Gods Precepts Abandoned
Biblical principals that were once recognised as good standards to live by, have in the last 60 years been abandoned by our British society.
Is this to do with a change in culture, a change in attitudes, or does it go deeper than that and is an abandonment of God Himself and His precepts?
What is a Precept?
A precept is any commandment, instruction, or order intended as a rule of action or conduct; especially, a practical rule guiding behaviour, technique, etc."
In the scriptures the word which is translated, "Precept" is a general term for the responsibility God places upon His people.
Precepts are guiding truths which have the good of the individual in mind.
With this in mind, one would generally consider that a precept is a good thing, especially where society is concerned.
Instruction that would help in creating a good, moral society.
A precept places a responsibility on any group or individual, to act in a certain way so as to be able to live in peace and harmony with his neighbours.
A precept helps us to define what is right and what is wrong. They are there for our benefit and the benefit of the society in which we live.
So what are some of Gods precepts, Biblical principals that have been lost in the last 60 years and what has been the effect on our society?
Corporal punishment.
God’s precept:
KJV Pro 13:24 He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.
ESV Proverbs 13:24 Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.
Proverbs 23:13 13 Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die.
Prov 29:15 15 The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.
Throughout the Bible and up to 60 years ago, corporal punishment was accepted.
In homes, in schools and in law, it was seen as necessary to punish disobedience and wrong doing.
It was based on a sound principal.
It was not done in any sadistic way but simply for correction.
The smacking of a child was an accepted way of discipline in the home. This discipline was the responsibility of the ones who knew the disposition of the child, this was normally the parents or guardian of the child.
In an education environment, it was the tutors and in law, was the court.
Children expected chastisement in one form or another.
Generally a child knew that if they did not behave in a ruly manner, there would be consequences.
I never thought that my parents or my teachers hated me because I received chastisement, very often I deserved it. Whether it was in the home or at school.
Corporal punishment was usually a smack on the rear, or leg and in school was “the dreaded cane”.
Where the law was concerned it was what was called “the Birch”, which was also a cane.
Even a policeman would clip you round the ear if you were caught causing mischief.
I remember my own experience as a child and as a parent.
My parents loved me and I loved my own children.
He that spareth his rod hateth his son.
This may sound a bit strong, “hates his son”. However, to not discipline an unruly child is as though you hate him. If you loved him, you would everything in your power to keep him on the straight and narrow.
but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.
I remember smacking my daughters and wanting to cry but I felt, as the scriptures say, it was for their own good.
I remembering saying the same words as my parents. “This hurts me more than it hurts you”.
My children may have regretted the smacking at the time but now when we talk, and because they themselves have brought up children, they understood the necessity of the chastisement.
However, corporal punishment today is banned and any form of smacking or caning is looked on as wrong and to some it is seen as violence.
What has been the results of this abandonment of this precept?
2 Timothy 3:2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
Wide scale disobedience, disrespect of parents, teachers and the law.
Of course this is not every child or young person but then again not every child or young person needed to be reprimanded in this way.
Abandon the precept, pay the price.
It appears the Biblical precept was correct.
Capital Punishment.
It is quite clear from the Old Testament that capital punishment was accepted.
Genesis 9:5-6 "Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man's brother I will require the life of man. "Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.
Exodus 21:14 "If, however, a man acts presumptuously toward his neighbour, so as to kill him craftily, you are to take him even from My altar, that he may die.
However was this only a New Testament teaching?
In Matthew 15:4 Jesus says "He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die".
Despite the fact that Jesus himself refrains from using violence, he at no point denies the state's authority to exact capital punishment.
When confronting Governor Festus, Paul says in Acts 25:11, "If I am a wrongdoer, and have committed anything worthy of death, I do not refuse to die; but if none of these things is true of which these men accuse me, no one can hand me over to them."
He both affirms capital statutes and accepts them as binding on him if he has broken one.
Down through the ages it was accepted that if anyone took a life, especially a premeditated killing, then that crime deserved the death penalty.
Up until the 1950s, capital punishment was in force in Great Britain.
So, if it was right then, what has changed to make it wrong today?
Well, it is not the Word of God that has changed, or Gods precept. The thing that has changed is mans ideas.
It is obvious that men do not agree with the precepts of God.
We have seen over the years, those who have taken lives, been put in prison for a certain length of time and then been released, only to take another life.
There is only one certain way to avoid a situation like this and that is for a murderer to forfeit their life.
Of course this does not apply to all killing, manslaughter or accidental but only premeditated crime.
However, society chose to abandon this precept and more lives were lost.
Homosexuality.
Up until the 1960s, the act of practicing homosexuality was considered, gross indecency and could be punishable by imprisonment.
Now this blog is not condoning prison for this behaviour.
However, what this blog is asking is whether these practices are condemned by God’s precept this is the thing in question.
Whether or not the attitude of individuals have a detrimental effect on society.
same sex practices are against the natural order of things and are in fact a perversion.
Lev 18:22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
This wasn’t something that God just did not like but to Him it was disgusting.
Abomination: meaning. Feminine active participle, properly something disgusting (morally), that is, (as noun) an abhorrence; especially idolatry or (concretely) an idol: - abominable (custom, thing), abomination.
Lev 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination:
Jude v7 7 - Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."
This is not just referring to a man with a man but also women with women.
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
1 Tim 1: 8—10 8 We know that the law is good if one uses it properly.
9 We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers,
10 for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine.
Again, it is quite clear from the Word of God that homosexual practice is detestable in the eyes of God. This was accepted until the 1960s, when laws were changed. Somewhere along the lines, attitudes began to change in society, these precepts were abandoned and what was once seen as a perversion became acceptable.
Today, one cannot even voice an opinion on this matter without being
labelled homophobic.
The abandonment of God’s precept on homosexual behaviour has changed our society.
Our schools teach it as normal behaviour, in effect making God out to be wrong.
and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
There is always a consequence. There was an epidemic of the Aids virus that happened in the sixties that was transmitted by sexual contact, mostly amongst homosexuals.
Other sexual transmitted problems.
Innocent wives and children left open to the disease because of a partners infidelity or because people were living bi sexual lifestyles.
Again we see that if we abandon the precept, there is a price to pay.
Marriage and Sexual Behaviour.
Even what the Bible taught on marriage, has been changed from a man and a woman, to same sex marriages.
What is amazing is that not only has the laws changed but the Christian church has changed and many are now ordaining homosexuals and performing marriage for same sexes.
Again, has Gods precepts changed, No, mans ideas have.
Adultery, pre marital sex and extra marital sex.
The Bible calls these practices, “fornication”.
Here is God’s straight forward precept on marriage:
Exo 20:14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.
God’s precept also is faithfulness in marriage.
Mat 19:9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
Rom 7:2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
Rom 7:3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
According to Jesus Christ, it is not just the act that is wrong but to harbour the thought in your heart is just the same.
Mat 5:27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
Mat 5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
Pre Marital sex.
1Co 7:1 Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.
1Co 7:2 Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.
1Co 7:3 Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.
It is clear that sexual intimacy should only be in the bounds of marriage.
1 Corinthians 7:2 “But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.”
In this verse, the apostle Paul describes any activity outside of marriage as “sexual immorality.” That means when we read of “sexual immorality,” it includes sex before marriage as one of many examples of sin.
Hebrews 13:4 “Let marriage be held in honour among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”
What does an undefiled marriage bed look like? It looks like a bed that a husband and a wife share exclusively together. Any kind of sex that is before or outside or in addition to a married relationship of husband and wife is sinful according to the Bible.
1 Corinthians 7:8-9 “To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.”
Paul clearly spells out that for unmarried, single people, God desires abstinence from sex for them. If abstinence is not something they can live with, then they should seek to get married. It’s clear that sex within the context of marriage is not a sin, but outside of marriage it is sinful and classified as fornication.
So again, God’s precepts remain in tact but it is men’s ideas that change.
Again the consequences of this behaviour are many.
Broken marriages, Broken families, Court cases, Divorce, Sexually Transmitted diseases, Unwanted Pregnancies, often leading to Abortions.
Theft, Lying, Cheating etc.
We all know that the Bible teaching that these things are wrong. Not only do we see this in the Ten Commandments but our common sense tells us that it is so.
God has never changed His mind on any of the things spoken of so far.
On the contrary, the Bible says that God is the same, yesterday, today and forever.
What was wrong in the Old Testament and wrong in the New Testament is still wrong today.
So why does man think it is ok to change these precepts?
Obviously, he does not agree with God.
The attitude today is that someone is a thief, if he gets caught.
We have a situation today were a thief calls another man a thief.
Someone who fiddles his tax resents the great train robber.
Someone who takes a pen from the office, calls a pickpocket a thief.
One can tell a “white lie” or exaggerate and call someone else a liar.
We excuse ourselves by telling “white lies”. Lies in truth have no colour.
One can cheat at cards, games or sport, we can cheat someone out of money and yet criticize someone who cheats on a partner.
Is this not hypocrisy? Of course it is, it is double standards.
Sin is sin, whether it appears to be a small sin or whether it is a big sin.
It is still missing the mark.
Can any of us judge someone else’s sin. No we can’t, Why?, because we all sin.
When the woman was caught in the act of adultery in the Gospels. Jesus said, let him who has not sinned, cast the first stone.
Whether we commit a small sin or a big sin, it is still sin.
James 2:10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.
We wonder why our society is failing and things seem to be getting worse.
Man has abandoned God and His precepts and we are seeing the results.
Maybe we will never see the return of capital punishment, maybe the trends that prevail today will never change back to what they once were.
However, each one of us can look at these precepts of God and make sure that we stay within the guidelines and play our part in trying to make this society a better place to live in.
We must always remember, that men are alienated from God by a sinful nature, brought about through the fall of Adam and Eve.
Man is not a sinner because he sins but he sins because he is a sinner.
We act according to our nature.
As Christians, our responsibility is to live according to the precepts of God, being an example to those around us.
Jesus said that “We are the salt of the earth” and therefore should live as examples to the world.
What can we expect of sinners, but sin but we are in Christ and so we should put on Christ and put aside sinful deeds.
For those who are not Christians, does it mean there is no hope.
Absolutely not.
The scripture says. 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
God manifested Himself in the flesh so that we could have a better way of life.
Jesus Christ came to take away the sins of the world.
If we trust in Him and put our faith in Him he can transform our lives.
John 10:10b I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. (Life to the full)
We can overcome our sinful nature, if we put our faith in Him.
If we are Christians, we have a new nature, born of God.
We can, in the power of the Holy Spirit, overcome the works of the flesh and live a clean, wholesome life, that benefits not only ourselves but all those around us.
Col 3:1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Col 3:2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
Col 3:3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
Col 3:4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
Col 3:5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
Col 3:6 For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
Col 3:7 In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.
Col 3:8 But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
Col 3:9 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;
Col 3:10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:
