• Proverbs 29:18
Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but blessed is he who keeps the law.
Autonomous freedom is the spirit of our age. It defines freedom and “being free from all restraint and especially freedom from God’s truth and moral absolutes.” Since 1980 the predominate philosophy of our culture in North America has shifted from one that was largely Christian to a philosophy that stands in total antithesis to Christian truth at every point – including the denial of the supernatural, the belief in the all sufficiency of human reason, the rejection of the fall; the denial of the deity of Christ and His resurrection, the belief in the perfectibility of Man, and the destruction of the Bible. Now is it any wonder that we are seeing the fruits of this prevailing philosophy in today’s society?
• James 4:11 (The Message)
Don’t bad-mouth each other, friends. Its God’s Word, His Message, His Royal Rule, that takes a beating in that kind of talk. You’re supposed to be honouring the Message, not writing graffiti all over it.
Autonomous freedoms are not really freedoms at all.
• Galatians 5:13 (The Message)
It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows.
• Romans 6:14-19 (The Message)
[Sin] can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God.
So, since we’re out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we’re free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to [sin], for instance, and it’s your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you’ve let [sin] tell you what to do. But thank God you’ve started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom! I’m using this freedom language because it’s easy to picture. You can readily recall, can’t you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God’s freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness?
It’s my firm belief that most Christians haven’t been aware of this on-going battle – not just a heavenly battle, but a life and death struggle over what will happen to men & women & children in both this life and the life to come. Never in my lifetime has the exhortation that Jude gives the Church in his short letter been more urgent to believers than it is today…
• Jude 3 (NLT)
Dearly loved friends, I had been eagerly planning to write to you about the salvation we all share. But now I find that I must write about something else, [urging you] to defend the truth of the Good News. God gave this unchanging truth once for all time to His holy people.
If the truth of the Christian faith is in fact the truth; then it stands in antithesis to
the secular humanistic philosophy of our age, and it (the truth) must be practiced both in teaching and practical action.