Save America Ministries

Guest (Male): This is Viewpoint with attorney and author Chuck Crismier. Viewpoint is a one-hour talk show confronting the issues of America's heart and home. And now, with today's edition of Viewpoint, here is Chuck Crismier.

Chuck Crismier: Are we inventing a fake God? Are we? Are we inventing a fake God? Have we already invented a fake God? Who is God anyway? Who do you think God is? Jesus asked Peter, "Who do men say that I am?" and Peter had to answer. He gave a variety of different answers, and then finally, he said, "You are the Christ, the son of the living God."

But who do you say that I am? That's the big question of the day. Who do you say that God is? Who do you say that Jesus is? Is he your lackey? Is he your lover? Is he your savior? Is he your redeemer? Is he your high tower? Is he your judge? Or is he all of the above? Who is God? Are we inventing a fake God? And is it possible that if we've been inventing a fake God, we have actually forgotten how to blush?

Jeremiah said of the Israelites in his day, their behavior had deteriorated so badly, contrary to the word, will, and the ways of God, that in fact, he said they have forgotten how to blush. Neither were they ashamed because of the abominations that they were doing. Not ashamed. They did not know how to blush. Today on Viewpoint, we're going to take a look at that. I'm glad that you've joined us. It's conversation, as always, with ever-increasing conviction, talk that transforms, and I trust that today will be no exception.

You might wonder why are you talking about things like this. It's not all that encouraging. Well, it should be encouraging because if we're not willing to deal with these kinds of issues, we're already in a position where maybe we're beyond encouragement. Maybe we're living in a kind of nowhere, no-man's land where the only thing that God matters is that we know how to spell his name. You say, "I believe in God." So does the devil. The devil believes in God and even trembles.

You don't see many Christians tremble at the name of God today, do you? Why is that? Is it possible that the devils know more about God than we do? Is it possible that the demons knew more about who Jesus was than we do? We want to talk about that here today on Viewpoint as we ask the question, "Is it possible to justify sin?" Is it possible to justify sin? I'm going to show you how to do it here today on Viewpoint: how to justify sin.

That's right. If you forget how to blush, you can easily justify sin. And you might not even think of it as sin because we've forgotten how to blush, we've forgotten who God is, and we've forgotten who Jesus is. We have forgotten that the book of Hebrews tells us that without holiness, no man will even see the Lord. So there's something that's gone awry in our moral and spiritual imaginations. Today, we're going to take a look at these issues. It's going to be challenging, and this has been on my mind and on my heart now for some time.

In fact, I lay awake one night ago just troubled by this very issue. Is it possible to justify sin, and how do we do it? Are there mechanisms by which we have found it very easy to justify sin? And then, of course, we have to answer the question, "What is sin anyway?" Some people will say sin is missing the mark. Well, that's true. What mark is it that we're missing, though? Oh, it's the mark that God set, which was holiness and righteousness, without which any man shall see the Lord.

Oh, that sin. Okay. Well, that's not the sin I want to think about. I want to think about big sins. I want to think about things like committing adultery, or fornication, or murder. Well, just yesterday, my friends, a pastor and a worship leader was convicted of murder of his wife. He was convicted of murder of his wife because he justified entering into a relationship with another worship leader in the same church. For a year and a half, each one of them said that they knew it wasn't right.

So then, how did they justify it? On the one hand, the one who was convicted of murder yesterday after just three hours of jury deliberation, said he was afraid he would go to hell if he did what he wanted to do, which was kill his wife. So then, how is it that he actually did kill his wife? You see, somewhere along the line, he was willing and able to justify what he did and think somehow it was okay, that somehow God in his mercy would overlook it.

It wouldn't really matter that much because he wanted what he wanted. What was it he wanted? He wanted to have a nice, warm, cuddly sexual relationship with his other worship paramour. That's what he wanted. And that's what she wanted, too. In fact, quite frankly, as I listened to the cross-examination of that particular woman on the stand, it was extraordinary. I was riveted by the cross-examination going through hundreds and hundreds of texts that she sent to this man, another worship leader, talking about how she wanted his wife dead.

Together, they wanted his wife dead, and she was doing everything she could to keep him away from his wife and from his children because somehow it was defiling her lust for this man and his exclusive love for her. Talk about convoluted. But this is happening among Christians. As I was preparing for this program today, just a raft of names, major names in ministry that we have not talked about here on this program before, who have committed fornication, adultery, and who got caught in it over and over and over again.

Major ministries. How is this possible? It's because we either are inventing a fake God, we've forgotten how to blush, or we've learned how to justify sin and excuse it. So again, I welcome you to Viewpoint. I'm Chuck Crismier. It's conversation, as always, with ever-increasing conviction, talk that transforms, and I do believe that today will be no exception.

Now, for those of you that are living in the Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York area, I just want to remind you that we're going to be coming up there on Saturday morning, October 31st, for a breakfast with our listeners there. We've done this many, many times. People look forward to it, and I want you to be able to be part of it. But in order to be part of that breakfast on Saturday morning, October 31st, at the Crestview Country Club in Agawam, Massachusetts, it's going to be necessary for you to make reservations.

How do you do that? You go to our website, saveus.org, and you sign up there. Right there on the home page, sign up for the reservation. Do it today because October 15th is the deadline for signing up. Or you can give us a call at 1-800-SAVEUSA, or you can write to us at Save America Ministries, P.O. Box 70879, Richmond, Virginia 23255. Do it today, friends. Don't delay. October 31st, really looking forward to being able to be with you. It's going to be a very, very moving experience. We'll be right back.

Once upon a time, children could pray and read their Bibles in school. Divorces were practically unknown, as was child abuse. In our once-great America, virginity and chastity were popular virtues, and homosexuality was an abomination. So what happened in just one generation? Hi, I'm Chuck Crismier, and I urge you to join me daily on Viewpoint where we discuss the most challenging issues touching our hearts and homes. Could America's moral slide relate to the Fourth Commandment? Listen to Viewpoint on this radio station or anytime at saveus.org.

There are many things that God is that characterize who he is, his identity, and his character. One, God is love. "Is" is a verb of being, and it links two things together that create an identity between them. God is love. But God also is truth. Jesus is love, therefore, and Jesus is truth. Right? God is merciful, but God also is judgment and justice. He's all of the above. Just like a parent can be both loving and needs to discipline and discern right and wrong and discipline the kids at the same time.

That kind of a parent is feared because the child does wrong. But if the child doesn't do wrong, the parent is not feared in that fashion but has deep respect and reverence by the children. So in actual fact, we've lost the reverence for God. Serving a fake God, we've actually lost the reverence for God. How is that possible? It's possible because we actually have created a fake or counterfeit God, one made in our own image.

Lest you think we're going too far on that, even Time Magazine, April 5th, 1993, had a cover story. On the front cover was a cross and hundreds of images of Americans surrounding the cross. Under the lower right-hand corner were these words: "The generation that forgot God." It was not talking about the generation that was going to forget God. It was talking about the generation that already had forgotten God. And that was just at the very moment that God was moving upon my heart to leave the practice of law at the height of my career to plead his cause in the land as a voice to the church, declaring vision for the nation at the greatest crisis of our time, right here on the near edge of the second coming.

That's exactly the moment when that happened. 1992 and 1993 were the fulcrum years for our estimation of God in America and in the church. So you open the magazine—remember, Time Magazine, a liberal news magazine. Today, they would never carry such a story. But that was April 5th, 1993. The lead article was called "The Church Search." Americans were flooding back to church after Gulf War I. People were afraid. They didn't know what was going to go on with the Gulf War and so on.

It was a very patriotic moment for Americans, and they were putting up yellow ribbons all over the trees and cars and so on. People were flooding back to church. So Time Magazine decided to find out what was perceived by Christian leaders at that time. And here's what was discovered. Americans were flooding back to church, but church would never again be the same. These are the words from Time Magazine: "Church would never again be the same." Why? Because Americans were looking for a custom-made God, one made in their own image.

In other words, it's as if we had been creating a golden calf in America, a golden idol, one that we liked, a new God, a God that we could cuddle up to, a God that would salve our feelings, a God that wasn't interested in holiness and righteousness, but a God who wanted to please us and be our cosmic Santa Claus. A fake God. Interesting. Now, those words are echoing back to us in a series of articles. This one's titled "Are We Inventing a Fake God? Why Reverence Is Dying in the Church."

Just a few excerpts from this article. Many in our world would never reject God outright. Multitudes are content to reinvent him, though. Modern versions of Christianity continue to shrink God to a size that is more manageable to our senses. We prefer a tame deity, one who shows up when we need him because he fancies us the center of the universe. This God is anxious to take his marching orders and eager to remain quiet when we disagree with him.

In other words, we've lost all reverence for God as God. Yet he continued to tell people that he is God and there is none other. Well, if he is God and there is none other, how is it that we have lost reverence for him? The same way Israel did. For 1,500 years, Israel progressively lost the understanding of the God who delivered them from Egypt, the God who said, "I chose you." And so they did not worship the God who they said and admitted God had chosen them.

They wanted to be a chosen people, but they did not want to choose God, not the one who chose them. You see, they wanted a God made in their own image, and so they did that. They worshipped idols, they did various things, and they didn't obey God. And so God would send them prophets. Now, they had priests, but the priests were intimidated by the people, just like pastors and priests are today, intimidated by the people. They want to please the people.

The priests are there to represent the people to God. But God realized that was not sufficient because the priests were not doing the job. They were pleasing the people rather than God. So he sent forth prophets. And the word of the prophet was a word from God to the people. So the prophets represent God to the people; the priests were representing the people to God. The same is true today. So the voice that comes from the true prophet is very different than the voice that comes from the pastor and from the priest.

The pastor and the priest is more prone to pander to the sensibilities of the people, whereas the prophet is only interested in the sensibilities of God who sent them. So the prophets were sent to Israel to correct and introduce the people to the God who had chosen them. But in every single instance, they rejected those prophets. Every single instance. Except for Nineveh, a Gentile people who received the prophet Jonah and repented. But Israel refused to repent.

So then God in his mercy and in his kindness, desiring that no one should perish but that all should come to repentance in the end, sent forth in the fullness of time his only son. Surely, surely they will hear his voice. But as the Scripture says, Jesus came unto his own, yet his own still received him not. But as many as would receive him, to them he gave authority to become the sons of God, even to as many as believed on his name.

This means not only believed who he was but conducted their lives accordingly. In other words, they were transformed, not conformed to this world, but transformed to the kingdom of God where there was a king called God through his son Jesus Christ. Now, that's the history of mankind's response to God, a holy God, a righteous God, who lives, whose throne is holiness and righteousness. In that context, we have this article, "Are We Inventing a Fake God?"

Scripture confronts us with the unrivaled identity of the only true God. The prophetic picture shatters our sentimental preferences. The living God far exceeds the watered-down mascot who cheers our every stubborn ambition, no matter how misguided it might be. Around the throne, we have a picture. Isaiah gives us a picture of the seraphim that flew around the throne, angelic servants. And they sang, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts."

We prefer to speak more casually about the God we serve, eagerly reducing him to the man upstairs or a life coach, or even worse, our co-pilot. But the Scripture says no, he is holy. And Jesus said, as the only begotten son full of grace and truth, "Be ye holy, for I am holy." He doesn't say "Be ye happy, for I am happy." He says, "Be ye holy, for I am holy." The seraphim did not chant, "Love, love, love," even though God is love, nor did they cry, "Merciful, merciful, merciful," even though the Lord delights in mercy.

Instead, they singled out the single attribute that most fully captures God's essence: holiness. Holiness defines God along with all the glory and majesty that accompany him. So if we're going to worship Jesus in spirit and in truth, we're going to have to see him as a holy God requiring holiness in his people that profess to be his followers. Unlike the two worship leaders who said that their primary goal was to worship God, even testified to that on the stand, and through texts, 107,000 texts that were captured and read alive in that trial.

But their will to worship that God didn't match their will to conform to his righteousness and his holiness. So they didn't really believe him. They didn't really believe him because to believe means to conform, to have your life conform to the word, will, and ways of the God who expressed his word, will, and ways. So tragically, our contemporary efforts to rush toward God's love with no mention of his holiness forfeit the very grace that we desperately need.

Yet the greatest testimony of God's compassion for sinners is not his affirmation of our waywardness, but his transformation of our lives. Christ didn't die to save us from nothing, but to rescue us from our vile disobedience so that we might be presented holy and without blame before him on the day of judgment. So you say, "Well, I don't think I've heard this kind of message before." Well, it's very likely you have not because this kind of message used to be a more common message in America 50, 60 years ago, but not today. We've forgotten how to blush, and we've redefined God. So is it possible that we have found a way to actually justify sin?