And welcome, my friends, to the Generations broadcast. Kevin Swanson, your host, with you, coming to you from my basement out here in the eastern plains of Colorado. I'm a homeschool father of five, and Dave Boone is also in studio with me right now. Today as we take a look at the decline of faith, family, and freedom in America and the vast, vast changes that have occurred just in the last 100 years or so, we're constantly trying to chronicle what's going on. America, of course, founded as a Christian nation, pilgrims, Puritans, the Scottish Presbyterians, others, were really the breadbasket of this country from the beginning, but things have changed, of course, quite dramatically in just the last 100 years or so. So, America having Christian roots and the Protestant Reformation producing a fairly strong Christian influence that lasted about 400 years and spurred on a missionary movement that took the gospel to many, many nations around the world. So, I mean, it's not as if some good things haven't happened in the last 400 years, and so we want to affirm that from time to time as well. But, friends, right now in America things are going south, and we are in the midst of a gigantic apostasy from the faith. And we've got to remember this because there are some of us who still want to retain the faith in our children and our grandchildren. We want to see them in heaven when we get there. And the vast majority of Americans right now are apostatizing from the faith. Anywhere from 60 to 88 percent of Christian kids raised in Christian churches are said to be walking away from the faith. And one particular worldview survey that was done by George Barna found that Only about a half a percent of kids in America believe that they're absolutes, and that's down from about 15% with their parents, making for about a 97% apostasy rate, at least for those who still believe that there are some absolutes. Only about 3% of those kids raised in Christian homes still believe they're absolutes, according to that George Barna survey that came out in 2009. So we're concerned. We don't want 97% of our kids or 88% of our kids going to hell. We really would like them to know Jesus Christ, to believe in the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ and trust in Him and repent of their sins and come to a saving knowledge of Christ. That's our hope. We would like to see the faith passed on to the generations, which means that we've got to retain a strong message. a strong discipleship in the midst of all of these temptations towards apostasy that is just about everywhere. Comes through our culture, comes through Katy Perry, comes through Lady Gaga, comes through the Christian schools, comes through oftentimes home schools, comes through youth groups, comes through the watering down of many, many, many denominations. as evangelicals turn into evangelical fish and the gospel gets watered down to almost nothing. And that's what we're seeing happening everywhere, and a lot of it happens when people walk away from the Word of God. They just simply do not want to teach the Word of God. It becomes problematic, it becomes controversial, they don't want to get into controversial passages that are a front to human rationality and to the humanistic sensibilities of your average person today. But we're saying, no, you can't do that, you've got to take the Word of God against the system and bring out a biblical perspective on everything, and even if it does offend the flesh, even if it does offend the world, still bring it to bear and encourage metanoeo, which means repentance or a change of mind and a change of heart towards just about everything. And that ought to happen through the ministering of the Word of God on a... Church service on a Sunday should happen in a daily family worship as you teach and realign our perspectives through the Word of God as you sit in the house, as you walk by the way, as you rise up, as you lie down. That's one reason why we have the family Bible study guides available at our website kevinswanson.com or generationswithvision.com. Well here's a story that I think is important and again chronicles the decline of the faith presently and it's I think an epistemologically self-conscious approach to the apostasy and I think it's very very important. This comes from the New American that does this recent article on the Queen James Bible. And here's the title to the article, Queen James Bible Clumsily Cleanses Scriptures of Homophobia. And believe it or not, Dave, there is now this Queen James Bible. They have taken the King James version of the Bible, the 1769 version of the KJV, and they are adapting it to address some of the homophobic passages in scripture, and they found eight of them. eight verses that are particularly problematic to people who have that problem. Now, Dave, I guess I would suggest maybe the fornicators need to come up with their version of the Bible, too. The people just want to hang out and continue to fornicate and not repent of that sin. And we're going to need a liar's Bible, too, because there are at least eight passages in the Bible about lying. In fact, I think maybe a few more than that. You'd have to get busy in the book of Proverbs. You'd have to get on it in the book of Proverbs, working through the lying passages. What about sloth? There's that one, too. Well, those guys actually were working on a Bible, but they were too lazy to get it done. They didn't get it done, yeah. You know, I have not yet begun to procrastinate. So the sloth Bible, the sloth James Bible, has not really gotten off the ground at this point. But the Queen James Bible, apparently available. You were at the website. I was at the website queenjamesbible.com. First off, I object. I object to the word homophobic. God is not afraid of homosexuals. I'm not afraid of homosexuals. It's not a phobia. It's actually just an abomination. It's more of a hatred on God's part. God is angry with the wicked every day. God hates the workers of iniquity. So it's a hatred issue. It is. And there's a fundamental issue here that underlies all of this, and that is whether or not God is king. whether or not God is king. If God is king, he can create laws, because the king can do that. And then we as the subjects, as created subjects, we bow to that. So that's the question. You know the redemptive historical crowd hates that word. They don't want—the Bible's not about Christ, it's about redemption. Please understand that. I'm sorry, how do you have redemption without Christ? Oh, no, no, you don't want anything to do with Christ, because Christ is a prophet, priest, and king, and you don't want that. The redemptive historical crowd has already proven their point, and they teach it in churches all across America. They don't want any mention of the kingship of Christ or the law of God. Stay away from that word. Did I just say law again? You did, you did. Let me tip my hand. I pastor a church called Christ the King. Yeah, exactly. Jesus is still king. And he's sitting on the throne, and he's reigning right now. His law is law. It is the highest law. There is no higher appeal than Christ's law, and I don't care how you use it, it's the law. Please understand that many, many Reformed pastors do not like the kingship of Jesus Christ, and do not want to submit to the kingship of Christ, do not want to preach it, and do not want to declare it. And we're talking about fairly conservative people out there. Unfortunately, there have been people who are really moving away from the law. Now, you can do one of two things when it comes to the law of God. You can ignore it or you can change it. Now, I think epistemologically self-conscious... You can obey it. Well, I'm sorry, but that's hard for people who don't love Christ enough to obey Him. So there's two things to do if you want to disobey. There's two things you can do if you're irritated with passages in scripture referring to law. I ran into a pastor, Dave, in a reformed Presbyterian church, and this guy said, I don't want to sing trust and obey because there's that word obey. It's a moralistic song. So, you know, there are people out there that hate God and don't want to keep his commandments. They don't love God. They don't want to obey his commandments. Or there's no other way. That's really got to hurt. That's got to hurt. Yeah. So Dave, I'm just telling you that the, the attitude towards God's law is really, really bad. So generally you can ignore it. That is not, not teach the law of God, not call men and women to repentance and not encourage people to love God and keep his commandments. to uphold the testimony of Jesus, keep the commandments of God, and be thereby called one of the Christians according to the book of Revelation. You can do that. You can do that. You can ignore the law of God, or you can change the law of God. And Dave, what I'm saying is the Queen James Bible is just being as consistent as they can be, because they've got this sin they're dealing with. That is homosexuality, and they just have to change those eight verses. Right, right. They have a syllogism set up in their mind. Homosexuality is right, That's a starting condition, and the King James Bible doesn't show it as right. Even before that, man is the source of ethics. So before that, man is the source of ethics, and I believe that homosexuality is right, so therefore it should not be in God's authoritative word. Oh, I'm sorry, did I say authoritative word? So, again, the humanist is coming up face-to-face against the authority of Almighty God, and he's saying, now wait a minute, I am the source of authority in the area of ethics, and I don't want God to be the source of authority in the area of ethics, so therefore, Dave, we have a conflict here. And here's the question I have though, Dave, for you, why? I mean, why? Why bother? Why not just throw the whole thing away? Oh, because if you're going to be a counterfeit, you have to resemble the original. You have to look like the genuine in some way. Can't they just say, hey, we're apostatizing and we're done with it? Or do they have to be very deceitful about the whole thing and sort of lure others into apostasy by either ignoring certain texts in the scriptures that would be applicable and would call men and women to repentance on the salient sins of the day, Or, just plain old-fashioned, ignore it. Throw the book out. If you're in the business of stealing sheep, it's good to look like a shepherd. I guess so. If your greatest joy is destroying God's kingdom... I guess when it really comes down to it, 8 verses out of 32,000, I think there are 32,000 verses in the Bible, 8 verses out of 32,000 is not bad. Well, it isn't, except that it's more than eight. They address eight, but they first must ignore Revelation 22, 19. And that's a big one. You see, that's a big one. That's a big one. Yeah. That has to do with people getting tossed into hell. Well, if anyone takes away from the words of this book of prophecy, God shall take us away apart from the book of life. You can't just black line the verses you don't like. You can't. But Dave, there are verses in the Bible that people find to be problematic because they offend their humanistic sensibilities. You mean like stoning children who would strike their parents? That one too. So why don't we grab a Bible here and let's start working on the stuff that would really irritate your average, you know, humanist, your average American attending, oh say, your average liberal Presbyterian church in America. Okay, here's a verse, yeah, Matthew chapter 15, Dave, that's offensive, let's go ahead and rip that one out, that's, you know, he that curses mother and father, let him die the death, and the worst thing about that is it's in red print, Dave. So let's go ahead and take that one out, so that one's gone. Okay, now here's another one, Dave, about God's sovereignty and salvation. Acts 13, 48, those appointed to salvation actually believe. So let's take that one out because that's going to offend all of the people that want to make the choice themselves and want to be in control of reality for themselves. Oh, Dave, what about Romans 9? Why don't we pull that one out, too, here. Romans 9, go ahead and rip that one out of Scripture. We don't need that. That's going to offend. And here's the eight homosexual verses, too, Dave. You're definitely going to take the Leviticus 18 and 20. Let's just take the whole chapter out, Dave, because I don't think that one's going to work for us. So we'll rip that one out. How about any kind of verse that refers to keeping the commandments of God? Because that's just so moralistic. I mean, keeping the commandments of God, I mean, Revelation chapter 5, let's pull that one out, we don't want to be keeping the commandments, it's way too moralistic, you know, that's all that legalistic God's law stuff. So we'll pull that one out, let's pull repentance. Who needs repentance? Why should we repent of any of our sins? Let's take all the verses of repentance out. We'll rip that one out. You've heard of the pocket Bible, and pretty soon you're going to have just the sheet Bible. Okay, we'll take those out. Anything else, Dave? Well, that's a very inefficient process. Why don't you just take out the whole Old Testament? That way we'll have a reference to the law. Rip all of the Old Testament out, because that's a lot of law. That is a lot of law. That's a lot of law. In fact, why don't you get rid of the words of Jesus? Yeah, we don't need that. Okay, there we go. Okay, what a mess. So I pretty much ripped up— So what are you left with? Concordance? I've got the concordance, yeah. Maps? You left with a book of maps? Yeah. What a joke. It is a joke. And Dave, a lot of this is the fact that people, again, don't understand the gospel of Christ. Jesus came to save us from our sins, which was the breaking of the laws of God. Therefore, we ought to be preaching about the laws of God, encouraging people to come to Christ for both cleansing and the cleansing of the power and the guilt of sin. And we don't separate those things. As we come to Christ, He takes care of both the guilt and the power of those sins over us, and the belief in Christ's death and resurrection satisfies that issue. And Jesus goes after both the guilt and the power of sin over us in our lives. But you have to believe you are guilty. You have to believe you're guilty, which means that first you have to understand that the earth is the Lord's in everything in it, the fullness thereof. He created. As the creator, He is the ruler. He is the sovereign ruler over all things. He gets to say what is right and what is wrong. If God says blowing your nose is wrong, then it would be wrong. Unfortunately, God didn't tell us blowing our noses was wrong, but He did tell us cannibalism was wrong. He did tell us that breaking your marriage vow was wrong. He told us fornication was wrong. He told us that homosexuality was wrong. He told us murder was wrong. He told us coveting was wrong. He told us a lot of things. Now Christians don't like that because they think if they can keep those laws—somebody's saying if you can keep those laws that you can have fellowship with God. But no, no, no, no, not so fast. Once the law is broken, it's broken, and it can't be restored by continuing not to break it. It can only be restored by one who hasn't broken it, and that's the gospel. The gospel is that God is King. He has a law. You violated His law. His law is holy, good, and just. You should love His law, but you've broken it. You violated the very source of life. But God has another plan, and God's plan is that Jesus keeps the law He just doesn't happen, just doesn't appear and die and get raised. He actually keeps that law through his life, something that Adam didn't do, and then he takes your sin and credits it to himself, sort of like a bank transfer. He takes your debt, he pays that, but more than that, he takes the righteousness that he I know these are uncomfortable words, but the righteousness that is His, and He credits it to those who are in Him, because they're in Him. If you're in Christ, you have the righteousness of Christ, not maybe how you've lived, but in God's ledger. That's the gospel. And if you've been forgiven much, you will love much. And if you love much, you'll be obeying God's commandments much, because those who love him will keep his commandments. And that's the completion of it. And I think that's the part that's being left off by a lot of Christians. They think they can be forgiven and not love Jesus and keep his commandments. Paul talks about in the book of Romans. that there is a law of sin and death, and there is the law of the Spirit of life. Now it turns out that those are the same propositions, those are the same commandments, those are the same words. The difference is, the law of sin and death is law that condemns us without Christ. The law of the Spirit of life is the law that we keep because we're in Christ. And because we love Him. Well, it becomes the blueprint to how to build a society, how to live a life with blessing. I think Paul in Galatians talks about the difference between the slave that obeys and the child. The slave that obeys, obeys because he's in slave relationship with the law or with God, and the child obeys because he loves his father, because he's in relationship with his father. But, Kevin, if you tell your daughter, your beautiful daughter, don't put your hand on the hot stove, she can look at that and say, my dad's a tyrant. He won't give me liberty to put my hand on the hot stove. The fact of the matter is, if she puts her hand on the hot stove, bad things will happen. God's law is like that. God's law will tell us that if we do things that are bad, bad things will happen. We put our hands on the stove, we'll get burned. If we embrace homosexuality, we'll destroy society, we'll destroy lives, we'll destroy family, we'll destroy everything. It's not that God just hates homosexuals. There's a reason why he hates it. It's the same reason you would hate your daughter putting her hand on a hot stove. One day though, she says, my daddy loves me. Oh, I know my daddy loves me. My daddy wants the very best for me. You know why he tells me not to put my hand on the stove? Because he loves me and he doesn't want to see pain. He doesn't want to see me burned. Yeah, it's liberty. But really, what was I thinking? Well, why would I want to put my hand on the stove? Why would I want to get burned? Just to prove to my daddy that I don't have to obey him? That would be ludicrous. And these are the kinds of conditions that the human soul goes through. Ladies and gentlemen, discussion today is on the laws of God and why it's important for us to embrace the law of God in a right kind of relationship with the law of God. The law is just, holy, and good. But if it condemns us, then it's not going to be a comfortable relationship at all. And of course, those that are trying to mock up the Bible, they obviously don't like what they're reading and they don't like it because they're not saved, they're not forgiven, they're not in an adopted relationship with the heavenly Father. They don't love Jesus and therefore they won't keep His commandments. That's the problem. The problem is they have not been to the cross, they have not received forgiveness for their sins and the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus Christ in their lives. And that comes by faith. You say, by faith in what? By faith in Jesus Christ and His work on the cross and His resurrection from the dead. That's the gospel of Christ. We're going to come back in a moment and talk about the relationship of natural law and special revelation. That's next on Generations. Folks, with this radio program, we're bringing relationships and truth back to a lost and lonely world. That's why we advocate homeschooling, mentorship, family-based economics, and a biblical worldview, all as part of our homeschool ministry based in Colorado. For homeschooling seminars, curriculum, and encouragement, visit our website at chec.org. That's check.org on the web. For apprenticeship, mentorship, and entrepreneurship training for your children and your family, you need to hook up with our AME program at ameprogram.com. That's ameprogram.com. You know, the Generations Radio Program is a ministry of generations with vision, where we work hard to cast a vision for the next generation through each and every radio broadcast. Tune in online at generationsradio.org for The Daily Show, the blog, and the online store. That's generationsradio.org. And we're back on the Generations Broadcast. Kevin Swanson, your host, with you. I am a pastor of a Reformed Orthodox Presbyterian Church out here in the Denver area. And Dave is a pastor as well in a church just south of here near Colorado Springs. And we're constantly bringing out issues that we believe are important to the church in the breakdown of the Christian faith and the breakdown of the Christian worldview in our current system today. And that's one reason we bring in biblical ethics, because ethics is a very important part of a worldview. A worldview is made up of epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. And we believe that God is the source of these things. God's the source of reality. God's the source of truth. God's the source of ethics. And we have to go to God versus man when it comes to ethics. That's why we don't promote Margaret Sanger and Karl Marx as the source of ethics. We go to God's Word. We don't just say whatever the current culture is imposing upon us is the right ethical perspective. We go to the Word of God. We go to God's law as the source of ethics. Now, there have been a number of attacks on God's law recently. In fact, you just read one. We're not going to say who it was, but somebody came out against those who promote God's law. And they didn't name us necessarily, but, you know, we're probably in the crosshairs on that one. A lot of people are very, very opposed to God's laws. They're violently, vehemently opposed to God's law. And Dave, you know what, that's really quite a bit different than David when he sings, oh how love I thy law, it is my meditation all the day. Throughout the Bible you have, Paul says after the inward man, I delight in the law of God. So the inward man should love God's law. If he is converted, if he does have the Spirit of God in him, he should delight in the inward man after the laws of God. Now, of course, the outward man, the carnal man, sort of doesn't like, you know, the laws of God, but there's that battle that goes on. Paul speaks of in Romans chapter 7. So I think our attitude towards God's law should be positive. But here's one of the questions that people bring out. How can we impose God's laws on unbelievers, especially in the area of the civil magistrate? How in the world can you guys think that we should take a law like thou shalt not murder and impose it? Or capital punishment for murder or anything else. Any area in which the civil magistrate should engage itself against robbing banks or against murder. If somebody knifes his wife, should the civil magistrate get involved and impose God's law, which would be the sixth commandment, on that man? should there be a penalty for somebody knifing their mother to death or hammering their grandmother to death like that madman did back in new york state and my answer is i yeah i think we should impose a lot god's law but that's so offensive to so many people they're so offended when we say that the civil magistrate should impose god's law ergo thou shalt not murder upon citizens in this country because they say, well, you shouldn't impose God's law. They're unbelievers. They're going to break God's law. They're not going to agree with God's law. So why would you impose God's law? Or in the marketplace, you know, people want to cheat and steal. Why would you go out there and say, I don't want you cheating me in this business transaction because of the eighth commandment. Stop imposing God's law on people in the economy or the political state. Now, a lot of Christians are telling us this and they're just they're so upset with us for bringing God's law in the area of the civil magistrate. And we're saying, actually, it's a good thing to do. And we're holding our ground on this one. And there are not many people doing that today in the pulpits in America. I think we need to back up a little bit and talk about the word impose. We aren't imposing anything. We are just reiterating, stating, prophesying even what God has already declared. It's God who brings the imposition because He is the King. Secondly, it is only the civil magistrate that has the authority to use force, that is to bring the sword down. The pastors don't, the family doesn't, only the civil magistrate does. And I believe what the Word of God teaches is that the church should be informing the civil magistrate on the Word of God, and the civil magistrate is responsible for executing the Word of God, that which applies to the civil magistrate. We know that there are rules given to the civil magistrate by God. Romans 13 tells us that the civil magistrate is God's minister. In other words, they report directly to God. Those who sit in the chairs, the policemen, the IRS agents, all of the civil magistrates will one day stand before God, and God's going to say, how did you keep my laws? And they may be good magistrates, they may have been bad magistrates, they may have been mediocre magistrates, but God will keep the report card on them. Right, God will keep the report card on them, and we're going to help them. make informed decisions on how to keep the law of God. That's our role. That's their role. So let's be clear. We're not imposing. We're prophesying. They're doing the imposition. Now, secondly, I would agree with some Christians that say, how can you appeal to the law of God if you don't believe there is a God? In other words, when I have somebody who doesn't believe there is a God saying, God's law says, he's a hypocrite. That person's a hypocrite. He's not consistent. When I say, God says, I believe that there is a God, I'm appealing to a higher authority. Somebody who's appealing to no authority has no consistent basis. As we know from Romans 1, everybody knows there's a God. Now they suppress the truth and unrighteousness. They know His power. They know He exists. They just suppress the truth in unrighteousness like someone trying to push a beach ball under the water in the pool. You say, where's the beach ball? Where's the beach ball? But that beach ball wants to come up and wants to, you know, they're suppressing the truth. They have to just push it down. They have to try to ignore it. They have to yell, I can't hear the law of God. I can't hear God. I don't think He exists. I don't think He exists. They have to yell that as loud as possible because they have another voice in them saying, He absolutely exists. and His powers manifest everywhere around them. So they do suppress the truth and righteousness, and it brings up the question, Dave, whether to use natural law. Now there's a reference to natural law throughout Scripture. There's two or three clear references to natural law, or at least some form of natural revelation throughout Scripture. But as you see in Psalm 19, the Word of God is not separated from the revelation that comes through the natural creation. So you don't have a separation. Both are presented in the very same passage. And what you find also in Romans 1 and 2, is there is something of natural law that presents itself, but the special revelation is there as well. God has revealed this to them, and He reveals it to them through both special and natural revelation. And here's one of the problems. They suppress the truth and unrighteousness over a period of time, and what happens, Dave, is natural law tends to become suppressed and it tends to become very deceiving and they tend to twist it every which way they possibly can and before you know it they use natural law to approve their homosexual activity they use natural law to approve the the cannibalization of a spouse as a black widow will cannibalize her spouse uh... they would use it to you know just excuse anything they are doing And as it turns out, special revelation is still very important. Also, in the Garden of Eden, you find that Adam was not left to just natural revelation. Immediately, God engaged. God engaged in that early covenant connection with Adam. He said, hello, I'm God, you're Adam, here's my law, don't eat of that tree. Right away, there is special revelation, a special law given to Adam in the midst of that natural revelation that was about him. So, even before the fall, Adam, man, had access to that special revelation after the fall. Dave, after our minds have been perverted, you think it's important that we get some special revelation? I think it's absolutely essential, and I don't think man is ever without some kind of special revelation, whether it comes through the written word or through some kind of a tradition, an oral tradition that is handed down through the Aborigines all the way from, you know, Shem or Ham or Japheth. Right. And in part, there's two problems here. One is that natural law only stands to condemn man. You can know that you are breaking the law of God because the things of God are manifest in nature. So it doesn't save you. So if all we do is appeal to natural law, we're just going around condemning people to hell. We might as well just be damning them ourselves. So we're withholding the medicine that they need. So that is a problem. There's another problem, though, is we don't even know what we mean by natural law in these discussions. When we look at the founding of our country, the framers appealed to natural law. They were thinking John Locke and Cicero. They both, Locke and Cicero, appealed to a singular creator, a personal creator. Now most of the people today, when they talk about natural law, want to appeal to no creator. In other words, they're using natural law to get rid of… So even further down the pike… Well, they're using natural law to suppress the truth of unrighteousness rather than to reveal the truth in righteousness. So either you're pushing the beach ball under the water, which is what I believe natural law advocates are doing today. or you're using natural law to bring the beach ball to the surface and to look at it in reality. And the framers were using natural law as that which was revealed by a personal creator. These people had been taught the law of God. They knew Leviticus and Deuteronomy and Numbers. They knew their Bibles, and they interpreted nature through what they already understood. In other words, Existential man, the man itself had been prepared to see properly what was happening out in nature. Now, you remove God from that. Which we have for the last 300 years. Right, through your naturalistic scientism and so forth. And then you say, let's go look at nature. Well, the natural man won't perceive the things of God because they're spiritually discerning. There's no spiritual formation there. He looks at a billion stars and says, look how big the universe is. I can't possibly be a personal God. We look at a billion stars and we say, what an amazing, awesome God. We're looking at the same stars. Dave, you also have people like John the Baptist, Elijah, and others speaking to unbelieving people like Herod and King Ahab and imposing God's law on these unbelievers. I mean, they did. Herod was an unbeliever and John the Baptist imposed God's law on him and got in trouble for it and it was revealed, special revelation that he brought to him. As in, what are you doing with your brother's wife? So, you know, you have examples of prophets that would bring special revelation to the civil magistrate in many situations, and we need to continue to do that. I think you mentioned that earlier. And the nations were judged for breaking the laws of God. You know, we see this throughout. God is God of the whole earth, not just those who acknowledge him as God, but of even those who won't acknowledge him of God. They are his subjects. Well, special revelation helps to clarify natural revelation when men cloud their minds by suppressing the truth and righteousness, which is what has happened over the last 200 years, as Dave just mentioned. Thou shalt not murder is a helpful clarification. I mean, it's helpful. You know, thou shalt not murder. Well, that's helpful. And, oh, by the way, an absolute. And, oh, by the way, formed in the mind of God and communicated to us. He's the absolute. He gives us an absolute. Thou shalt not murder. It's an absolute. And I think it's helpful to just stand up and say, murder is wrong. And God said it's wrong. That's an absolute. I think that's appropriate. Honestly, I think I realize that it's special revelation, but I think it's helpful. It is. I really think it's helpful. It is helpful. And for someone to say, well, I think it might be wrong. I'm not sure, which is where people are today. That's what natural revelation is telling people today or natural laws telling your average person, your average person in the average, you know, law school today. I mean, he does not believe in absolutes. He doesn't believe in absolutes. And for someone to say, oh, by the way, your natural law is so clouded, I'm going to have to help you here. Thou shalt not murder is helpful. And by the way, suffer not a witch to live is another helpful. Right, right. That's a helpful thing. We have a we have a thing in our little town here out in Elbert County, that little store that brings witchcraft in. And I think, you know, just telling them this ethical thing, suffering out of which to live, probably would be helpful to the civil magistrate in our little Elbert County, Colorado, to decide whether or not we should allow that store to be here and whether or not they should be able to operate in our city. And I realize that that's a little controversial, especially, you know, 300 years after we've been inviting as much witchcraft as possible in every town, city, and and locality around this country, but we still need to say that's a standard. Now we may not be able to achieve that standard in our day, but I think pushing back a little bit on witchcraft and not allowing large stores opening up in our counties to encourage witchcraft in our cities would be a helpful thing. And oh, by the way, I would say the same thing for human sacrifice. And again, I realize that there are a lot of people out there saying, well, natural law would allow some human sacrifice, especially if it's voluntary. But I'm here to tell you that Deuteronomy chapter 16, chapter 18 would say, hey, no, you actually shouldn't serve foreign gods with these forms of sacrifices. Um, you shouldn't have animal sacrifice, shouldn't have human sacrifice in Elbert County. And I think the county commission or the state government or the sheriff's department should probably get involved in this human sacrifice going on in our county. And we do so, why? Because of special revelation. Natural revelation is not sufficient. Not sufficient. It's got to be clarified, especially after 200 years of clouding our minds and suppressing the truth and unrighteousness by abandoning God's law and the revelation that actually Western societies have used for thousands of years, of course we need to bring special revelation back. If there was ever a time where the churches need to preach some special revelation, encourage civil magistrates to the special revelatory law that we get through the Word of God, it is now. We need the special revelation to interpret the natural revelation correctly. Look, you start with something pretty basic. Thou shalt not murder. That's one of your examples. Most people would say, yeah, murder's bad. And then we start talking about what is murder. And all of a sudden we have some disagreements. Is euthanasia murder? Because there's a whole bunch of people who would say, I look at nature and survival of the fittest says we don't keep the retarded. We don't keep the weak. We don't keep the elderly. We keep only the strong. That's what natural revelation teaches me. So I'm good with euthanasia. Or we can abort. Or we look at places where the gospel really hasn't penetrated the society and then bowed the knee very well to the lordship of Christ. And it's okay for one tribe to try and steal from another tribe and murder anybody who gets in their way, because obviously taking the stuff was a higher virtue in their mind than life itself. So where the gospel, where the law of God is not explicitly taught, it devolves into murder is okay. And human sacrifice and witchcraft and cannibalism and yeah, that's basically the way that our light, our salt pretty much dissipates and the Christian church has no influence and we create hell on earth. in our communities all around the world. Kevin, it would have been different if there hadn't been a fall. If there was no fall and nature hadn't fallen, the world hadn't fallen with it. And we know we live in a fallen world. And by that, I mean the trees are falling, the dirt is falling, everything is falling. Stars are exploding. If we hadn't lived in a fallen world, we might be able to look at nature and see it in its state of perfection. The fact is nature has fallen. When we look at nature, we're looking at a fallen, that is a revelation of God that's not pure. The Word of God, though, The Word of God stands forever. The grass fades. The flower withers. The Word of God, though, it stands. Why would we displace that which is very clear and explicit for that which is unclear? Also, friends, the idea that the ungodly and the godly are separated in their covenantal obligations to God and the social order is impossible. We all live in a social order. We all live in a country. We all live in states. We all live in a county. We're together. We're not separated. Therefore, we've got to act according to God's laws, albeit different people and legislatures may act with different motives. I mean, you may have two guys sitting in the same legislature. One's a Christian, loves God with his heart, wants to keep God's commandments, and says, yeah, we need to legislate against murder. The other guy is sitting right next to him and says, yeah, I guess we will legislate against murder. I realize it's God's law. I still hate God and everything, but I think it'd be a good idea not to have somebody murder me, and he does it because of self-protection or whatever. He does it for different reasons, and okay, so we have different motives, but in the end, hopefully, there is some incorporation of the laws of God, and hopefully there will be some level of order going on in that society. Are all men under obligations to keep God's laws? Of course they are. Whether or not they're redeemed, they love God, etc., etc., they're still under the laws of God, naturally and specially revealed. My only concern, friends, is that natural law folks not use God's special revelation to clarify natural law. That's the problem. The natural law becomes less and less natural, and after a while you have, you know, people just doing whatever black widows do when they eat their mates. Some animals act like homosexuals occasionally. My conscience and Barack Obama's conscience doesn't condemn me for anything, so I guess I can do whatever I want to do. Okay, well, If that be the case, apparently natural law is not doing all that much for you, so we better get some special law out here to clarify some natural law and hopefully it'll awaken some consciences again and maybe, just maybe, there'll be a little bit more law of God happening on the social or the political end of things. And again, we're not saying the political end of things is really going to save anybody. by just discouraging murder or what have you in a society doesn't save everybody in that society. Now it does lift up the laws of God, the standards of God's laws, and maybe as people become more and more likely to rape because they've been hanging out in the porn sites too long, or more and more likely to murder somebody because they've been hating their their wife or what have you, maybe the law imposed by the civil magistrate will drive them to or convict them of their sins and drive them to Christ. That's possible too. But whatever the case, the civil law is there to restrain them from performing some of the very, very worst things that interrupt society and break it down. And God's laws give us a pretty good sense. The special revelation provided through the laws of God in the Word of God give us a pretty good sense on what are the more egregious issues that need to be dealt with by the civil magistrate. Kevin, it's very important that when Christians use natural law—and we do from time to time. Paul used a little bit of a natural law revelation in Athens. Jesus appealed to it a couple of times. When we appeal to it, we have to appeal it with this, thus says the Lord. If we appeal to natural revelation, we have to give that revelation to God and then filter it through everything else we know about it. If we're saying, well, nature tells us as if there is no God, then we are creating idols. and we're defacing God. We must come and say, thus says the Lord. Now we can look at natural revelation and say God speaks through this here, and I know he's speaking it correctly because his word affirms it. Yeah, and Romans chapter 2, when it mentions, in Romans chapter 2, the human conscience, and natural law revelation immediately it comes back with for God has revealed it unto them for God has revealed us says that's right it immediately refers to the fact that the source of that little thing that was placed in their conscience is God himself and we need to say that and the second thing we need to do is we need to back it up with special revelation that helps to clarify because sometimes consciences have been seared unless somebody say yea have the lord really said and we say yes he has. Ladies and gentlemen, as I wrap up this edition of the program, let me say this. I understand why people are waffling on the laws of God. I understand why they are afraid of bringing special revelation to bear. I understand why they are doing everything they can to compromise on the Word of God and ignore certain passages. I understand why they don't want to be offensive to the world around them. I understand why We're beginning to sacrifice basic principles, theologically, socially, etc., to accommodate our own relevance and impact in the world. But that's faithlessness, friends. And I understand that we're grappling with these things because we live in a post-Christian era. We're in a decline right now. The faith no longer has the impact it had back in the 1960s, and 1940s, and 1920s, and 1870s, and 1760s, and 1640s. The Christian faith does not have anywhere near the kind of influence it used to have. We are living sort of in a Christian, post-Christian era, and it appears that we are somewhat irrelevant. And that's really hard for some people. They say, no, we've got to compromise now to accommodate. We have to get some kind of impact because, you know, we're so irrelevant. Well, friends, that's faithlessness unworthy of the service of the King of Kings. Therefore, we've got to maintain God's law as the standard in our minds. God's law as revealed and carefully clarified in special revelation. We've got to keep the standard right smack there in our minds. And granted, we may not be able to make much progress in the political sphere for the time being. Okay, well, can we obey God in the sphere of family, in our own relationships with our wives? Can we love our wives as Christ loved the church, even if The civil magistrate is not submitting itself to the laws of God in the area of homosexuality, homosexual marriages, etc. Yes, we can. We can get involved where we have some influence and some opportunity to do so. We must be realistic and carefully prioritize what can be done and should be done in the civil magistrate as the magistrate slips more and more into anarchy, tyranny, and general chaos. If there's no opportunity to act in obedience to God, we ought to act in obedience to God somewhere else. That is, Dave, I'm not going to be a chaplain in a whorehouse, you know? I mean, just kind of, you know, okay, huns, you know, just try to love yourself and love each other and, you know, be careful, don't get AIDS. You know, am I going to be a chaplain in a whorehouse? You know, am I going to encourage Christians to get involved in the civil magistrate to improve homosexual civil unions so the president will be able to invite them to the prayer breakfast? No, I'm not going to do that. And I know that Christians are wimping out on civil unions and homosexual marriage and all this. I know Christians are wimping. I know pastors are wimping out on this. Why? Because they're unpopular if they don't wimp out on it. They won't be invited to the presidential prayer breakfast if they don't compromise on some of these things. I understand. All I'm saying is we'd like a little faith, okay? We'd like, in the midst of a situation in which a society is in decline, spiritually speaking, we'd like a little faith out there. Some people have some guts, some courage, some faith to stand up and say, the standard is the standard is the standard. I'm not going to waffle on that. And I'm going to continue to speak the standard even if I am sort of devolved into my little basement operation with an online radio program that doesn't really reach any AM and FM signals because it's all dominated by people that don't want to offend anybody. No, you just maintain the same standard. You move on in faith. And believe it or not, Jesus is still King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And he kind of appreciates the Gideons who are willing to maintain standards even if they are highly, highly, highly marginalized. And Dave, let's teach our children God's laws as a standard and maintain a hopeful optimism for the future because I think the future is going to be different. The future will certainly not be the same as it is now. Look, the risk of paraphrasing here, let me be irrelevant, only let God be relevant. That's our attitude. I am happy being irrelevant if God is made relevant. All right, my friends, that's that's it for this edition of the program. And I hope we've been helpful in clarifying some of these things for you. There's some of these are kind of tricky issues, I know, but it comes down to some very, very simple things. Don't compromise on the Word of God. I mean, just just maintain it. I realize it's unpopular. But continue to maintain it and obey God in your own life. I mean, it may come to the point where you can't have any influence in the market or on the political sphere, but love God, keep His commandments, love your wife as Christ loved the church, gave Himself for it. Remember, Jesus died on the cross for our sins. He's forgiven us. Now let's love Him and keep His commandments. This is Kevin Swanson inviting you back again next time as we continue to lay down a vision for the next generation.