Is morality somehow in the heart of people, or is it learned, such as a moral code imposed on people by their upbringing?
There are those in our society who think morality is not fixed, but a floating standard that can change as social attitudes change. They think morality has been put in place by society itself.
So, is that true?
Somehow, deep inside us, we have a sense for what is right and wrong, good or evil. But is that a fixed thing or just a feeling we have that can be changed?
We seem to know instinctively what is good and what is evil, even when the boundaries are blurred. We see an example of this in ancient history, when God’s prophet Jonah visited the city of Nineveh.
God sent Jonah to Nineveh to prophesy against it and warn the city that it would be destroyed because it was evil.
“Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before Me.” Jonah 1:2
Now, if a city has become wicked, that’s because the people in the city want to be wicked. They will have passed laws and made provision for their wickedness, so it would not be considered wicked any more.
Yet God was not influenced by what laws were passed. Morality and good and evil were not made by man’s laws or social opinions, but by God’s own moral character.
What is surprising is that the great city responded to Jonah’s preaching. They had made ‘wickedness’ normal, so it wasn’t wicked any more, but when God warned them they would be judged they suddenly admitted that what they were doing was evil.
The king humbled himself and made a rule that everyone should fear God.
“Let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God: yes, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.” Jonah 3:8
Wow! What happened to their socially acceptable evil? It suddenly disappeared when their conscience was challenged. They could let themselves go along with evil, and they could make evil legal, but they still knew it was evil and immoral.
Human conscience tells us what is right and wrong. It either excuses us or accuses us when we do things.
“They show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another” Romans 2:15
Those who deny a fundamental moral compass need only consider what things they think to be evil or reprehensible, such as senseless carnage, rape, murder, deceit in office, genocide, and the like. Then they could ask themselves why those actions should be wrong.
There is somewhere some reference point by which our actions are measured. So, how do we know we have the right line of demarcation between right and wrong. If rape is wrong, what about nudity, or prostitution?
People recognise the worst kinds of evil but want to excuse other evils of selfishness, pride, abuse of others, anger, hardness of heart, imposing things on others, abandonment of responsibility, using people, and such like. People excuse those things so they can indulge their passions. We hate the worst kinds of evil, but we want to get away with our own versions of evil. We see those as lesser evils.
The Bible tells us that if we have broken the moral boundaries in the least item we are guilty of having broken those boundaries in the most serious way.
“Whoever keeps the whole law, and yet offends in one point, is guilty of breaking all the law.” James 2:10
We live in confusing times when things that everyone recognised as evil are now being promoted and legalised. That creates internal confusion and for some it involves destroying their conscience so they don’t have to live with a sense of guilt and shame.
“The Spirit expressly reveals that in later times some will abandon the faith to follow deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, influenced by the hypocrisy of liars, whose consciences are seared with a hot iron.” 1Timothy 4:1,2
Yet despite all the celebration by some that they have effectively changed morals in the community, all they have done is push their own values and their own desires. The moral compass hasn’t been changed, just as it wasn’t changed in Nineveh, despite the whole society equally engaged in their activities. God called it wickedness, and the society knew that they were wicked.
We are only visiting earth for a short while and after that we stand before God. It doesn’t matter what we decide to believe down here, because we will be measured against God’s moral standards. God gave us a moral compass. We may try to tinker with it, and adjust it to suit ourselves, but in the end we get judged by God’s standards, not those we can promote in our society.
I urge you to be careful in a changing world, so you don’t get your Moral Compass on the wrong settings. Soon enough you will stand before God and He will measure you by His morals, not yours. May you stand approved when you are measured by God’s Moral Compass.
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