himself, he begins to talk about the subject of love.

And what he tells us in the book is that love, true love, must be in accord with truth. Love is not just an expression of an emotion. Love is a behavior which is in accord with the truth of God. People all the time say, you know, I love my children, that's why I don't discipline them.

You know what the Bible says? He who spares the rod hates his son. He doesn't love his son, he hates him. You ever heard somebody say that? I love my child too much to discipline them. That's crazy. It's outright nonsense.

But you see, that's thinking with your feelings, not with your intellect. And that's thinking with your sinful heart, not with the Word of God. And this is how we get confused. So we're going to read 2 John, verses 5 and 6.

There's only one chapter, so it's chapter 1, verse 5 and 6. And we stand to give honor and reverence to God's Word as we read. John is addressing this elect lady, as it says in verse 1. And in verse 5 he says this,.

And now I ask you, dear lady, not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments.

This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. Father God, I thank You for Your Word. I thank You for the truth. And I pray, Lord, as I seek to give an explanation and an application of Your Word today, that You would keep me from error.

As I certainly am a fallible man and capable of preaching error, I pray that You would protect me, for the sake of my conscience, and Your people, for the sake of their own souls, from any error. And Father, I pray.

I pray that You would open the hearts of Your people to hear and understand the truth. That the scales would fall from the eyes, that the ears would be unstopped, and that we would be, Lord, able to hear the truth and understand it.

And Lord, if there are those today who do not know the gospel, who have never heard it, that they would hear it clearly, that they would be called to repentance and faith, and that they would respond in accordance with Your will.

In Jesus' name, Amen. In the first four verses of the second letter of John, we see the word truth five times. And then we get to verse five. And some people think that he takes an excursus from his thesis.

That John is taking a left turn, going away from what his original thesis was. But I don't believe that that is so. I don't think that John is going away from the subject of love here. I'm sorry, the subject of truth.

He's already started. If we read back again, it says, The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth. There's one. And not only I, but also all who know the truth. That's two. Because of the truth.

That's three. That abides in us and will be with us forever. Grace, mercy, and peace be with us. From God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father, Son, and truth. There's four. And love. I rejoice greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth.

That's five. Four verses, we have the word truth five times. That's the theme. So we get to verse five and six. He is not departing from that. But some people think that he is. And I just want to point out to you that he's not.

But he is talking about the subject of love. And helping us to try to understand that the subject of love and the subject of truth are not opposed to one another. And they're not even divided from one another.

These two things work together. Love and truth go together. Love and truth are not two various things that we study. But they're two things that must go together in God's design. He says, I ask you, dear lady.

Not as though I were writing you a new commandment. But the one which we have had from the beginning. That we love one another. This is an interesting point that John is making here. Because he says, I'm not telling you anything new.

I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. I'm telling you something that you know and you have known from the beginning. In fact, if you turn just a couple of pages over to 1 John. Go over to 1 John chapter 2.

This is the same author. Writing in the same sense that he's writing to the church. He's writing about issues facing the church. In this he's talking about how someone can know that they have eternal life.

And in 1 John chapter 2 verse 7. He says, Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment. But an old commandment that you have had from the beginning. This is almost the same language that he uses over in 2 John.

The old commandment is the word that you have heard. At the same time it is a new commandment that I am writing to you. Which is true in him and in you. Because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light. And in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness.

And does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes. So here in 1 John chapter 2 he's talking about the commandment. He's saying here's the commandment. It's very simple. Love one another.

If you hate one another you're still in the darkness. If you hate one another you still are in your lost condition. That's what he means when he says in the darkness. We are told here that love has something to do with our condition as believers.

If a person says I believe in Jesus Christ. But they do not have love for other people. If they do not have love specifically for their church family. The brothers and sisters in Christ who they are supposed to be living with, working with.

Moving towards the furtherance of the gospel with. If they do not have love for these people then they are not truly of the faith. And again we had read for us already this morning the greatest commandment.

What did Jesus say? When the lawyer asked him what is the greatest commandment of the law? And he said you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. With all your soul. With all your mind. With all your strength.

That's the first and great commandment. The second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. So according to Jesus love is not new.

According to John love is not new. This commandment has been with you ever since the beginning. It's a commandment that's as old as scripture itself. You are to love God and you are to love others. That's the commandment that is the ultimate commandment.

Jesus says all the prophets rely on that. All of the law relies on that. Love God and love others. But what does it look like? What does love look like? We are told to love in scripture. But the world has its own version of what love is.

And it is often an unbiblical definition of love. Thus we go back to 2 John and we look at verse 6. Because he tells us what love is. He says I'm giving you not a new commandment. But it's the one that you've had from the beginning.

That you're supposed to love one another. And this is love. Just in case you don't know what it is. Here is love. That we walk according to his commandments. And this is the commandment just as you heard from the beginning.

So that you should walk in it. Now in this verse. I believe and I think it can be argued from the text very clearly. In this verse when he talks about the commandments. I think he is talking about the overall truth of God.

Let me explain why I say that. Because when he says we are commanded to walk in truth. Verse 4. He says I rejoice greatly that I find your children walking in the truth. And now he switches to use the word commandments.

Well what is the commandments of God? The commandments of God are his truth in the form of the command. This is the truth and thus this is what you should do. It takes something that is true and it applies it to your life.

That's what a commandment is. Is it true that it's wrong to murder? So what does God say? Thou shall not commit murder. Thus a truth becomes a commandment. You see. What about adultery? Is it wrong to commit adultery?

What does God say? Thou shall not commit adultery. A truth becomes a commandment. So in this particular context. When John uses the word commandment here. He is equating it with the truth of God that we are supposed to love.

That we are supposed to yearn for. That we are supposed to walk in. This is the statement that he is making here. He says and this is love that we walk according to his commandments. I submit to you that what he is saying.

This is love that we walk according to the truth. We are walking according to his commandments. We are walking according to the truth. This is the commandment that you have had from the beginning. This is the truth that you have had from the beginning.

We are commanded to love one another. How are we to love one another? We are to love one another in truth. But what does that look like? That doesn't solve the problem. I've only pushed it back a second.

I haven't answered the question yet. What does it look like? But I am trying to get you to understand what John is saying here. Because some people think of the commandments and there becomes confusion in the minds of people.

We start talking about God's commandments. And you'll hear it today. Often it gets muddled in the conversations of people. And they'll say, well, wait a minute now. You can't believe in the commandments of the Bible.

Because even you eat pork and the Bible says not to eat pork. You've played football and the Bible says not to touch pig skin. And there you are running around with your pig skin, right? The Bible says not to wear clothes of mixed fibers.

And there you are with your 50 -50 cotton blend, right? Your rayon shirt, not even a real fiber, right? And you hear that. And often we retreat or we make bad arguments because we haven't thought through what they're saying.

We do need to understand that we live in the New Covenant and that the Old Covenant has been put away. You say, now what are you talking about, Pastor? Well, read the book of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews says when the New Covenant came, the Old Covenant became obsolete.

So there are standards that were given to the people of Israel as the people of Israel that were meant for them and not meant for all time. And there are standards such as the eating of shellfish, the eating of pork, the not having clothes of mixed fibers, not having a cheeseburger because you can't have dairy and beef together.

I know, that's rough living. But that's the standard. And those commandments that were given individualized to the nation of Israel were not meant for all time, but were meant for a particular people at a particular time and a particular place in history.

The Bible says when Jesus came, He made all foods clean. Hallelujah, I can have a barbecue sandwich and not have to worry about going to hell. That's a double hallelujah. You say, now wait a minute, does that mean God's truth doesn't stand?

No, God's truth stands the commandments for Israel, the commandments for the nation to set them apart as a particular people stood for a particular time and a particular space in history as a specific thing for a specific reason.

But the writer of Hebrews tells us that the New Covenant has come. The New Covenant in Jesus Christ has given us a new standard, a new law. But the law is based on the same God and the same truth. God is holy, we are sinners, and we need God to accept us.

We don't need to accept Him. Oh, by the way, that's important. Everybody goes around asking everybody to accept Jesus. I'm not going to ask you to accept Jesus, I'm not. I'm going to tell you to repent and believe the gospel that God might accept you.

It's not about you accepting Him. That's myth. That's modern myth. We receive Christ as Lord and Savior. That's the language of Scripture. But the idea of accepting Him like you have to accept a diagnosis of strep throat or something, you got to accept it.

What is that? It's not it. I know that was an odd, but you understand. We don't accept Him. He accepts us. Why does He accept us? We're sinful. He's holy. We have offended Him by breaking His eternal law.

His eternal moral law, which by the way, His eternal moral law doesn't change. It was wrong to lie in the Old Testament, it's wrong to lie in the New Testament. It was wrong to commit adultery in the Old Testament, it's wrong to commit adultery now.

It's wrong to steal then, it's wrong to steal now. There are certain moral standards which do not ever undergo change. You say, well how do you know what the moral standards are which don't undergo change?

God has written them on your heart. You go to any nation in the world and you'll find the laws are all among the same types of laws. You don't lie, you don't steal, you don't take another man's wife, right?

These standards of law and morality supersede culture, they supersede national borders, because they're written on men's hearts. And that's the truth I think that He's talking about, I think that's the commandments He's talking about here.

He says, and this is how we love, we love according to the truth, we love according to the commandments. We stand on them, and that's what love looks like. So based on that I want to give you two points of application from this text, two very simple points of application.

Number one, loving in truth, loving in truth means a willingness to recognize the truth and a willingness to recognize our own sin. And I'll give you number two if you want to write it down and then we'll break them down.

Number two, loving in truth means a willingness to call others to repentance. So let me say that again, loving in truth means a willingness to recognize our own sin, loving in truth means a willingness to call others to repentance.

I got to tell you, those two things are off the board in modern conversations about love. Because people say, you know, you have to love yourself, and loving yourself means what? Accepting yourself as who you are, don't recognize anything as being wrong, just know that you're how God made you no matter how obscure or odd or whatever.

God made you that way and that's the way you're supposed to be. So you don't need to repent or change or do anything, right? That's one. What's the other thing? Don't ever tell anyone else they're wrong because that's unloving.

And that's how the world describes love and that's not how the Bible describes it. Let's look at the first thing. Loving in truth means a willingness to recognize our own sins. One of the worst things that we do as believers is fail to recognize our own sins.

Often believers are very good at pointing out other people's sins. And I say that to the embarrassment of myself. You know, my wife and I have had this conversation several times. It's so easy to point out what other people do wrong.

It is so hard to be honest about what we have done wrong. We are poor at recognizing our own failures and the attitude becomes, well, when someone else does something evil, they did it because they're evil.

But when I do something evil, I did it because whatever the reason, I justify myself. If I do it, it's justified. I know why I did it. But if they do it, it's because they're evil, terrible, nasty, whatever.

We think the worst of others, we think the best of ourselves. If you really love the truth, one of the things that you will seek to avoid is hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is opposed to the truth. Consider how Jesus addressed the Pharisees.

He condemned them severely for their unwillingness to recognize their own sins and their living in hypocrisy. He says, you're like whitewashed tombs. You're clean on the outside, but you're full of dead men's bones.

Loving in truth means avoiding hypocrisy and being honest with ourselves. Do you only see what other people do wrong and fail to recognize what you yourself do wrong? I'm being honest. Ask yourself that question.

Do you only see what others do wrong and never see your own sins? Do you never feel the conviction to repent of the sins that you do? Do you constantly justify your own actions, which are obviously sinful?

Guess what? If so, you're not loving the truth. You're loving yourself. If we cannot be honest with ourselves about ourselves, we're not loving the truth and we're not loving in the truth. We're loving ourselves and we're putting ourselves first.

So loving in truth first begins with avoiding hypocrisy. Be honest with ourselves about who we are, what we've done, what we are dealing with, and recognize our need to repent. Number two, loving in truth means a willingness to call others to repentance.

The world says if you love someone, and I want you to hear this because I want you to hear it exactly how I'm going to say it. The world says if you love someone, you will accept them just as they are.

You'll not call them to change. You'll not expect them to change. You won't hope that they'll change. You will take them exactly as they are. And that sounds very good to most people because it is what we have been conditioned to think.

Our culture has told us it's wrong to think any other way. It's force-fed the idea that we are simply supposed to accept everything and not challenge anything, and we have seen the result of this. But the Bible tells us that we are to call each other to repentance.

You realize that? That we are supposed to be honest with one another and call each other to repentance. Now that does not mean that you are to go around with your little holy hammer and whack people on the head every day just because you get excited to see other people making mistakes.

And there are people who do that. I had a guy tell me one time, he said, I wish I didn't have a job. I wish I just didn't work. He said, that way I could go around and just call people out on their sins all day long.

I said, dude, you are messed up in the head. You really got a bad brain. If that's all you want to do is go around and tell people about their sins all day long, that's your goal in life is to have to not work so you can go around and tell people about their sins.

That's not right. But if we see a person, especially, and I want to say this particularly in the church as believers, we are supposed to be as iron sharpening iron. And you know how iron sharpens iron?

It knocks off the rough edges. It hones the edge by taking away the burrs in the metal. If we see a person in sin and we simply overlook it or glorify in it, what are we doing for them in the long run except for encouraging them to continue?

We are supposed to call people to repentance. And the world sees that as extremely unloving. I mean, I am very unpopular. I've learned to live with that. It's fine. If you don't believe so, go to our YouTube page and read the comments.

I don't care, but it's ugly. People who call other people to repentance are called hateful and bigoted. And as a result, most Christians have simply given up on calling people to repentance. They've given it up to the culture.

And it has destroyed the morality of a nation. When we refuse to recognize the name sin, we are not being loving. We are engaging in a lie. We are telling a person that they're okay living outside of Christ.

They're okay living outside of grace. They're okay living in their sin because we want to satisfy their emotions and we're leaving their soul to die. At best, we're expressing apathy towards their sinful condition, and at worst, we're expressing outright hatred.

If I see a person walking into an open flame and I don't reach out and grab them and try to pull them out of that flame, what have I done to them if not pushed them into the flame by simply keeping them from going?

Imagine you watched a blind man walk towards the Grand Canyon. You see him walking towards the canyon, and yet you were afraid to point out the fact that he was walking towards the canyon because you didn't want to tell him he was blind because you might offend him.

I'm serious. You've got a guy who's walking towards the biggest hole on the planet. He's about to fall into his death thousands of feet down. He can't see the predicament he's in. He's walking towards it with willful abandon, and you say, you know what?

If I told him he was blind, that would offend him. He has a handicap, and we don't want to offend a handicapped person so we don't say anything. And that may seem like a silly illustration, but that's the logic that people use when I ask them.

They'll say, well, this person is living in sin or whatever. I'll say, have you called them to repentance? No, I don't want to hurt their feelings. What are you talking about? Why are you telling me anyway?

If you're telling me you're gossiping, go tell them. It is not unloving to call someone to repentance if we call someone to repentance in love. Now standing holding a sign that says God hates fags, that's not loving, and that's stupid, and that's ridiculous, and the people who do that are ungodly, and I'm not telling you to go hold a sign that says God hates fags.

But when I have a young lady ask me, Pastor, I know that I am gay, but does that mean I'm going to hell? What is my response? Should I say, you know what? God loves you just the way you are. He doesn't expect you to change.

Go ahead and keep living in willful abandon and repent not. Just continue to live as you are. Would that be right? Now let me ask you this. What if I said, you know what? God hates gay people and you need to go on to hell.

That would be wrong too. So how do I deal with it? I say one thing I want you to understand is that you were made in the image of God, that you were created to glorify Him, and we do not glorify God living in sin.

You were made with a purpose and it wasn't to satisfy your flesh, it was to please God. Do you think God is pleased when you disobey Him? She might say, yes, but you know what? This is how you lovingly approach the subject and say, no, God is not pleased when we disobey Him.

God is pleased when we submit to Him. And He loves you, and I love you, and I want you to repent because I care about your soul. You see, there is a loving way to call people to repentance. Not hate them, but call them in a loving way to love God because He created them.