Right in his own eyes

Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes. – Deuteronomy 12.8

What is right and what is not right? What some are calling the ‘post-modern era’ is where there is no real sense of right and wrong – or that is what some people like to say. That is, of course, until there is something that really seems wrong to them. Nobody really believes that there is no right and no wrong.

I have talked to two educators in the last month or so who have tried to explain why schools should be involved in teaching some sort of morality to the students. I asked them whose standards of morals we are going to teach. Neither one could answer. They both mentioned something like ‘socially acceptable norms of morality.’  I told them both that as a Christian I certainly didn’t want my children to be taught morals by someone who could not define what is right and wrong.

So what happens when there is no measuring rod?

If there is no right and no wrong who are we in the west to tell cultures it is wrong to kill their wives for being raped by another man? If it is right to kill unborn children and old or ill people who are we to say it is wrong to kill someone who is ugly of deformed? If there is no right and no wrong who decides what is just and fair?

Every man does that which is right in his own eyes. When there is no right and there is no wrong we decide for ourselves what is right and wrong.

And the result is disaster.

But there is right and there is wrong. God sets down a standard in His word. It is universally right no matter what the country or culture or time or season. To ignore that is for every man to do what is right in his own eye and the result of no moral standard can only be chaos.