I am not trying to be deliberately confrontational, but just pointing out the facts.
How can I conscientiously stand in front of the pulpit and preach to my congregation avoid sin, to keep the law, if I am a hypocrite that deliberately breaks the law? My children, who tralvel with me all the time will see right through that. It it is ok for father to sin and go against his own convictions, then his convictions don't mean much. I believe many pastors have had children go astray for precisely those reasons--hypocrisy in the home--preaching one standard and living another.
The basic religious foundation of every educational institution in America is humanism. Our children are bombarded with it on a daily basis. Humanism teaches that there are no absolutes. Are we going to teach that very principle and reinforce it by our own actions. The Ten Commandments are absolutes. There are many absolutes in the Bible. We beleive in absolutes. But the only absolute in humansism is "there are no absolutes." It is a philosophy of relativism which leads to anarchy. We don't have the right to set our own laws. Laws were not made to be broken (contrary to some people's thinking).
When I keep the speed limit, and see vehicles zoom past me, I often see those same vehicles pulled over and fined or ticketed for their crime. I don't have any speeding tickets. I may have to drive in the right lane of the highway, but that doesn't bother me. What does bother me is large trucks who refuse to keep the speed limit and are passing most of the vehicles on the hiway in the left lane of the hiway. Usually the sign says: "Trucks use right lane."
Statistics (in our province) say that speeding is the #1 cause of road accidents. Should we also be a contributing factor to that statisitic by breaking the law? One can rationalize all they want by thinking they are driving more safely by speeding, but I don't buy it. Just because everyone else is doing it doesn't make it right.
