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For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee: - Titus 1:5

How do you know what is right and what is wrong? So many are perplexed or confused in this matter. There are those who think it is perfectly alright to do things that have always been considered wrong by Christian people, and even by the lost people of the world. It isn’t unusual now to find regular church attendees who think fornication is not always wrong, or that adultery is not always wrong. Most who wear the name Christian in 2005 think that the way you dress or the things you do to your body have nothing to do with right and wrong. You are to just go on your “feelings” and do what “is right for you.”

Then on the other hand you have those who are constantly looking for something else to add to their “do” or “don’t” lists. Anything that will make them look more religious they are quick to grab onto. There are those who think it is wrong to even acknowledge the birth of Christ because of what the materialistic world does with Christmas. I have even read whole articles written on the evil of “Ground Hog Day.” There are many who think themselves spiritual and are continually seeking something for which they can condemn others. Of course, no matter who they meet, there is always something that they can point out as proof to show that that person isn’t as spiritual as they are themselves.

Neither one of these two types of hypocrites is spiritual. They are both just living a religion that they have made up in their own heart. They are both trusting and relying on their own deceitful heart for guidance in making judgments about what is right and wrong. What we are about to talk about is the key for understanding right and wrong. If you don’t understand about God’s divine order for his creation, then you don’t understand much about God at all. If God’s order is not the standard you use to measure right and wrong then you are just following the world’s philosophy of “doing what is right in their own eyes.”

God is THE Creator. He created everything that we see and much that we do not see. Everything that God created is in perfect order. It is highly organized and arranged so no person could ever reasonably say that it just “happened.” The more man learns, the more he can see the order and organization of the creation. I read an article recently which told that many scientists who were agnostics or atheists have become believers in “intelligent design” simply because of DNA. As their understanding of DNA has opened up it is simply impossible for a sound mind to deny that it was designed by Someone – it could not possibly have just “happened.” The farther we look into the heavens the more order and organization we see. Man has not yet been able to even build a clock that keeps time as perfectly as the stars and the planets in their movements. We have to adjust our atomic clocks often in order to stay in time with the universe. It is in perfect order. As we look at smaller and smaller things we see the same truth – that everything is arranged in perfect order and works just as God meant for it to.

There is one exception and that is man. He doesn’t want to abide in his place in God’s order. The reason he doesn’t is because of sin. The Bible tells us that God is not the author of confusion – everything He has anything to do with is perfectly ordered and arranged. Chaos is of the devil. It is because of evil and rebellion against God. Man does not want to do things God’s way – he wants to do things his own way and that is the essence of sin. That is where it begins, and so that is where we should begin when we are trying to discern between right and wrong and good and evil.

Being conformed to God and his ways is what true godliness really is. To be contrary to God’s order is to be ungodly. If everything that God made is so highly organized and perfectly arranged you can be sure that He means for our lives to be in order. God has a specific order for his church. He has a specific order for the home. He has a specific order for our lives.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: – Eccl. 3:1

There is a time to be a child, a time to be young, then a time to grow up and put away childish things, and then there is a time to be old. In our day of confusion the main concern of little girls and boys of 7 or 8 years old is boyfriends and girlfriends, and of who is “going with” whom. That is out of order! Little girls should be playing with baby dolls and little boys with trucks and toy guns. Little girls should be playing with BABY dolls – NOT Barbie dolls. Playing with baby dolls is what comes naturally and conditions their minds to be mothers, and that is according to God’s order. Barbie dolls condition their minds to think about being sexy glamour girls, and that is out of God’s order.

The same thing applies to young people who refuse to grow up. Many of them today are still acting and thinking like children when they are 20 or 30 years old. That is out of order! There is a time to put away childish things and be an adult. Then we see older people who refuse to grow old gracefully. They paint, primp, and pump in an attempt to deceive themselves and everyone else that they are still young. They are out of order! God didn’t mean for life to be that way. “To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.” There is an order to life and God designed that order. If you refuse to accept it and live according to that order, you are ungodly, no matter what else you do to make yourself appear religious.

There is an order for the home. Man is the head of the home, according to the plain teaching of the Bible. This doesn’t mean that he is the brutal dictator and his wife and children obey him out of fear. If that is the case he is as much out of order as any rebellious wife. The home is a picture of God the Father, God the Son, and the Bride of Christ, which is the Church. The order of the home is based on love – not on military-type levels of authority. The man who doesn’t intend to love his wife and treat her as a lady and provide and protect her and the children she bears him should not get married. The woman should never get married who resents being a “keeper at home” as is clearly stated in the Bible as God’s order for the home. If she thinks that cooking his meals and washing his clothes is demeaning and humiliating, she should stay single and live her lonely, miserable life in an apartment somewhere by herself where she won’t destroy the lives of a man and any children she might bear. The woman who rules over her husband is ungodly and so is the husband that allows her to do so. The order for the home as God has defined it is based on love. The husband bears his responsibility to his wife and children gladly because he loves them. The wife bears her responsibility because she loves her husband and her children. In time to come her children will rise up and call her blessed, and her husband will praise her. God's ways are always better and He designed them to have a happy end.

Can you imagine the Church acting toward Christ as many women act toward their husbands? Can you imagine that Christ would not be able to make a decision or take any action without first consulting with us? A Christian can no more live after the world and its pleasures and be right with God than a wife can lay with other men and be right with her husband. By the same token, can you imagine Jesus forsaking his Church? Can you imagine Him forcing his will upon us? No, of course not! That is because it is a relationship based on love. We serve Him because we love Him, and we love Him because He first loved us. He treats us with kindness, patience, and love.

There is an order for the church. It is NOT just “two or three met together.” It is to be organized and with leadership, according to the guidelines given clearly in the Word of God. It is not to be chaos and confusion. There is order in worship. True worship is not total confusion, as you see in many “churches” of our day.

Anything that works against God’s order is wrong. Anything that identifies you as one who is not living after God’s order is wrong. Therefore, the clothes we wear make a difference. We are making a statement with the way we dress. We are identifying ourselves as Christians or as members of this world system. With the clothes we wear we are making a statement about whether we agree with God’s order or not. This is a simple truth that the entire world used to understand. If a man wears a dress would it cause you to think he might be unhappy with the fact that he is a man? Of course it would! You would think he was a pervert and you would be right! He is a man, but not happy with the way God made him and with his place in God’s order. He doesn’t want to work like a man and carry the responsibility of a man – he wants to be a woman. But what about a woman who wears “that which pertaineth to a man?” (Deut. 22:5) We live in a society that has a double-standard in these matters. What is OK for a woman is not OK for men. But when a woman dresses like a man, and cuts her hair like a man, she is simply saying that she is not happy with the way God made her, and that she is refusing to submit to her place in the divine order. She does not want to bear the responsibility that God assigned to her. She wants to be in the man’s place. She wants to be the head and make the decisions, and she resents anyone – including God Almighty, who tells her otherwise.

This is all confusion and it brings us to the same place in these last days where Noah’s generation was some 4000 years ago. Jesus likened Noah’s day to Sodom and so we know that the world was full of sodomites and every other perversion of God’s order that man could invent.

And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. Gen. 6:12

Why is wrong for men to marry men, or women to marry women? Why would it be wrong for a man to marry an animal? Because it is out of order! It is not according to God’s divine order! God did not design things that way and nature itself teaches us that. The sad state of the world in Noah’s day, and in the day in which we are living, was brought about because man rejected God’s order and especially the order for men and women. When the distinction between the sexes is erased or confused sodomy and perversion always follow, and it isn’t long after that until God’s judgment falls.

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. - Prov. 14:12

It may seem all right to most church members in 2005 to live and think the same way as the ungodly world, but they are going to find out when they stand before God that it isn’t. God designed everything and laid it in order. When we reject that order we are ungodly. When we seek to live according to God’s order we are denying ungodliness, and living godly in this present world.

God’s order is the only standard with which we can truthfully and reliably discern between right and wrong. It is the only means we have to know what really pleases God and what doesn’t. If you can grasp this one truth it will open your understanding and you will know the reasons WHY certain things are right or wrong. The world keeps changing, but God’s order never changes. Drop your anchor here and get a hold on something solid you can base your convictions on. Don’t just believe something because someone else does. You are to be able always to give an answer to him that asks you of your faith (1 Pet 3:15). You can do that if you understand that your life is to be lived according to God’s divine order.
 

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