The Idol of Self
You may have a pretty good foundation of personal values, but you live in a world where people can't decide what's right and what's wrong, what's absolute and what isn't; what's true and what’s not. I'm not suggesting that there's always an easy answer—that everything is clearly marked right or wrong. But many things should be obvious. As I continue the series of blogs, IDOLATRY—SOMETHING GOOD BECOMES ULTIMATE, I want to talk about The Idol of Self.
Defining Right From Wrong
In her book, Finding God at Harvard, Kelly Monroe writes about the time she was at a doctor's office and decided to do a little informal testing. She wanted to find out what her doctor’s view on morality was, here’s what she wrote about her conversation:
“Do you believe that morality is absolute? Or are all people just out for themselves?” “What do you mean by morality?" I'm talking about what's right and what's wrong.” We talked back and forth for a few minutes and it became evident to me that the doctor was having a hard time comprehending the question I was asking. So, I took a different approach. "Is murder wrong? Is it wrong to take an innocent human life?” The doctor waffled, “Well …” “Well, what?” “Well, I'm thinking.” I was surprised at her hesitation. “What I'm trying to figure out," I said, "is whether morals apply; whether we believe in them or not?” I waited. “Can we say that taking an innocent life is morally acceptable?” She said, “I guess it depends on what other people think or decide.” “I'll make this easy,” I thought. “Do you think torturing babies for fun is wrong?” “Well, I wouldn't want them to do that to my baby.” “You've missed the point of my question. Do you believe there is any circumstance in any culture, at any time in history, in which torturing babies just for pure pleasure could be justified? After a pause, she finally answered, “People should be allowed to decide for themselves.”
In reflecting on this conversation, Kelly Monroe summarized it this way:
“Sadly, this woman’s view of ethics is repeated time after time at every level of society. In reality, if she was awakened in the middle of the night by the screams of a young child being tormented by her neighbor, I'm sure she would be horrified; her moral intuition would immediately arise and she'd act appropriately. But in a discussion of the issue, she seemed incapable of admitting that this wrong was actually immoral.”
If the doctor's approach to determining right from wrong is a widespread reality (and I believe that it is), it appears our culture increasingly doesn't know how to think about morality in terms of absolute truths. Our culture has evolved into a society governed by relativity.
Truth Becomes Relative
Relativism is defined as, “Ethical beliefs and truths that depend on individuals and groups holding them but not necessarily true for others.” In other words, I can define what I believe is absolutely true and so can you and they could be polar opposites. So, truth becomes relative to what a person says it is. Considering the number of people in this world, we could have billions of truths, many of which are opposed to one another.
What I’m seeing today are self-absorbed people who, apart from God, can’t determine a definitive truth even if it smacked them in the face! That leaves us with millions of people who will not take a moral stand. Instead many are content to live morally timid lives by standing back and saying, “I guess it all depends on your perspective.” In fact, it all depends on God's perspective!
Where Relative Truth Leads
The result of living by human perspective apart from the voice of God’s truth is all around us. For instance, we’re losing the value of life. One of the obvious examples are the women who believe that personal freedom over their bodies gives them the right to abort a human life. Having the right over their body is their moral high ground. And that allows snuffing the life of an unborn baby an acceptable practice. Or how about the rampage killings resulting from growing in-sensitivities toward the value of human life? The instruction of Jesus to "love your neighbor as yourself" as a cultural imperative has the ability to sensitize people to the value of life. This has rightly led to a discussion of "Do we have a morality problem in America or a gun problem or both?"
Further evidence of disintegration of Biblical morality comes from a 2016 Gallup poll that finds the following practices as largely acceptable in our culture:
Divorce....................................................................................72%
Sex between an unmarried man and woman...............67%
Having a baby outside of marriage..................................62%
Research using stem cells from human embryos........60%
Gay or lesbian relations......................................................60%
Does God have anything to say about any of the hot moral issues of today? Sure he does. And God's ways protect people. However, if individuals chose their own truth over God's instruction, the end result is a people who do what is right in their own eyes to the destruction of human culture.
The question is, what perspective are you using to determine if something is right or wrong? Sure, personal perspective is important, but when that becomes the all-encompassing authority rather than honoring and submitting to God’s truth, you’ve stepped into the Idol of Self. I believe our culture has leaped into it. We’re allowing human perspective to guide our decision making and the result is an eroding of morality based on a Biblical ethic.
The Call to God’s Truth
You and I live in a moment of human history like no other. If ever there was the need for a clear and predominant call to honor God and live by his truth, it's today. There must be a clarity to what’s true and what’s not; what’s right and what’s wrong. Well, the plumb-line is there. God has revealed himself through Jesus Christ and has preserved his truth in the scriptures. For instance, in the book of Proverbs, we get a sample of what God would say to people today:
Proverbs 11:1,3
1 The Lord detests the use of dishonest scales, but he delights in accurate weights.
3 Honesty guides good people; dishonesty destroys treacherous people.
In v. 1, the reference is of ancient merchants who used stones for weights as they practiced commerce. This verse addresses fairness in business practices. It talks about dishonesty and a person’s choice to be deceitful rather than truthful. And then, in v. 3 the writer explains that honesty and integrity will guide a person in life, but the duplicity of being a two-faced fraud will destroy a person’s life. God has built into his creation this value: Dishonesty destroys and integrity is rewarded.
Let me give you one more verse from Proverbs and then I’ll tie this together.
Proverbs 12:22
22 The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in those who tell the truth.
It’s been a while but I used to enjoy watching the HGTV program called Holmes on Homes. Mike Holmes is a renovation expert and he believes in doing a job right the first time. Mike is not only a great builder, but he’s on a mission to expose poor, substandard workmanship in the building industry. The question is, why do we need a Mike Holmes? Because when a homeowner contracts a home repair or renovation, the industry has produced shady contractors who take shortcuts and use shoddy building practices. Instead of a job well done the first time, a contractor may employ a band-aid approach to repair work, leaving the homeowner in dangerous situations or out a ton of money. So, in each episode of Holmes on Homes, Mike uncovers problems from plumbing and electrical to carpentry and roofing. He shows how the botched job should have been completed, fixing each project properly and helping homeowners make more informed decisions in the future. Mike Holmes detests lying lips, but he delights in those who tell the truth! The larger principle is this: God hates deceit and duplicity. You see, what you believe God is saying will guide you in taking a stand on fundamental issues, and that sure flies in the face of relativity.
Imagine a Truly Relativistic World
What if you drive your car away from the tire shop, and hear a really strange sound. You get out and look, only to see that your back tire is leaning 10 or 12 degrees. Even a non-mechanic would say, “Oh, that’s not good!” You take it back to the tire shop and instead of hearing, “Oh man, we’re sorry, we forgot to tighten the lug nuts,” they say, “Well that’s just your opinion that those lug nuts need to be tight, we happen to think that lose lug nuts are good.” Or what if your doctor says you need 150mg of XYZ, so you go to the pharmacist who insists, “Oh weights and measures don't matter, what's a milligram here or a milligram there?” And instead, he gives you 300mg of XYZ. You can’t live that way. In fact, you probably won't live if you do! Relativism doesn’t work.
God’s truth is the standard. He says, “I detest the use of dishonest scales, but I delight in accurate weights.” The Lord says, “I detest lying lips, but delight in those who tell the truth.” What are you using to guide your perspective on what's true and what’s false, right and wrong, good or bad?
Next Step
1. Identify in your life where you have established your own human perspective that is in conflict with God’s truth. Instead, choose non-negotiable truths from God’s Word to guide your decisions and perspectives.
