Building a Godly Society (Part 1)

As the Book of the Covenant moves to deal with 4 capital offences, we gain some profound insights into things God cares deeply about. In this study, we'll examine the value of human life, how we are to relate to our parents, and why God has ordained certain offices of authority that may or may not be occupied by godly people.

Transcription (automatically-generated):

Today's study finds us in a portion of the Book of Exodus that is known as the Book of the Covenant, a collection of civil laws given by God to his people, the Israelites, to help them build a society after being freed from slavery in Egypt.

And the goal was not simply to build a society, but to build a society that reflected Israel's status as the people of God by reflecting the values of God in the way that they lived out their everyday lives.

The Book of the Covenant takes the timeless values of the Ten Commandments and applies them to the very specific historical and geographical context of the Israelites in the century following their release from Egypt.

And so what we are interested in is the heart of God, the values of God that are revealed in these commands. We're not really concerned with how to live well in the ancient Near East. That's not what we're looking for here.

We're not looking for guidance on how to properly manage our oxen, OK? We're concerned with learning more of the heart of God and how then we can apply that heart to our everyday lives.

Last week, BJ walks us through the issue of slavery and verse is one through 11. And so we're going to pick things up in verse 12 of Exodus 21 in just a minute. I know that we shared that we were going to touch on the sensitive subject of abortion this week. But as I was studying, I realized this really needs to be a two part study. And I think you're going to see why as we get into this.

So today's message is going to lay the foundation for some of the main discussions surrounding the subject of abortion, which will take place next week. But they're going to tie together and we just want to approach the issue as best we can as graciously and as biblically as we can. And the last thing that we want to do is be rushed through it and risk being insensitive on something so important. So this week's going to be part one and the next week is going to be part two.

As always, have your heart and mind open to the Lord today.

So if I if I go through something and the Holy Spirit nudges you, just says, hey, you need to look into that further, make a note on your outline, say I got to study this more this week because the Holy Spirit is drawing your attention to something and God has something he wants to show you now as we work through the Book of the Covenant.

This collection of civil laws, one of the contextual issues to always keep in mind is that there were no jails under God's laws. There were no prisons. Issues were brought before judges. If a punishment was required, it was administered immediately and the issue was done with. So when we come across punishments in the Book of the Covenant or the whole Old Testament, that might seem severe to us or harsh to us, there are two things that we need to keep in mind, and I put them on your outline.

The first thing we need to recognize is that it could be revealing how seriously God views the issue.

Do you realize there are things that we don't take very seriously today, but God takes very seriously and we're going to talk about why God takes some of these things so seriously as we make our way through the text.

The second thing we need to remember when we come across a punishment that seems overly harsh to us in our 21st century context is we need to remember that these punishments were intended. I know this is a crazy concept for a legal system, but they were intended to create genuine deterrence that would discourage crime and all but eliminate serial offenders. And that's a bonkers concept to write laws that way. But that's what God was doing. Do you know that the overwhelming and when I say overwhelming, I mean overwhelming, like in the high 90s, the overwhelming percentage of crime is committed by repeat offenders.

I know cops. I'm not joking.

I know cops from my gym who police all over Greater Vancouver, who deal with people on the regular, who they've arrested hundreds of times, not dozens, hundreds of times.

And that's because the punishments in our legal system are simply not harsh enough to deter criminals. We've actually made the risk worth the reward, especially when it comes to crimes like theft. If you saw this week there was a brewery in Pocho who had ordered two of these massive distillers, these giant metal drums that are like 15 feet high, they're huge. They're worth forty thousand dollars each.

They just had them arrived and they left them outside the back of their brewery.

Because your logically thinking, who's going to steal this? Right. And lo and behold, somebody came with a truck that had a crane on it and stole both of them. And here's what blew my mind. So you've got this. You got to think how how are you going to get rid of this thing? They didn't have a crooked inside guy. They just went to a random scrap yard. And we're like here we'd like to sell the scrap metal.

That's like showing up to a scrap yard with a space shuttle on the back of your truck. You're like, I have a suspicion that this wasn't just something you owned previously.

And you're like, oh, I don't need this giant distiller any more for my recreational private brewery.

And so the guy who owned the scrap yard had seen the story and he called the police and they managed to recover them. And so you're thinking, why would these guys take a risk? I mean, this isn't even a clever crime. It's just so lazy. It's a low quality crime. There's no real effort. But why would they feel emboldened to be so reckless? It it's really, really simple.

It's because the theft laws in British Columbia are an absolute joke. These guys are not going to go to jail for this. They're not going to be fined in any way for this. They're almost certainly going to be let go on probation. That's what's going to happen. So for them, the risk is absolutely worth the potential reward.

If we get caught, nothing's really going to happen to us. If we don't get caught, we're all going to Mexico on vacation. So what are we going to do? And that sort of thing that didn't happen under God's laws for Israel. And as we read through these laws in Exodus, I think you will agree that if implemented, they would significantly cut down on the number of repeat offenders. For example, it has been statistically proven that 100 percent of people who received the death penalty never again committed a crime.

This is absolutely amazing, incredible how well it works, etc.. So lastly, before we really get into the text, I want you to know that I'm going to be speaking broadly today and broadly next week. And there are all kinds of unique situations that that come up related to these issues in real life that require nuance. There are all kinds of situations that come up that are not as black and white as I may make them sound as I teach today.

I simply can't cover every hypothetical situation.

But there are all kinds of situations that come up in life that require lots of prayer, that require lots of seeking.

God in the whole of word requires the counsel of mature believers and trusting the Holy Spirit to lead. And if you've been walking with Jesus for a while, then you figure that out. Not every single situation is covered in scripture. You've got to pray about some stuff. You've got to walk with the Holy Spirit through some stuff. And so my hope is to share some broad principles that I believe the word teaches clearly. But where I can't touch on every situation, that's what the Holy Spirit is for.

That's what the church is for. That's what prayer is for. So keep that in mind.

And if you can come up with one hypothetical impossible situation, don't then just ignore everything I say and stop listening while I've managed to think of this one in 10 million chance situations so I can. Just ignore what you're saying, their main principles here that we need to start with, so in verses 12 through 17, we find for crimes that in God's eyes demand the death penalty, starting with verse 12, where we read he who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death.

So first big take away God is in favor of capital punishment. The Bible is absolutely clear. And I think that leads to the first logical question, why is God in favor of capital punishment? Why is he in favor of the death penalty? The answer is found in Genesis nine six, which I put on your outlines, where God gives a command to Noah and his sons. Now, please note please note the timing of this command it's given to Noah and his sons.

And this command is going to prove that capital punishment predates the law, the command to not murder and the death penalty as a punishment for murder were given by God centuries before the law was given up Mount Sinai.

And that is one of the reasons we believe the death penalty for murder to be a timeless law rather than part of the law that has been fulfilled by Jesus that no longer applies to us.

This command and capital punishment predate the law by centuries.

In Genesis nine six, the Lord says whoever sheds a man's blood by man, his blood shall be shed. Now, why does God care so much about human life?

What makes taking it such a grievous offense? Here's the answer. Don't miss it.

This is the answer for in the image of God he made, man. Men and women are unique, we are special, we are, by God's definition, sacred.

Because we alone among all of creation are image bearers of God himself. And God tells us here that human life is so sacred that anyone who takes it is to have their life ended because they're not fit to live on the earth.

Among other human beings, at this point, some may disagree and say, well, that offends my sensibilities, Jeff, or I think animals are just as important or well, I don't I don't think man is all that special at all.

And here's the reality of the situation. I want to put this very tactfully. Your opinion doesn't matter.

And the reason your opinion doesn't matter is for one simple reason. You are the creation. You are not the creator, you are the creation, you are not the creator, you are the work of art.

You are not the artist, the creator, the artist. The inventor has full rights over his creation, his work, his invention. He decides how it is to function, and he has every right to do with it as he pleases. God alone has the authority to determine the value of a human life because he is the one who created it. He's the one who created it. If you created yourself, you have full rights over yourself. But you didn't.

You created by God.

You were ordained by God, by a creator. So write this down. God is the author of life because God is the author of life. He alone has the right to determine when life begins and ends.

Because God is the author of life, he alone has the right to determine when life begins and ends. Which means we are playing God when we decide that we will step into that role and decide when life begins and ends.

And so the emerging concept here early on in the Book of the Covenant, the emerging concept is that life itself is the possession of God.

Life belongs to God.

Jesus said I'm the way the truth and the what. The life, the life, life itself is the possession of God, this concept that human beings are image bearers of God is famously known in the Latin as Imago Day.

It's why human life is so sacred. No matter your ethnicity, your age, your sexual preference, your gender identity, your religion, your past, no matter what the Bible teaches, that your life is sacred and the blood of Jesus on the cross teaches that your soul is priceless. I'm not saying everyone is saved. I'm saying that everyone has inherent value because whether they are a Christian or not, they are Imago Day.

They are made in the image of God. And this is why is Bible believing Christians.

We are not lying when we tell people we love them. Even though we may believe their lifestyle is sinful in the eyes of God. This is what the world struggles to understand, how can you say you love me if you don't agree with me while? Because even though you're not doing with it what you were designed to do, you are Imago Day. Your life is sacred. It has infinite value.

And the value of your life was established at the cross with the blood of Jesus. So I believe your life is priceless.

Even though you may not love the Lord right now.

We believe that about all life, we love everyone because Jesus loved us while we were dead in our sins. And we hold human life to be sacred because all humans are imago day. All humans are made in the image of God. We grieve the loss of life under practically any circumstance unless it's to fulfill the law of God.

God is fully entitled to institute the standard of capital punishment because God is the author of life.

And as the creator, he has full rights over his creation and he has declared that human life is sacred because we are Imago Day were created in the image of God.

Now, regarding our present day reality and capital punishment, as you dig further into God's laws, you'll find that he had legal standards to ensure a person's guilt. For example, I love this one. If you testified or presented evidence in courts and it was later discovered to be false evidence, false testimony, you would then receive the same punishment that would have been assigned to the person on trial were they found guilty.

That's good, right? That is really, really good if you gave false testimony that led to someone getting the death penalty and it was found out later that you lied. Guess what's happening to you? The death penalty, if it's discovered before the death penalty is assigned to them. Do you know what you're getting? You're getting the death penalty and they're being found innocent. You play this out in your mind and you think, man, this would really open up our justice systems.

And I feel like 99 percent of cases would no longer be clogging up the courts.

No more frivolous accusations, no more attempts of character assassination that are baseless.

How many lawyers, how many attorneys, how many justices would need to dramatically change their approach if intentionally concealing the truth or intentionally misleading the court would result in being punished like that?

Do you know what would happen? There wouldn't be lawyers to take the cases of those who were clearly guilty because they would say, I'm not going to lie for you. You're guilty. You're on your own. You're on your own. I'm not dying with you. Now, in contrast, in our day in the justice system in America, we learned this recently. Unbelievable.

One in nine people on death row ends up being cleared due to DNA evidence. I don't know about you, but but quite frankly, for me, executing the right person 89 percent of the time is not good enough. That's just my view.

And my two cents is this capital punishment based on scripture is part of God's design for human society. However, if we want to apply God's standard of capital punishment, then we also need to apply his standard to things like due process, witness statements and the consequences of bearing false witness in a legal proceeding.

We have to apply all of it, because if we don't, if we just apply the capital punishment part, people are going to lie and that's not justice.

So in my opinion, you can't be in favor of only capital punishment and say because it's what the Bible says, you have to be in favor of God's entire judicial process if you want to be in favor of capital punishment.

And if we haven't implemented that, might I suggest that killing the right guy nine out of 10 times is not good enough for something called the justice system? Just my two cents.

Now, getting back to verse 12, we talked about this when we studied the Ten Commandments. The Sixth Commandment is you shall not murder.

And at New Hope, when we went through the Ten Commandments, we talked about the difference between murder and killing. If your Bible says you shall not kill. That is a mistranslation of the original Hebrew. It's you shall not murder because there is a difference between murder and killing. And we're going to see the same distinction made here in the Book of the Covenant. Verse 8 12 addresses murder, what we would call homicide. Verse 13 and 14 are going to address something else.

Let's see if we can identify the difference. Verse 8 13. However, if he did not lie in wait, but God delivered him into his hand, then I will appoint for you a place where he may flee.

Now, to make a long story short, when it says if he did not lie in wait, but God delivered him into his hand. It's referring to a situation where a life is unintentionally taken. Two people get into a heated argument. There's some pushing.

Somebody trips, falls back, hits their head and dies. We're talking about a scenario like that which we today would term manslaughter.

Now, when God says I will appoint for you a place where he may flee, he's referring to this biblical concept called Cities of Refuge, which God is going to designate in the future in Joshua 20.

It would traditionally at this time be the duty of next of kin to avenge their relatives blood, even if it was an accident.

You kill my brother now I got to go and kill you because family honor and stuff like that.

And so as a solution, God in the future would create these cities of refuge all over Israel, three on either side of the Jordan where a person could flee and find sanctuary from the avenging relatives as long as they stayed in the city of refuge. And there's a whole procedure behind that that we can't get sidetracked into right now. And just to be clear, they would still be a trial. And then and in order for a person to to flee to a city of refuge, the judge or judges would have to rule that the taking of life was accidental as opposed to intentional.

If it was accidental, they were like, yes, you may flee for your life to a city of refuge.

So what was the dividing line between murder and manslaughter? What determined whether you received the death penalty or had the opportunity to flee to a city of refuge?

God tells us in verse fourteen, I'm going to have you underline a couple of words here in your Bibles. But if a man acts with premeditation, would you underline premeditation against his neighbor to kill him? And then underlined by treachery, you shall take him from my alter that he may die.

It's murder when it was planned, its murder, when it was orchestrated, when it was intentional.

When God says of a murderer, you shall take him from my altar. He's referring to a practice where murderers would sometimes flee for the nearest altar to God when their crime was discovered, that they'd grab a hold of it and say, you can't kill me here. This is a sacred place.

This is this is a place of worship for God, much like a person back in the day, you know, fleeing into a Catholic church and crying out sanctuary, sanctuary.

But God says here, Gas is, if they do that, just drag them away and kill them. Do what the law says, because from God's perspective.

Justice is infinitely more important than empty religion, you see, God says, I don't want you to be concerned about defiling the altar by dealing with a criminal, he says, I want you to be concerned about defiling my name by letting my name be used to delay Justice Gas is.

That's what I'm concerned about. So write this down from God's perspective, the dividing line between murder and manslaughter is premeditation. It's premeditation. It's always on the screens. If you're like Jeff, that's a really long word. It's on the screen.

Premeditation.

So murder is the first capital offense and God's law and Verse 8 15 lists the second. And he who strikes his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. This is addressing the physical abuse of one's parents. And because they're linked thematically, I'd like to simultaneously address Verse 8 17, which addresses verbal abuse of one's parents.

It reads, and he who curses his father or mother shall surely be put to death. And so at this point, the response of many will be like, Hey, Jeff, I'm with you.

Killers got to be killed. Murderers got to be murdered, baby. We're on the same page. But now you're telling me. Now you're telling me the death penalty. For kids, you talk smack to their parents, that's that's a seems a little bit extreme. Every parent's, like, not seems cool.

OK, I get it. So let me explain why why God considers this to be such an important issue.

This is the first thing we said we got to remember. When it seems harsh to us, it's because God thinks it's a big deal.

Now, why does God think that in the fifth of the Ten Commandments, God said, honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land, which the Lord, your God is giving you.

And so the concepts of honoring your parents, respecting them. Not losing control of your anger around them.

Holding your tongue around them are so important to the Lord that he promises to reward those who honor their parents and issues the death penalty to those who dishonor their parents.

Now, making this even more challenging is here's what I know about your Bible, no matter the translation. There's no fine print you can get, however strong of a microscope you want, there's no fine print next to that verse 8 under that, there's no asterisk taking you to the bottom of a page where it says those with awful parents are exempt from these commands.

It's not their. Let me tell you the truth, I just and we're having a good time, but I know. I know some of you have awful parents, we don't use that in the in the light world like they commit fashion crimes, we're talking about really awful human beings.

I know that's the case in some of our lives.

Even then. The law of God doesn't give you a pass, it doesn't. Why? Well, God is revealing a crucial concept to his people, and if I were to make a list of most neglected biblical commands and concepts, biblical commands and concepts that the greatest number of Christians seem to be unfamiliar with, this is on the list for sure. It's the concept of offices of authority. You see, there are positions of authority ordained by God. Here's the kicker.

That may or may not be occupied by godly and honorable people.

The offices are ordained by God, but the people occupying them may or may not be godly, and what God wants is people in you and I to understand is that certain offices are worthy of honor. Regardless of who occupies them. And two of the key offices of authority that God has ordained for human life are the offices of father and mother.

And through these commands, God is not saying your father and mother are worthy of honor because they're honorable people. He's saying the offices that they occupy are worthy of honor. The offices of mother and father are sacred. And at this point, you might be thinking, Jeff, you haven't met my father. You haven't met my mother. And I could tell you stories that would make you change your opinion. And I would ask you, are they worse than Satan?

And I know some of you were like, yeah, they are, that's their nickname, actually, but however awful they are, I promise you they are not worse than Satan.

And in the little New Testament Book of Jude gives us this really strange verse that describes this moment at the end of Moses's life. When the Archangel Michael is arguing with Satan over who's going to get custody of the body of Moses, and if you're not familiar with Michael, the Bible tells us that Michael is the archangel, singular fun Bible trivia. Gabriel is not an archangel. Michael is the archangel.

Singular Scripture calls Jesus the commander of the army of the Lord. Michael's his top general. He's the next guy on the chain. Obviously, there's a pretty big gulf there between God and the next guy on the chain.

He's the angel who casts Lucifer out of heaven. So, yeah, they've got a history a little bit. And this is what Jude Nine tells us. It's on your outlines. It says, yet Michael the Archangel, in contending with the devil when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said the Lord rebuked the Lord, rebuked you.

Did you get that? Michael would not rebuke or curse Satan directly. He says the Lord rebuke you. Now, why why is that why is that? Is it going to blow your mind a little bit? Again, don't stand up and yell heresy till you've heard my whole thought, OK? The reason is because Satan was and is. Occupying an office that's actually sacred. An office that's worthy of honor, because you see right now, Satan occupies the office of ruler of the Earth, Bible tells us that clearly before him it was occupied by.

And you know who it's going to be occupied by in the future at the second coming of Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, do you think that might be a sacred office? It is. It is. And so, Michael. Honors the office, even though there's no one less honorable who could currently be occupying it, God's word tells us that the office of spouse is also sacred.

As is. And now you're going to know why I told you this is the most neglected on that list, as is the Office of Political Leader. According to scripture, according to Timothy King, dictator. President, prime minister, whoever, they're in an office that is ordained by God and that office is worthy of honor, as is the office of Child of God, this is why our brother Paul tells us to honor one another.

It's not because when you become a Christian now, you're an honorable person. Now I'm a better person than I used to be. That's not what happens. What happens when you become a Christian is you step into a new office. The office you step into is child of God. You're a son or daughter of the king of kings. God says that office is worthy of honor. So when you interact with your brothers and your sisters in the church, show them honor because they are in an office that is worthy of honor.

They're my son. They're my daughter. Now, that's the first concept we need to understand. Write this down. God has created offices of authority that are worthy of honor, regardless of who is currently occupying the. Regardless of who is currently occupying them. So hard for me not to get into all the examples and all the scenarios where this needs to apply to our lives, but I want to leave that for your home group discussion this week.

But think about this. The second concept we need to understand is why? Why did God create these offices of authority and why does he want us to learn to honor these offices? What's the point? The reason is really simple. What is the greatest, the highest, the most important and the most glorious office in existence anywhere? It's the office called God. God, highest office there is, and so God creates commands that are designed to teach his people from birth through childhood into adulthood, the concept of authority, the concept of honoring those in positions of authority, the family home is where were to learn how to show honor to those in positions of authority, because if we can't learn to honor someone, we can see and touch.

How in the world are we going to learn to honor a God who we can't see and touch? As B.J. explained last week, the concept of God is our Lord as our master. US belonging to him, these concepts are central to understanding what it means to live as a follower of Jesus, we cannot serve Jesus, we cannot follow after him unless we've come to terms with the concept that he is the authority over our lives. He's God and he's worthy of our honor always.

And how hard is it going to be for a person to do that if they have no concept of authority at all, if they have no concept of honoring somebody at all?

How hard is it going to be to understand that that God is worthy of honor, even when life is difficult, even when he calls us to do things that are hard, he's worthy of honor, even when he doesn't do what we want him to do. He's worthy of honor, even when we don't understand or agree with his instructions, he's worthy of honor. We never talk about this as the church we talk about. I love God for for all the things he does.

I honor God because he saved me. I love him for his kindness and his grace. These are all wonderful.

But we like this concept that that God is worthy of honor because he's God, he's just God, and if he never did anything for us, he would still be worthy of honor because he holds the highest office that is in existence. He's God. That's what's on their God. Why should I worship you? Hands you a little card. All it says on that is I'm God. I'm God. That's the whole list of reasons. That's why we love him so much, though, is because he doesn't have to do anything else.

And he does. He does.

And so here in the Book of the Covenant, God gives commands that are designed to turn the home into a training ground that produces men and woman who understand the concept of authority that they might grow to be men and women who live their lives under the blessing of God's authority, because you will find that it is a blessed life to live under the authority of God.

So write this down.

God desires children, learn the concept of authority by being raised to honor their parents, that they might grow to live their lives under the blessing of his authority, the blessing of his authority.

Now, again, I can't address every hypothetical situation, I can't address every individual situation that might reflect your reality with your parents.

But for those of you who have who have dishonorable parents occupying the honorable office of father or mother, let me share this.

I'm not saying that you have to pretend that there's somebody there or not. Some of you have valid reasons for never seeing your parents again, valid reasons, some of you are estranged from your parents. Some of you see them maybe once a year, every other year. And even that is painful.

And I'm not saying that needs to change if there's a safety or abuse issue in play. What I'm saying is that you can still honor the office they hold by not speaking ill of them. By not wishing them any harm. And subject for a whole nother day by doing what the scripture says and forgiving them through the grace of Jesus and not holding that against them. I'm not saying you have to go and be friends with them and pretend like nothing ever happened.

I would not advise anybody to do that in certain situations.

You can tell the truth about them when necessary.

But I believe the Lord would say don't intentionally seek to give them a bad reputation. Don't curse them. Don't wish harm upon them. Keep those sorts of words out of your mouth. More importantly, keep them out of your heart. For some of you, honoring your mother and father means barely ever speaking about them. I understand that, and if that's you, my heart goes out to you. It really does. But for all of us in all of our different situations.

This is a command that's for all of us. Now, there's a fallacy that that many of us fall into, we're shifting gears here and the fallacy is this. It's thinking that our present society is the wisest, best, most enlightened society that has ever lived. Most people believe that. They're completely wrong, but most people believe that, for example, yet, yes, we have the most advanced medicine of any civilization that's ever existed. But we're also probably producing the least healthy food that a population has ever eaten.

It's quite an accomplishment to do both at the same time and we sort of produce one so that we can feed into the other. It's like, well, maybe we wouldn't need the best medicine if we weren't producing the worst food.

And never mind, it's probably I'm probably oversimplifying the issue, but we're getting a lot of things wrong and we're certainly not doing everything better than it's ever been done. And so if I haven't stirred the pot enough that this is one of those messages, like some days I really do, I feel like no matter how hard I try, I'm just showing up, throwing a hand grenade in the room and walking away in slow motion while everything explodes behind me.

Have fun with that.

So if you were a parent and you were living under a law.

Were your children could be executed for verbally or physically disrespecting you? What would you be willing to do to ensure that your children did not verbally or physically disrespect you? I'll tell you anything. Anything you would do, anything, whatever it takes, because spanking your child is not really that big of a deal when the alternative is death.

Right now, I grew up in apartheid South Africa. I moved to Kenya when I was 16. I went to public school in South Africa, grew up that way.

And our public schools were old school. So we wore knee high socks with dress shoes. In the summer, we wore collared shirts and ties and blazers and we employed corporal punishment.

So if you disrespected your teacher or you cause trouble in any way, you were sent to the principal's office.

If you were a girl, you get detention. If you were a boy, you'd get the paddle, bam.

And then and then the principal would call your parents and tell them that he had just given you the paddle, and that's not even the crazy part. Here's the crazy part. When your mom got that call, she wouldn't threaten to sue the school. Do you know what she would do? She would apologize to the principal because she was embarrassed by her behavior. And she would assure him that as soon as you got home, she was going to beat your butt to.

And, you know, do you know what I observed?

It was amazing. Every single student learned how to be respectful to their teachers, every single one.

The ones who came from broken homes, the ones who had added, the ones who had learning disabilities, the ones who were academically gifted, the jocks, the nerds, the cool kids, the outcasts, every single child somehow magically was capable of showing basic respect to their teachers.

And what we do today in our enlightened age is we make exceptions for practically everybody. And when you get through all of it, what we have is the majority of parents basically saying my child is exempt from being a decent human being. They're exempt from courtesy. They're exempt from kindness, they're exempt from respect. And the result is. Let me just put on my cranky get off my lawn kids hat for a second here, but the result is let me let me just say this is my daughter in the room sitting here in the room.

If you say, OK, Boomer, I'll throw you out of the church, OK?

I know you'll want to I know you'll want to.

We are we're raising a generation that cannot grasp the concept of working for somebody who has authority over them because they haven't been raised to believe that anybody should have authority over them.

And so we find a situation where people think they're being abused if they're yelled at once by their boss.

So they move from job to job with incredible frequency because this job is not fulfilling. They get into trouble with the police because they haven't been taught that they have to respect the office of police, they're actually being taught. No, you don't have to respect the police. Because sometimes they get things wrong, so so you're exempt from having to respect them. The result is selfishness, it's narcissism, we see this on social media, it's it's people who believe that the world really does revolve around them and the results just keep going.

What psychologists and sociologists tell us is that is that we're producing entire generations that can't figure out how to have a committed long term relationship.

Because there's Tinder, there's everything else like that. And it's all about me, so if I'm not getting anything out of it for this moment, I guess I'm done with it. It served its purpose.

And what psychologists tell us is that it's not even close by double digit percentage, the most depressed, most anxiety ridden generations the world has ever produced are being produced right now in our enlightened age, in our enlightened age. I remember, man, when somebody's struggling with depression was it was a rarity, it was a rarity. You go on social media now, it's a bonding point and literally seems like everybody's depressed.

Everybody has anxiety all the time. And it's a point of commonality. You're like, let's talk about sports. No, let's talk about something that more people have in common. Let's talk about being depressed and having anxiety. And those are real things that I've wrestled with, some of them, I'm not belittling them at all, but what I'm saying is that we were actually establishing a way of raising children that produces that.

It produces that in them. And it all goes back to this issue of complete autonomy. There's nobody in authority over me. Nobody has the right to ever be in authority over me. I can do whatever I want. I don't have to respect anybody. But everybody should respect me and my wishes. And the result is misery. The most miserable generation the world has ever seen. That's what we're being told. Those are the facts of the matter. And we think but at least we're not spanking our children anymore.

Now, please hear me, I'm saying this for your benefit and for the record. Legally, I am not telling you to spank your children. Government of Canada, I am not telling my church to spank their children, not in the least, because the government is likely to view it as illegal. I'm not telling you to do that. What I'm trying to do is highlight the fact that God's commands.

Have always been and always are based on what is best for individuals, families and societies over the long haul. Do you realize this God doesn't look at a child and say, my number one concern is this child's happiness at this specific moment in their life? Somehow God looks at children, he says, my goal is that that person will finish their life in the best possible place with me and with others. That's the goal.

The end is the goal. God parents. And we should, with the end in mind, not the moment.

And so it would be very, very foolish for us to look at our society's current parenting paradigms and say these are the best, these are the most enlightened because our society does not parent or tell us to parent with the long term consequences in mind. It doesn't. It flat out ignores the information. It ignores it.

Yeah, but what's important is that they're happy right now. Right now. I could go into a whole sidebar here, you know, this is this is the devil's favorite pitch, right? Momentary present happiness for long term consequences and disaster. That's the pitch, right.

Pleasure now. Yeah, but what about later? Don't think about that. Don't think about that. That's the pitch he made to Jesus and the temptation to sidestep it all right now. Don't don't worry about the long term consequences, you know, like me getting to rule the earth forever and people being damned forever. Just worry about right now. That's the devil's pitch all the time. God says that. That's not how I parent. That's not how you're to build a society.

That's not how you run your family. That's not how you're to treat each other. You're to think long term about what is best, because guess what? That's what love actually is. Love wants what is best for the other person. Love wants what is best for our children.

Love does not want what will make them happy. Right now it wants something even better. It wants what is best.

And that's how our Heavenly Father parents us, by the way.

And that's why I'm going to wrap up with this twice in the Book of Proverbs. Solomon makes this observation. There's a way that seems right to a man. But it's end is the way of death. There's a way that seems right to a man, but it's end is the way of death. God's ways are not always easy. Sometimes they are very, very difficult, sometimes they're very hard to obey. But the longer you walk with the Lord, the more clearly you will see that God's ways always lead to life.

And not only that, but usually through the pain of experience, you'll discover that disregarding God's ways and his word leads to death. It leads to destruction in every area of life.

There's no law better than God's. There's no sociologist, no psychologist, no legal professional or politician that has a better or more Life-Giving plan for you and your family than God.

The Lord has seen the end before the beginning even began, the Lord hasn't done a few case studies.

He knows the human heart better than we know ourselves. And that is why it is such a blessing to live your life under the authority of Jesus. And what a joy it is when the light bulb finally turns on and you begin to realize that God's ways are always best and the because the light is on, you actually start obeying him in faith before it even makes sense, before you can see how it's going to work out because you finally recognize the pattern.

Hey, wait a minute. Every time I trust the Lord. The end result is life. Every time you obey the Lord, I'm glad I did. You'll never meet the Christian who says, Oh, you know what? You know what I wish?

I wish I just stayed disobedient a little bit longer in this area of my life before I started obeying the Lord.

What it would have been good to just enjoy a little more destruction. Every Christian has the same testimony. Why did it take me so long? Why am I so stupid? I should have started doing it sooner. May the Lord give us the grace to humbly live under his authority in every area of our lives.

Why?

So that we may be blessed in every area of our lives.

With that, let's pray with you by your head and close your eyes. Father, thank you so much for the wisdom of your word. Thank you.

That you light the way for life.

And Father, I ask right now for for each of us that you would humble us under your word, but most of all humble us before you because you are God. You are not a life coach offering a suggestion for us to consider. You're the way, the truth and the life you are truth incarnate. And so, father, help us to hang on every word you say and to give it that type of gravity, to give you the honor in the way we listen, in the way we obey that you are.

Do father make us wise by listening to you and obeying you that we might be blessed in every area of life?

I pray right now in the name of Jesus, that that any of us who are not aligned with your will in any area of life. We'll hear clearly from your Holy Spirit right now. We ask that you would illuminate that area to us, that we might repent and walk in agreement with you, Lord. That's what we want. That's what we desire. And so we invite your work in our lives. We welcome it in this moment.

Jesus.