Mark 12:28-31: Loving Man Without Loving God

INTRODUCTION:

Today we are faced with many causes being promoted as social justice issues and human rights cases.  Many thing today are being done in the name of loving mankind.  Gender equality, with its attempt to consistently apply human rights to gender issues is an attempt to misdirected love, of love without law, of good without God.  Abortion, Euthanasia, no spanking, no fault divorce, and many other things are done in the name of upholding a person’s human rights.  It is done in the name of love.  Christians will view these acts as sinful, as having their source in sinful hearts who are rebelling against God who are under the influence of demonic spirits, and this is true.  But to say this without engaging the motives of the hearts involved will only result in alienation and us losing an opportunity to have a conversation that leads to a meaningful presentation of the gospel.

This message is essential not only for those who do not follow Christ to challenge about the way they have cherry picked from the bible. But this message is also essential for Christians. Many Christians have imbibed the man-centred approved religion of our age and need to be more discerning, but there is another group I want to target as well.  As Christians we can get very angry at the world and in fear, in anger, and frustration we point out the sins.  We can get quite nasty as we go on about how evil and wicked everyone is.  And the bible does teach that we are all sinners. But I am hoping to bring a more realistic appraisal of the thought and policies of our age.  If we appear to be haters who do not see the real problem in society and are merely seen to be pointing an accusing finger without any real understanding of what is driving the modern mind we will make voice irrelevant by confirming prejudices.