Who Says?
Good Morning,
As children, many times, one child will give orders to the others. Before any orders are obeyed, the question, “Who says?” is often asked. The child being ordered to do something wants to determine if the order was the sibling’s opinion or whether the order came from a parent or a teacher (strange as it may seem). If the order is from the sibling, the subordinate will not care to follow, but if the request is from the teacher or parent, the order is followed.
Many years ago, a man in our church lived on dirt road, and he got tired of the people driving fast. He kept telling people to slow down. He carried no authority, and he had no right to demand certain driving (other than common courtesy which was lacking on that street). I drove by his home one day, and although he was old and very frail, I found him in the street with a pic, digging trenches and building speed bumps. If he could not get people to do slow down out of courtesy, he would get them to slow down out of necessity.
Our world is promoting every kind of perverse, immoral behavior imaginable. Conversations that never would have been talked about or done in public before, are now constantly being shoved in our faces. There are many different people with opinions, but the big question is, “Who says?”
Leviticus 18 gives us the answer to, “Who says?“
vs. 2 “Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, I am the LORD your God.”
vs. 4 “…I am the LORD your God.”
vs. 21 “… I am the LORD.”
vs. 30 “… I am the LORD your God.”
This chapter says you are not to marry your aunt or sister, as well as many other specific moral laws of God. The reason they should have obeyed was because “I am the LORD your God.”
This chapter describes very clear and specific moral restraints; the answer to “Who says?” is very clear in the chapter, and mentioned four times! He is God, and He makes the rules.
The perversion, vulgarity, and moral lawlessness of the land into which Israel was going to enter caused the land to “spew” out the prior inhabitants. God warned that if Israel did the same, they would also be vomited out of the land. The behavior of people defiles the land.
Leviticus 18:25 “And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.”
vs. 28 “That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you.”
Do not allow the tv, radio, and social media to convince you that wrong is right and right is wrong; right is right because God said so.
In the law, God is clear:
vs. 22 “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”
These laws are not just Old Testament laws, Paul repeats these same rules of behavior in Romans 1:
vs. 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:”
vs. 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.”
Vile, unseemly, unnatural… “Who says?” God says!
We need to shut off the advertising of shame on television, radio, internet, social media, and perhaps even conservatives who seem to constantly say, “Everyone has a right to live as they wish…” Well of course they do, Adam and Eve had freedom to live as they wished, but it was still wrong to eat of the forbidden fruit. It almost seems as though some conservative folks are justifying wrong under the guise of freedom.
I can speed in my car, but the police might still give me a ticket. I can live in adultery, but that does not make it right. One is against the laws of the land, and the other is not; but “Who says?” is what matters? I can rob a bank, but the freedom to do so does not make it okay. We have laws! The laws of the land can say anything mankind wants them to say, BUT GOD SAYS some things are right and some things are wrong.
Pastor