Patient and Graceful Response to Wrong

The Beatitudes and the Call to Rejoice Under Persecution

Well, as we begin this morning, I would like to ask you to go ahead and take out your Bibles and open up to the fifth chapter of Matthew. But before we actually get to our text for today, I would like for us to first look a little earlier in chapter five, passage that we've already been through, and take just a moment to read verses 10 through 12.

You'll recall that these are part of the Beatitudes. And in verses 10 through 12, we read these words. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great. For in the same way, they persecuted the prophets who came before you.

As we work through those specific verses, we talked about how, and even the rest of the Beatitudes, we talked about how each one of them demonstrated and taught us characteristics of the people of the kingdom of God.

Specifically, when we talked about verses 10 through 12, we talked about how we are to respond when we face persecution and are wronged for the sake of righteousness. In fact, if you'll notice specifically, verse 12 tells us clearly to rejoice and be glad, a command which quite honestly we find challenging at times because we often focus on the immediate situation, the here and the now and the things that we are going through.

But again, recall that first of all, that there is a future reward laid up for us in heaven and secondly, those specific persecutions and trials and name calling and all of those things that we saw were specifically around righteousness and around Christ.

And so, when we look at those verses, we can walk away, if we aren't very careful, with the impression that in the case of any other wrong that we are confronted with, we are free to respond however we may choose in a manner that we think is appropriate.

Often, that time tempts us to possibly even use words of scripture to support how we respond, texts like Leviticus chapter 24, verses 9 through 20, where it says, if a man injures his neighbor, just as he has done, so that shall it be done to him.

Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, just as he has injured a man, it shall be inflicted on him. Our text for this morning, however, coming from Matthew chapter five, verses 38 through 42, show us something a little different.

In fact, the Lord Jesus Christ actually deals with how we are to respond, how those who belong to his kingdom are to behave in the face of wrong. Again, we are reminded that the anchor for all of our verses from verse 21 down through verse 48 falls back to verses 17 through 20, where Christ reminds us that he is not changing or correcting the law itself, but rather the people and their interpretation or their reduction of the law.

In regard to this truth, we've used part of this quote before, but William Perkins makes his statement, and I'm gonna read a little bit more of it this morning, where he says, Christ fulfilleth the law in three ways, by his doctrine, in his person, and in men.

By his doctrine, he fulfilleth the law two ways, both by restoring unto it his proper meaning and true use, as we shall see afterwards, where he correcteth the corrupt interpretations of the Pharisees, as also by revealing the right way whereby the law may be fulfilled.

In other words, he corrects the misinterpretation and then directs the way that we should respond as citizens of the kingdom. That brings us to our text for this morning, and so I would invite you to stand with me in reverence for the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative, sufficient, complete, and certain word, as we read together from Matthew's Gospel, the fifth chapter, verses 38 through 42.

Matthew chapter five, verse 38 and following, we read these words. You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist an evil person, but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.

And if anyone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your garment also. And whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him too. Give to him who ask of you and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.

Merciful Heavenly Father, as we come into your presence this morning, we are filled with awe and wonder of who you truly are. Lord, remind us that we have grievously sinned against you, that we deserve the judgment that our sins require.

Yet, in your great love, in your great mercy, you have provided that very righteousness that you require through our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, bring that mercy and that grace to our minds this morning.

Help us to deal truthfully with ourselves. Help us to put to death the remaining sin within us. Grant us strength by your spirit to live according to your word, not merely in our outward actions, but as those who have been transformed by your grace and made new in Christ Jesus.

Teach us through your word. Conform us more and more to the image of Christ. Father, we ask all of these things in the blessed name of the Lord Jesus Christ, your son, amen. You may be seated. Well, as you should be very familiar, over the last several weeks, we have been looking at the different examples that Christ has set forth for his people to demonstrate the righteousness that he mentions in verse 20.

And so as we come to the final two over the next two weeks of those examples, we will see that they serve, again, the same goal, to demonstrate to us that righteousness. But these two last two examples that we will study this week and then next week are actually related to each other.

The first set, the ones that we will look at this morning in verses 38 through 42, teach God's people about the restraint that we should exercise in the face of wrongdoing. And then the following verses, verses 43 through 48, actually talk to us about our active participation in overcoming evil with good.

The Old Testament Law of Proportionate Justice

Now, you may recall way back in our study of Exodus, as we worked through the book of Exodus, we ran into the concept of lex talionis. This is the law of retaliation or the law of equal reciprocity based on what's happening.

We find this in the book of Exodus in 21st chapter as we read verses 22 through 25, where it says, and if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, let there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband will set for him and he shall pay as the judges decide.

But if there is any further injury, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, bruise for bruise, wound for wound. If we continue studying the Old Testament, once again in Leviticus chapter 24, verses 17 through 22, which we read a portion of a few moments ago, and then again in Deuteronomy chapter 19, verses 15 through 21, we find these same principles repeated and all together they demonstrate exactly what Christ is pointing to in this first verse.

In each one of these, the principle is essentially the same, that the law that God gave to Israel required that punishment be proportionate to the crime or the offense that had been committed. This was not, however, an invitation for vengeance.

It was not a way for us to respond. It was actually a restraint upon vengeance. If you left this to ourselves, if you left this to sinful men, rarely are we going to respond in like manner. In other words, most often our response is much more severe than what the punished or what the actual original offense would be.

Someone says something offensive to us and we want to retaliate in our voice by saying something worse in return. Or maybe they wound us and our natural inclination is not merely that justice be done, but that the one who wounded us feel at least as much pain as we have felt.

The old adage says, I don't get mad, I get even. This is the way in which we behave. But the law in the Old Testament restrains that sinful tendency by placing justice in the hands of those who were to rightly judge versus in ourselves, those who were appointed for this.

And it established a measured response to wrongdoing versus it just being however we feel at the moment. But in all things, the law states clearly that the punishment was not to exceed the offense. And the offended individual was not given unrestricted permission to seek or to become his own judge and avenger.

This is why it's important that we don't read the words that we find in the Old Testament where it says an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth as though they are teaching some private revenge. Nor do we read them as if Christ has now arrived and wishes to replace that harsh standard with mercy.

It is necessary that we understand the truth of what exists because the Old Testament itself makes it clear that personal vengeance, personal agendas, personal response is not the expectation. In fact, it's strictly forbidden.

Leviticus 19 .18 commands you shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people. Proverbs 20 and 22 warns do not say I will repay evil. Hope in Yahweh and he will save you. Proverbs 24 verse 29 says do not say thus I shall do to him as he has done to me.

I will render to the man according to his work. The principle of mercy towards a person who has been wronged or who has done wrong is not just a New Testament principle. It is a principle that is clearly demonstrated in the Old Testament.

It is present in God's law all along. In fact, John Gill in his commentary exposition regarding the New Testament wrote concerning Matthew chapter 38 that Christ our Lord here does not find fault with the law of retaliation as delivered by Moses, but with the false gloss of the scribes and Pharisees who applied it to private revenge and in favor of it whereas this law did not allow of a retaliation to be made by private persons at their pleasure but by the civil magistrate only.

In other words, the law that had been given had been taken and had been adopted by the scribes and the Pharisees as not just a right but almost a command to seek retribution in our own way. Gill's point is that the fault lay in the way in which that interpretation had taken place because the law had been taken out of the proper judicial setting and used for private retaliation.

Once again, we see something taken that God had given for a righteous purpose, reduced, distorted, and used to provide cover for the sinful heart. In fact, instead of hearing the law as a limitation upon vengeance, men began to hear it as permission for vengeance.

Men today still hear it as a permission for vengeance. Instead of understanding that justice belonged to those who were appointed to judge, the individual could now reason that if wronged, they were entitled to answer in kind.

Again, this fits in the pattern that we have seen throughout this section of the text. We see continually, once again, Christ not allowing the standard of the law to be lowered or reduced. We see that he is not correcting something unrighteous in the law itself.

What he is doing is exposing what sinful man had done with the law. The law had been, once again, reduced until obedience could be measured by outward action. That we could draw a line and say this far, we can go this far, instead of seeking to understand the truth of what it is.

But Christ refuses every one of those reductions because the righteousness of his kingdom does not stop in our actions or at our hands or in our mouth. Righteousness that is required reaches the heart.

Non-Retaliation and the Meaning of Turning the Other Cheek

And so Christ responds to what has been said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, in verse 39, where he brings us to the understanding of the fullness of the law. And so he says, but I say to you, do not resist an evil person.

Now, before we go any further, we're gonna make it very clear that just as we can use this in a situation where we can be too rigid, we can also use this in a situation where we can be too lax. And so the idea here is not to allow it to either be weakened because we are so rigid or weakened it because we are seeking to expand it to as if there is nothing here that Christ is truly addressing, that it's merely just window dressing.

And we use it for this, we're supposed to just sit back and take everything, and that's not what this verse is teaching. In fact, the word translated here resist is where we need to hone in for just a moment.

Because this word resist carries the idea of setting oneself against another. But when we examine the context that we find around it and the context of all of scripture, what we see is that the kind of resistance that's in view here is that we are resisting evil.

We are standing firmly against wickedness. The resistance that's in mind here is retaliatory resistance, where we are in an effort getting back at the individual. We are commanded in scripture to resist evil.

We are commanded in scripture to stand firm. And so Christ is speaking to the person who has been personally wronged, which I believe would qualify as each person who has ever lived. And who has responded naturally with an answer that was a wrong equal or greater to the original wrong.

Another saying comes to mind, two wrongs don't make a right. Notice also, however, that Christ is not pretending that the one committing the offense is innocent. In fact, he literally calls them an evil person.

Do not resist an evil person. Do not retaliate against an evil person. The wrong didn't change. The wrong is still a wrong. The injustice is still an injustice. It didn't become something different because the Christian has been commanded not to avenge himself.

That doesn't lessen what has happened. And the distinction is very important because biblical non-retaliation is not the same thing as moral indifference. In other words, non-retaliation for a Christian is not us just saying, well, it doesn't really matter whether he's right or wrong or good or bad because I'm not supposed to do anything anyway.

Christ still responds that the evil is still evil. We can recognize and act as evil. We can call and act evil. And in proper circumstances, we may seek to prevent further evil, but we refuse the sinful desire to make the offender personally suffer because of what has been done.

We do not take it into our own hands. Now, this is a place where we have to be very careful to truthfully deal with ourselves because brothers and sisters, we can very quickly make revenge seem not revengey.

And I know revengey is not a word, but you know what I mean. We can change and mold it into something where we have convinced ourselves that we really want justice, but the truth of the matter is we want satisfaction.

We say that we want the truth to be known, but yet we carefully repeat the story in such a way so that the offender looks more and more evil in the eyes of others. We can even tell ourselves that that person needs to learn a lesson when what we really mean is that we would like to see them hurt.

Maybe not physically, maybe emotionally, maybe psychologically. We can go about this business never raising a hand, never saying a word, but it's not the hand and it's not the mouth that is the concern.

Once again, it is the heart. Christ addresses all of this because he is exposing once again what we desire in our hearts. And so to elaborate, he gives us four circumstances or illustrations, the first of which is one that makes this whole conversation intensely personal because he begins with a voice that, I mean a voice, a verse that, or a statement that quite honestly is widely repeated most of the time by people who have no idea what they're talking about or what they're even quoting.

Because he says to us, do not resist an evil person, but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. Now, I'm not sure if you've ever been slapped or punched, but I can assure you that a slap or a punch to the face can be a very painful thing.

Not only can it be painful, it can also be very insulting and very humiliating. In many societies, a slap across the right cheek is considered one of the greatest insults that you can make to an individual.

And so to respond to it with what it seems to be saying is that we're just supposed to turn around and go the other way misses the point. Christ intention here is to communicate an example of contempt.

Someone has treated you as though you were insignificant. They have dishonored you, shames you in front of other people. They have deliberately attacked your dignity. That's the moment where most of us get our flesh all up in a lather.

Where we get all hot and bothered. Maybe it's not a slap across the face. Maybe it's simply an insult. Maybe it's a raised voice. Maybe it's a embarrassing action in public. Maybe it's a treatment of you as if you are nothing.

You may not even physically respond or verbally respond, but within you, you have a desire for vindication, a desire to retaliate in some way. You want the person who has offended you to recognize you, to understand what you deserve and what they have done.

Now, when I say what you deserve, I'm not talking about in the sense of true justice. I'm talking about in the sense of what you think you deserve. But Christ calls us to a different response. Now, you notice, he does not say that the insult is pleasant.

He doesn't say that the offender is righteous. What he is doing is teaching us that our dignity cannot be so precious to us that the loss of our dignity or something threatening our dignity gives us permission to sin.

That's where we miss the mark often. A great example of this can actually be found in John chapter 18. If you're unfamiliar with John chapter 18, this is the portion of John where Christ is brought. He is betrayed, he is arrested, and then he is ultimately brought before the high priest.

And in the middle of all of this, we have this interaction where Christ is struck by an officer. Christ does not retaliate, but he also doesn't pretend that this has not happened. In fact, what he does is he asks this question.

If I have spoken wrongly, testify of the wrong. But if rightly, why do you strike me? You see, he spoke the truth about the injustice. He didn't hide it. He didn't shrink away from it. He didn't pretend as if it never existed, but he spoke that truth without answering violence or violence.

That's an important distinction. It's important because society has turned turning the other cheek into this thing where we must call evil good or refuse to speak some truth. But what turning the other cheek means is that we do not allow evil that is done to us become an excuse for evil within us.

We resist the desire to retaliate. In fact, Peter later in his first letter points believers to Christ following the same pattern speaks of Christ who being reviled was not reviling in return. While suffering, he was uttering no threats, but listen to what Peter says.

He was being reviled. He did not revile in return. He was suffering. He was not threatening. But in the midst of all of this, he kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously. You see, that's how the response is enabled.

That's how the response is possible. Christ is trusting himself to the righteous judge. You don't relinquish personal vengeance because justice is unimportant. God proves justice is important when he sent Christ to the cross.

You relinquish personal vengeance because you understand justice ultimately belongs to God and God alone. Romans 12, 19 makes this explicit. Paul writes, never taking your own revenge, beloved. Instead, leave room for the wrath of God for it is written, vengeance is unimportant.

Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. As Christians, as believers, our non-retaliation is built on the confidence that God sees perfectly, that he judges righteously, and that he will never allow evil finally to escape his judgment.

J .C. Ryle provides a warning identifying the heart of the matter in his exposition when he writes, a readiness to resent injuries, a quickness in taking offense, a quarrelsome and contentious disposition, a keenness in asserting our rights, all are contrary to the mind of Christ.

In other words, any of those things, a readiness to resent injuries, a quickness to take offense, a quarrelsome and contentious disposition, or a keenness in asserting our own rights are all contrary to the mind of Christ.

This reaches beyond the act of striking back because the question really becomes is how tightly we cling to ourselves? How quickly are we offended? How strongly do we feel we should defend our reputation?

Surrendering Personal Rights and Possessions

Righteousness that Christ describes frees you and I from tyranny of having to answer every slight and defend every insult because we know who the ultimate judge of all things is. And so in verse 40 of Matthew five, Christ moves past this personal dignity into our possessions and our legal rights.

So the second illustration that he uses, we come into in verse 40, and if anyone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your garment also. Now this may seem like a very odd passage to us, but we need to understand again, the context of the culture, the law, everything that's swirling around here.

In Exodus chapter 22 verses 26 and 27 actually required a poor man's cloak to be taken as a pledge to be returned because it might be the covering that he depended upon that night. And so the tunic being the inner garment, the outer garment or cloak was more substantial.

And that cloak received protection under the law. And so someone may say, let me take your tunic, the inner garment, and when they did so, you also offer to them the outer garment, the larger covering.

Christ rightly chooses, deliberately chooses an example involving something that a disciple could rightly require. They could rightly, legitimately claim a right to retain. Now what's interesting here is that we need to understand again, that there's a lot of legal things involved in this, but this would be a right that they could demand of someone to give the tunic over.

So these disciples could be confronted with someone coming to them, and because they have a debt for them to have to give their tunic to the other individual. And so this doesn't eliminate legal rights.

Paul teaches us through the scriptures, especially through Acts, is that scripture never condemns every exercise of lawful protection. We see in Acts 16, that he objects when the magistrates attempt to quietly dismiss him after publicly beating him.

We see in Acts 22, that he makes use of his Roman citizenship. In Acts 25, he appeals to Caesar. The presence of all of those help reinforce the fact that Matthew 5 is not an absolute prohibition against every legal claim.

But what it does do is helps us to identify what Christ is really doing. And what he is really doing is saying, he's not asking the question of whether you have rights or not. What he's asking is, are your rights ruling your heart?

Are your rights ruling your heart? Can you possess a right without being possessed by it? There are times when justice requires that a matter be pursued. There are times, particularly when others may be harmed or where public harassment or public righteousness is involved, where justice should be pursued.

But there are many other occasions, many other times in which Christians must be willing to absorb a personal right, rather than to turn every injury into a battle over what he is owed. Spurgeon, writing about this, wrote in his commentary on the book of Matthew, that our loving King would have private dealings ruled by the spirit of love and not by the rule of law.

Now, before we take Spurgeon's word and go see Spurgeon was all for eliminating the civil magistrate and all for the abolishment of the courts and the rejection of civil justice, we should understand that he's not.

What he is saying is that the point in our personal relationships, that we should not govern those relationships with the question of what am I entitled to demand? In other words, what can I get for myself?

What can I gain? Love sometimes requires us to relinquish what the law says that we could claim. Paul demonstrates it beautifully in 1 Corinthians chapter nine. In that chapter, he carefully establishes that he possesses genuine rights as an apostle.

That he possesses genuine rights, in fact, as a believer. And then he proceeds to say that he willingly refrains from exercising those rights because he does not want to place an obstacle in the way of the gospel.

That's not weakness. That is true freedom. The world would have us divine freedom as the ability to insist that no one can take something from us. Christ reveals the freedom of the kingdom, which is the ability to surrender something that is truly ours because we have found something truly greater in him.

Going the Second Mile Instead of Resenting Inconvenience

And then our third example, and whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him too. This third illustration actually addresses some things that as believers, we often hold near and dear to our hearts, our liberty, our convenience, our time.

Now, the language here in verse 41 actually refers back to a practice of compelling that was legal under Roman authority. A soldier or an official who was a Roman could be walking down the street, could pass by a person in the street, it could be in the middle of doing anything and compel them to tote their belongings and go with them one mile.

Now, there were again, that restriction of that, but if you can imagine this particular thing could become something that would be a source of some very deep resentment. Imagine if you were at work doing something and somebody walks up to you and compels you to go with them.

I know none of you work for anybody who's ever done something like that to you. But the truth is, is when we encounter those things, it generates resentment because there's no care, concern, or thought as to what we're doing.

It's all about what they need. And so the normal response, again, in the life of the Jewish person in that day would ultimately be to exactly do what was required. If one mile was commanded, one mile's what you got.

If you told me to take this from this side of the room to that side of the room, that's exactly what you got. Nothing extra, nothing less, but nothing more. Christ's command here is something that is radically different because he commands his disciples to go farther than what is required.

The point is not that we run around finding Romans to walk a mile and two miles for. The point is that our heart should not and need not be controlled by someone who is imposing something upon us. We go, yeah, but this is silly because I don't live in ancient Israel.

It's not really a law where people can do this. The only kind of time this really affects me is at work. The truth is there's something much deeper here. There's something very profound happening. The person compelling the first mile may exercise authority over the circumstances.

They have commanded that you go this far, but that authority over those specific set of circumstances do not have to control the spirit of the believer. In other words, the Christian can say, you can interrupt my plans, but you don't have authority to fill my heart with hatred.

You can require something from me, but you cannot make me become bitter. The second mile transforms compelled service into voluntary service because the disciple recognizes that his life ultimately belongs to God.

And so how does this deal with us in our ordinary lives? Well, the truth is, as we reveal much about our hearts by the way we respond when someone inconveniences us, most of us imagine ourselves ready to fight some great test of faith.

We're prepared to do battle for the king and the kingdom, but then we become irritated because a family member interrupts our plans, or we become frustrated because someone needs our help at an inconvenient time, or someone requires more of us than what we expected to give.

Our flesh continually calculates the minimum. What am I required to do? What are my limitations? When have I done enough? When have I given enough? When have I satisfied enough so that it's no longer inconveniencing or troubling or removing me from my plans?

Christ teaches us the kingdom citizen is not one that constantly measures how little we can give and still satisfy the requirement. We are learning to serve freely because we belong to a generous king.

Now, this command does not make human authority absolute. It does not mean that if somebody walks up to you and contradicts the word of God that you have to obey. Acts 5 .29 remains true. We must obey God rather than men.

But there are countless ordinary demands of our day that do not require disobedience to God. And there are countless of those demands where we may try to twist it into something that requires us to be disobedient from God that really are not requiring us to be disobedient to God.

At the end of the day, this illustration shows us that the disciples should not be characterized by resentment, by bare minimum, by constant complaint, that we recognize even in the interruptions and even in the inconveniences that those are places where the righteousness of his kingdom becomes visible.

Generosity Toward Those in Need

Listen, you wanna live a testimony? Don't get upset every time somebody inconveniences you. Respond with grace, with patience. And finally, we come in this part of the text to verse 42. This illustration where he says, "'Give to him who ask of you and do not turn away "'from him who wants to borrow from you.'".

And so we move away from what the needs that others bring before us, we move away from what others do to us to the needs that they bring before us. The first three dealt with insult, loss, imposition.

The final one is probably one of the most challenging ones that we will face. And the reason is it's because it deals with and exposes our relationship to our possessions. How do we respond when someone needs something that belongs to us?

Now, as with the other passages, there is some background that we need to understand. Deuteronomy chapter 15 would be one that would be helpful. God warns Israel not to harden the heart or close the hand toward a poor brother.

And so that language kind of helps see the real issue because the hand closes only after the heart has already closed. The heart hardens, the hand closes. We often respond to need immediately by calculating whether or not it is our responsibility.

We ask the person whether, or we ask the question whether the person actually deserves our help or our giving. We ask whether it's our responsibility or someone else's. We ask whether giving might inconvenience us.

Now, to be sure, scripture definitely requires us to exercise wisdom in generosity, but we cannot use wisdom to become respectable language for selfishness. Now, Jesus is not commanding us to subsidize sin or again, give foolishly.

Second Thessalonians three distinguishes between those who cannot work and those who refuse to work. That's a big difference. First Timothy five teaches ordered responsibility and caring for family and those genuinely in need.

And sometimes love gives exactly what is requested. And sometimes love must refuse that particular request and then seek another way to meet the actual need. I've dealt with a situation in my life before where the giving of the specific request led to additional things that would not have been appropriate.

Where responding to someone's request for money or time or anything for me would not have been in their best interest or in mine in the sense of right and wrong. And so sometimes you have to respond a different way, but you do so in love.

Again, the command doesn't eliminate discernment, but it does establish the posture of the heart. The disciple of Christ should be open handed rather than grasping, willing to help rather than instinctively defensive of everything he possesses.

Kingdom Righteousness and the Limits of Personal Vengeance

Above all, when we take these four illustrations and put them together, the pattern becomes clear. Christ touches the things that fallen men most instinctively claim as his own. My dignity, my rights, my time, my possession.

In fact, I'm reminded of the birds on the old movie Finding Nemo who continually repeated the term mine over and over. Because this is how we sound. This is how the flesh sounds. We cry out mine, mine, mine, mine.

We must defend our honor. We must enforce our rights. We must have time uninterrupted. We must keep our possessions and protect them. But what Christ teaches is first, not that any of these things have no legitimate value, but he teaches that none of them should rule those who are citizens of the kingdom of heaven.

Because all of those things, all of those things, your honor, your rights, your time, your possessions are not really yours. They're Christ's. They fall under his lordship. And so we need to guard ourselves against two opposing errors.

The first error is to explain these words until there is nothing left for us to obey. In other words, we become happy clappy, love is love, and we just roll over and compromise every truth of scripture, as we've seen in many quote unquote churches.