Introduction - Deuteronomy 4 reminds us: One God → One Word → One Way of Life.
Before Moses begins to give a practical application of God's law, he gives an extended treatment on why the very nature of God mandates monoculturalism. You could summarize verses 11-40 in three words: monotheism (one God), covenant (one law), and culture (one religion). In our series on Joshua we saw that Israel would (shortly after this book was written) declare an all-out war against the religious pluralism in the land. Keep in mind that God had no problem with the Canaanites in terms of their racial backgrounds. In fact, He saved several of them. But their religion (and the culture that flowed from that religion) would not be allowed within the country. This was not a racial issue. This was a war against any religious ideas that would rob God's people of the liberties given by the Perfect Law of Liberty. God was intent on having a mono-cultural country, which is quite different from mono-racialism - which is sometimes identified with Christian Nationalism. I want to emphasize this upfront because people have grossly misrepresented Moses and Joshua on this point. You could become an Israelite just by converting, getting circumcised, baptized, and embracing the Bible as your touchstone for life. You could. And when God excommunicated apostate Israelites, he refused to treat them as true Jews. Instead , He treated them as pagans. As Paul said in Romans 2:28-29,
Rom. 2:28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; 29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.
And that is exactly what Moses is establishing in the next few verses of Deuteronomy 4. So I've labeled this sermon, "True Monotheism Mandates True Monoculturalism." Or another way of wording it is that when the living God reveals Himself as One, He calls His people to live as one — as a distinct, unified culture shaped by His Word alone. This chapter is as strong a rebuke as you could get to modern America's multiculturalism. True monotheism cannot peacefully coexist with cultural pluralism.
Think of a compass. A compass only works if the needle points to one true north. If the needle wavers, you lose direction. Likewise, a culture without one true center drifts into confusion and fragmentation. So let's dig into the text and see what it says.
The Setting of the Theophany (vv. 11-14) - God Alone Defines the Covenant Culture
In verses 11-14 Moses introduces us to the one true God who defines the covenant culture. Every part of these four verses is critical. Let me read them again:
Deut. 4:11 “Then you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the midst of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness. 12 And the LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form; you only heard a voice. 13 So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. 14 And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might observe them in the land which you cross over to possess.
The invisible God revealed by voice, not image (vv. 11-12)
In verses 11-12 we see that the invisible God was revealed by a voice, not by an image. This implies that the God who is unseen must be known through His Word, not through human imagination. And if this is true, then the Word-centered people of God must build culture on the Bible, not through innovation. Of course, there are competing gods who also claim to impose monoculturalism - like Islam. And it's worthwhile comparing the results.
An immanent God (v. 11a)
Unlike the false god of Islam, our God is immanent. Verse 11 says, "Then you came near..." The true God is immanent, meaning that he is near and His presence is in His creation. He is not only present, but is also very active in His creation.
A transcendent God (v. 11b) - to heaven
But unlike the false god of pantheism (which claims to be near), our God is also transcendent. At the very time that He is in creation, He is far above creation and distinct from creation. Verse 11 goes on to speak of Him burning not only on the earth, but "to the midst of heaven."
Isaiah 57:15 captures the fact that our God is both transcendent and immanent in these words: It says, “For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit…’” As far as you could travel - God is still there - and beyond that “there.” He is before time and in time. He is infinitely transcendent. But He is also immanent and dwells with (and within) those who are humble. This is one of many things that makes the true God unique. And Who you think God is powerfully impacts how you think and act in culture.
Those two doctrines have impacted culture in profoundly transformative ways. And this morning I will only have time to barely introduce you to this concept. The transcendence of God makes our worship be filled with awe and reverence and His immanence enables intimacy with Him. The balance between transcendence and immanence also undergirds and enables science. Since the world is real & rational, it can be studied. What do I mean? Well, since God sustains the world, the entire world has order, arrangement, and purpose. It's not arbitrary where the sun will rise one day, but not on another. Yet, God is not bound by the world's order and He can do miracles any time He chooses - which should give humility to the scientist to not be too dogmatic on what can and cannot happen in God's world. But God's transcendence & immanence even impacts civics. Since God's law is the transcendent authority, His authority cannot be changed, but since it goes to the inner man, personal conscience and liberty is also recognized. Only the Biblical God can bring such perfect balance and harmony.
Contrast that with Islam, which only knows transcendence and the unknowability of their false god. In religion it produces outward legalistic order, but no intimacy. Since Allah's favor is inscrutable, certainty of salvation is unknown and it is very rare for Muslims to speak of divine love. Likewise, since Allah's will is sheer decree, secondary causes cannot be counted on, thus diminishing confidence in science.
Contrast that with Pantheism. In Pantheism, God is so immanent that everything is god, and there is no Creator-Creature distinction. Thus, evil and good become relative since everything is of the same essence. It thus (of necessity) leaves out moral absolutes in culture. The individual dissolves into the cosmic whole, and thus personal responsibility and justice begin to fade away. Pantheism eventually leads to abolition of gender distinctions and some of the other irrational things that are creeping into America's culture. Creation becomes god rather than a theater for God's glory.
Now, some of this might be over some heads. You don’t need to catch it all. That’s Okay. I just wanted to introduce these ideas so that you could see that Deuteronomy is foundational for even worldview - which includes epistemology (how we know anything and can justify our knowledge), metaphysics (the nature of reality), and ethics (what is right and wrong). But let me highlight more symbols in these verses.
A God of fire (v. 11c)
The fire symbolized the fact that our God is a God of judgment - or as Deuteronomy 4:24 and Hebrews 12:29 words it, "our God is a consuming fire." Without protection (which we have in Jesus - praise God!) no man could safely approach God's throne. But the concept of judgment is critical for any society. The false civics of the modern prolife movement doesn't want God's judgments as explained in the Bible - especially capital punishment. His judgments seem too fiery in their opinion. Well, that means that their justice flows from a false god. Our God is a God of fiery judgment. And He doesn't want you to change Him or His justice in order to accommodate our modern culture.
The incomprehensibility of God symbolized by darkness (v. 11d)
On the other hand, His incomprehensibility is symbolized by the fact that God was hidden "with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness." He was hidden. Now, let me clarify - incomprehensibility does not mean we can't know anything about God. Instead, it means that both His being and His knowledge are so vast and infinite that there is no way we could know Him exhaustively. There is much about Him that is hidden. There is much about God that no human mind can fathom. This gives us humility - or at least it should. Of course, our hearts are so prone to pride that we can unwittingly become prideful for even knowing about God's incomprehensibility. But it should produce humility.
The comprehensibility manifested through His revelation (v. 12a)
But His comprehensibility is manifested through His revelation. In verse 12 it says that He speaks. It says, "And the LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire..." What God does reveal about Himself can truly be known and was intended to be studied and understood. And since what God reveals is comprehensible, it motivates humans to think rationally like God thinks.
When a people either lose sight of God’s mystery or deny the possibility of knowing Him, they drift into many different kinds of cultural and moral distortions. Those who embrace the true God, know that truth is not invented; truth is received by revelation. And we can have the utmost confidence in His revealed Word because it is objective truth. But these truths about God produce mystery without skepticism and knowledge without arrogance.
Let me just apply this to epistemology. Stephen Wolfe has way too much confidence in man's innate ability to figure out civics without any recourse to the Bible - which means that he does not have a Reformed epistemology. He claims to be Reformed, but that is not a Reformed epistemology. He thinks you can go to pagan Greek and Roman philosophers to learn much about civics (especially Aristotle and Cicero) and that you can figure out most everything you need to know about justice and the political order through experience, inductive analysis, and so-called natural law without using the Bible as an interpretive lens. He has explicitly denied that you need the Bible as an interpretive lens. In contrast, presuppositionalists (like myself) would say that universal statements made from induction (which is what Stephen Wolfe is all about) are by their very nature logical fallacies. For example, you could examine 1 million zebras and since you have seen no exceptions, conclude that “all zebras are striped.” But earlier this year (2025) they discovered a Zebra that had no stripes. Instead, it was spotted. You see, for an induction to be valid, you have to be omniscient. And you might say, “Why is the statement, ‘All men are mortal,” considered to be a logical fallacy? After all, the Bible itself says that all men are mortal - just like the Greek philosophers said all men are mortal?” But here's the thing - when we derive the statement from Scripture, it is a deduction made from a reliable source, and we believe the statement with certainty because the omniscient God has revealed it to us.
Does this mean that inductions are useless? No. Far from it. We wouldn’t have science without inductions and it would be hard to function in life without inductions. In fact, the Bible shows us the usefulness of induction when it gives us the axioms of probability. (Of course, we got those axioms of probability by deducing them from the Bible, right?) But the point is, they can be useful. The bigger the survey of facts, the more probable of being true that it is. But probability is quite different from certainty. All it takes is one new unusual fact to overthrow the universal statement. Just as one example - if you just look at historical experience of politics (like Stephen Wolfe does), you would have no basis for ever believing that all nations will become Christian nations following God's law. So, if you just follow experience, you will be content to settle for far less than a monocultural Christian nation. But the Bible guarantees that all nations will be given to the Son and will at some point follow His laws. The point is, that when God has revealed His will for planet earth in the Bible, we can take His word for it. It’s not an issue of probability. It is truth itself. Now, I know that this has been a long philosophical rabbit trail, but it is important to understand. Our philosophy of civics must be grounded in the Scripture.
A spiritual God who cannot be contained (v. 12b)
He goes on to say in verse 12, "You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form; you only heard a voice." This speaks about the spiritual nature of God that cannot be contained by an image. Any culture that takes this fact seriously will be a culture that does not think that God can be controlled or manipulated. Your view of God profoundly impacts what kind of culture you produce. This is true even among those who claim to be Christian, but aren't consistent on this point. For example, if you study the cultures produced by the Roman Catholic church (which violates these verses by being filled with images of God and idols), you see increasing control and manipulation of the people by those who are in power. Such centralism and control inescapably flows from their idolatry. For documentation on this, I would encourage you to read Gary North's series of books on Christian Economics, or his book on Genesis called The Dominion Covenant. Or read R. J. Rushdoony's books - like his Survey of World History. Many authors have demonstrated that (unlike Roman Catholic countries) Calvinistic Protestant countries automatically produced liberty, inventions, a work ethic among the population, and confidence coupled with humility in taking dominion of the earth. The moment people try to contain God through images and idols, that culture becomes a controlling and manipulative culture. And I can't get into all the reasons why that is so this morning. I wish I had time to draw out all the implications of this, but I think these introductory principles will be spelled out in much more detail later in the book. So let's move on.
The national covenant defined by God's laws (vv. 13-14)
In verses 13-14, we see that the national covenant was defined by God's revealed laws, not man's laws. This is so important. It says,
13 So He declared to you His covenant [so he is talking about the national covenant - "So He declared to you His covenant] which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. 14 And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might observe them in the land which you cross over to possess.
The covenant is an ethical order
The first thing we see is that the covenant is an ethical worldview that needs to be obeyed. He says, "So He declared to you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform..." The covenant itself must be obeyed. But notice that the rest of that sentence defines the covenant as the Ten Commandments. "So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone." Notice that the covenant equals the Ten Commandments. There is no getting around those words. The covenant establishes an ethical order since the covenant equals the Ten Commandments. If you throw out the Ten Commandments, you are throwing out the covenant itself. And without the covenant, you lack the covenant blessings.
Monotheism is not merely theological - it necessitates moral uniformity
Second, we see that monotheism is not merely a theological concept. It is something that necessitates moral uniformity. What was currently being observed in the land of Canaan? They too had an ethical system, but it was quite different from God's. Every culture has an ethical system, but it is critical that the ethical system constitute God's law revealed in the Bible - not Stephen Wolfe's idea of natural law (which he falsely defines as being quite different from Biblical law). So God's revealed law stood in utter contrast with Canaan's ethical system. Just as an example- where the true God prohibited adultery, Canaan's religious worldview valued adultery. In fact, every temple shrine had prostitutes at the core of their worship. Adultery was an essential part of their religion. And in so many other ways, the ethical culture of Canaan was the polar opposite of what we find in God's law. That's why there could be no peace treaty with Canaan. This means that God was mandating a change 1) in the people who inhabited Canaan, 2) in the worldview that those people held to, 3) and the moral standards for their lives. It would be a comprehensive change in culture.
It may not seem very kind for God to mandate moral uniformity in culture, but think of it this way - imposition of a moral order is inevitable no matter how kind you seek to be. Even the supposedly nice multiculturalism of America mandates its multiculturalism. It is really at war with God's laws, and the more consistent that Americans become with their multiculturalism, the more they will persecute those who disagree. We have already been seeing them trying to impose their multiculturalism through agencies, courts, and schools. They even do it via language and redefining terms in modern dictionaries. Just compare definitions of words in modern dictionaries with those in dictionaries from fifty years ago. They relabel virtue as bigotry, the Gospel as hate speech, binary definitions of male-female as intolerance, etc. But the culture wars go beyond that since people can also get fired from jobs, fined, sued, or booed out of a place if they hold to God's standards. And you might wonder, “Why?” You would think that multiculturalists could put up with anything and anyone (including us), but no, they can't put up with monoculturalists because they intuitively know that the two approaches to culture are incompatible with each other and are at war with each other. And Christians need to wake up and recognize this reality. We Christians tend to be naive on the reasons for these culture wars. There can be no peace-treaty with multiculturalism. This chapter will show that nothing but regeneration and the inward sanctification by the Holy Spirit will be able to change a culture or to sustain the true monoculturalism of the Bible. We are either daily pressing into God and His purposes or we are drifting away. And we will especially look at that aspect of drifting away next week. Next week's passage explains a lot of what has been happening in America.
The enduring character of the law symbolized by tablets of stone
But back to our text, the enduring character of the law is symbolized by putting the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone. That's such a beautiful symbol of the enduring character of God's moral law. Just as God does not change, His morals do not change. They are etched in stone. Every one of the ten commandments endures - including the Sabbath. So, for those of you who are not Sabbatarian, you need to realize that you have declared war on God's monoculturalism and therefore on His covenant. I'm not kidding. The Sabbath is at the heart of the covenant, and some of you are sabbath breakers. Sorry, but that is the truth of the matter. Jesus said of the Old Testament law that until heaven and earth passed away, every jot and tittle of the moral law would continue to be binding, and whoever broke one of the least of the Old Testament commandments and taught men to do so would be considered least in the kingdom of heaven. It means that God considers some of you to be least in the kingdom of heaven. It's not that you lose salvation when you break the Sabbath, but the more you ignore God’s laws, the less positive impact you will have on culture. Your significance will be considered least in the kingdom. You are not valuing His kingdom purposes.
Anyway, the abiding nature of God's law is also shown in verse 14, where Moses teaches them the statutes and judgments so that they would continue to keep them long after Moses died and long after they were in possession of the land. But the stone tablets symbolize the enduring nature of God's revealed law.
One God → one law → one moral culture. Keeping the one law of the one God is the means of maintaining cultural preservation.
And as the next point expresses it, one God means one law, which means one moral culture. Verse 12 shows that at the heart of the covenant was the ten commandments. Those ten commandments are the foundation for all of God's laws. And to see how God's law is the source of liberty, and creativity, and dominion, think of a symphony orchestra. Each instrument in the orchestra is different, but all follow one score under one conductor. Likewise, Israel’s social harmony came from one moral score — God’s commandments. But God's law was beautifully given in such a way that it actually preserves the diversity of gifts, callings, racial background, creativity, and dominion that you find in Israel's culture. And it does so by having all the diverse instruments of the metaphorical orchestra play from the same musical score of the Bible. God's monoculturalism actually increases the value of the diversity of gifts, callings, racial background, etc. It's a unified symphony that values all the parts and pieces of the orchestra.
But I think this is as good a place as any to at least introduce you to the idea of the difference between the ten commandments and the case laws that He is going to lay down later in this book. He didn’t write the case laws on stone; only the Ten Commandments. Why is it that the Ten Commandments endure forever, whereas some case laws were only for a specific time? The difference has to do with the core enduring ethical principles illustrated in each case law, and the changing human circumstances to which those moral laws were being applied. The ten commandments are always applicable and are to be obeyed in all situations. They are the essence of God's law. But in order to illustrate to us how to apply those laws to new situations that arise, God gave enough case laws to show how His ethical system can inform every generation and every country. So, even though some case laws were applications of the moral law to very unique situations in Israel, each case law continues to be binding in its moral intent even if the situational aspect may not correspond to our situational circumstances.
Now, that may seem too theoretical, so let me flesh it out in a more practical way. Here's how the Westminster Confession of Faith worded it. It says, "To them also, as a body politic, He gave sundry [or a few] judicial laws, which expired together with the state of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require" (WCF 19:4). Notice that the Westminster Confession insists that there is still a requirement that continues to be binding in each judicial case law, even the few that no longer woodenly apply. But the ethical requirement embedded in the case law needs to be applied with wisdom to the new historical circumstances that arise. For example, if a given culture that doesn't currently have flat roofs on which people sleep, party, and eat, the parapet law that required a rail or parapet around the roof to keep people from falling off would make no sense if we woodenly applied it - like some Eastern countries sincerely (but woodenly) applied that law when they put decorative but useless parapets around each of their steep-pitched roofs. Now, I appreciate their heart. They were trying to obey God's law. But those decorative parapets served no useful purpose because they are ignoring the intent of the parapet law. That's the point. But that doesn't mean the parapet law is irrelevant. It's still a very important case law with applications in every nation in every era. But in order to stay true to the heart of the ten commandments, such case laws will need to be thought through and properly applied to new circumstances where we are faced with new dangers - such as a fence around pools, or a fence at a dangerous industrial site.
This is why God starts His discussion of ethical monoculturalism by first of all listing the ten commandments in chapter 5, and then the rest of the book takes each of those ten commandments in the order that they were given, and gives case laws to illustrate how to apply the Ten Commandments to any situations of life that humans might face. But those are simply illustrations of how to apply God's law. If you don't plow your fields using animals, the case law prohibiting the unequal yoking of animals (and the cruelty to animals that might result), might not be something you will need to live out. Now, in Ethiopia, where I grew up, people would still need to literally apply that law. But even if you don't plow with animals (like the Ethiopians do), that case law shows that God's care for animals continues to endure, and therefore God's general equity requirement that was embedded in that case law will still insist that we need to be considerate to animals today as well. And beyond that, 1 Corinthians 9:7-11 shows how to use that case law to apply the same principle to situations that don't involve animals - such as not getting married to an unbeliever. And by the way, that is a case law that is not a civil law. Case laws apply to every area of life, not just civics. So don't assume that every case law is a civic law. It isn't.
But the main point is that the covenant is the Ten Commandments. Without law, you don't have a covenant. The idea is that One God = One Covenant = One Moral Order. True monotheism rejects moral relativism and establishes a unified culture of obedience. The only way to preserve the early Christian culture found in several of the early American colonies is for America to turn back to God, to his law, and to His covenant.
The Peril of Idolatry (vv. 15–24) — Cultural Pluralism
In verses 15-24 there is a fast-paced discussion of the perils of idolatry and how it leads to cultural pluralism. We will go through it fairly quickly by looking at three expressions of antithesis.
Antithesis between the uncreated God of Israel and the created gods of pagan cultures (vv. 15-18)
First, in verses 15-18 there is the antithesis between the uncreated God of Israel and the created gods of pagan cultures. And why anyone would worship a god that was made with their own hands is a mystery, but it happens all the time. Even Aaron, the brother of Moses, built a calf and said, "This is your god who brought you out of Egypt." Really!?? That's crazy. You just made that calf. Now he no doubt thought that he wasn't rejecting Yehowah. The problem was that he was redefining Yehowah and making Yehowah into something they could carry around, manage, and control. Perhaps they thought it was simply helpful imagery to make God more concrete, but it was really bad theology made visible. Anyway, verses 15-18 say,
Deut. 4:15 “Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, 16 lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, 18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth.
God did not want to be likened to any creaturely figure because it automatically lowers God's transcendence in the minds of humans. No image of God can be made. And if you have images of God in your books, you need to either cover those images up, cut those pages out, or throw the book away. Imagery can so easily influence our children to have a degraded view of God. That's why I don't watch Bible movies that portray any of the three Persons of the Godhead - including Jesus as the God-Man. Now, I've had people tell me, "Hey! I'm only picturing Jesus as to His manhood, not His deity." And my response is, , "Well, that's a problem. That means that you are misrepresenting Him as a Person, since He is not just a Man." God insists that we must have a total antithesis between God and anything conjured up in our own imagination. God does not want to be redefined. This is absolutely essential to true monoculturalism.
Antithesis between the Creator and creation (vv. 19-20)
God also wants a complete antithesis between Him as Creator and His creation. Verses 19-20 say,
Deut. 4:19 And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the LORD your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage. 20 But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be His people, an inheritance, as you are this day.
And I do want to point out that point A often quickly transitions into point B. Let me illustrate. In Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy the first point began to be violated after a millennium of following God's law. But what eventually happened? Over time they began actually worshiping the icons themselves, kissing the icons, and adoring the icons, thus violating point B as well. The created images began to be worshiped. Then over time, it got worse since Mary and saints began to be venerated - which is just a form of worship. But is that any different from paganism, which worships the sun, moon, and stars as representatives of God? No. It is not.
Moses points out that where pagan cultures orbit around created objects, God's culture orbits around the invisible God and His revealed redemption and law. Let me repeat that: Moses points out that where pagan cultures orbit around created objects, God's culture orbits around the invisible God and His revealed redemption and law. Every culture has a center of gravity. For Babylon, it was the ziggurat. For Greece it was the human form. For Rome, it was power and order - especially as seen in the state. For Israel, it was the Ark of the Covenant - a simple wooden box that contained the Word of God under the Mercy Seat (representing redemption). God's Word lived out by grace was the center of gravity around which everything in life was to orbit.
Antithesis between loyalty to God and all compromise (vv. 21-24)
The last antithesis that God sets up was an antithesis between loyalty to God and loyalty to something else. Verses 21-24 say,
Deut. 4:21 Furthermore the LORD was angry with me for your sakes, and swore that I would not cross over the Jordan, and that I would not enter the good land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance. 22 But I must die in this land, I must not cross over the Jordan; but you shall cross over and possess that good land. 23 Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which the LORD your God has forbidden you. 24 For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
In verse 21, God disciplined Moses himself to prove that God tolerates no deviation from His Word - even if you are following a very respectable leader - it doesn't matter. God doesn’t want you to be loyal to your leaders; He wants you to be loyal to His Word. We looked at that in the last verses of chapter 3. But Moses points out that anyone who blurs the antithesis between Creator and creature through blind loyalty to man, political parties, or heroes faces a jealous God - a God who is a consuming fire against all idolatry. A society's survival depends upon guarding the exclusivity of its worship. Just as a loving husband will jealously guard his marriage from intruders, God jealously guards His people from adulterous alliances with false gods.
That's as far as we will be able to get today. But I think I have given you plenty of fodder to chew on and to discuss with each other over lunch. This sermon explains why culture wars are inevitable. People don't want to call abortion murder (as God's Word insists it must be called). Instead, they try to do away with some abortions (falsely implying that others are not as serious) and since they don't like God's just punishment for abortion, they reject God's judgments as well - even though those judgments are part and parcel of His law. That is a counterfeit mercy and a counterfeit justice. God's mercy seat was always consistent with the law that was inside the mercy seat (or ark of the covenant). God’s grace and law are both hated by multiculturalists because they want their own version of mercy and law. But they won't be very merciful with you when push comes to shove - not at all! Historically, multiculturalists have always tried to maintain a facade of tolerance. But it is simply a facade. They can tolerate anything except for the mercy and law of God. So multiculturalists have always eventually persecuted monoculturalists. Don't be surprised by this. Culture Wars are inevitable if we are faithful to God's covenant. And I would urge you to be be faithful to God's covenant definition of God, mercy, and law in your culture wars. May it be so, Lord Jesus. Amen.