Why works righteousness just fails and fails badly, given recent examples of it!

 Post originally created in 2016:

The Topic of Law and Legalism came up in the Christian Bloggers Group today - https://www.facebook.com/groups/13679025366/permalink/10157663522280367/ I made some initial replies, but then had this reply to this later comment in the conversation: Gary Robokoff Romans 14:1-23 As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. ... My REPLY was:

This also becomes cultural. I remember some Christian Churches in Switzerland once upon a time were against drinking Coca Cola because of the phrase "Coke is it!" believing the phrase to be idolatrous. Then my friends in college had a brother in Swaziland South Africa where the Native women went topless, but if his missionary brother's wife were to wear a pair of pants, in that culture only prostitutes wore pants, so the missionary's wife could have gone topless in that culture offending no one, but a pair of pants would brand her a prostitute. Then I attended the Church of the Nazarene and was a member from 1978-2002, until I became a Church of God associate Pastor and now currently a member of the local Baptist Church. Nazarenes like other holiness and Pentecostal Churches often had special rules that again were cultural. Early Holiness Churches had admonition against their members smoking, drinking alcohol, dancing, wearing jewelry, and makeup and women were not allowed to cut their hair. In time the stance against makeup changed in most holiness Churches, and the problem was in early America, it was expensive and only prostitutes wore it, much like they wear pants in South Africa. However, industrious traders and makers of make up for women soon, made it cheaper, so the common house wife could afford it, and early catalogs and salesmen soon began selling it house to house, not just to the wealthy who could afford it, and jewelry too became cheaper. In Western Society, very few Churches will judge women for wearing make up, jewelry, or for cutting their hair. Then the problem becomes works righteousness, for many preachers who lived during the days of no makeup, no jewelry, no long hairs for their wives, then turned around and elected Bill Clinton not once, but TWICE to office. See they ignored his infidelity and affairs and bad business practices because they were upset with George Bush 41 for going to war in the Middle East (and stopping Saddam Hussein from finishing his atomic bomb), and so they called him a murdering warmonger, and elected Bill Clinton in his place because Bill's righteousness was so much better than Bush. Then Bill went and had the FBI slaughter people at Waco, and did away with decency standards on TV, and allowed pornographic video stores and Girls Gone Wild videos to be shown at 9pm EST on the TV, and they still voted for him a second time, and then later we would learn about Monica Lewinsky and the validated claims of the women who said they were harassed and raped by Bill, but hey those Preachers stopped that murderous George Bush from having a second term and making sure Clinton stayed in office a second term because his righteousness was so much better than Bush 41. Then we learned while Bill was distracted by the affair with Monica, he passed on the Sudanese offer in 1996 to hand over Osama Bid Laden and al-Qaeda saying he had no justification when the WTC was attacked by al-Qaeda in 1993 and we had the Black Hawk Down incident in Somalia in 1993 at the same time, and that led to 9/11. As Christians, we do not want to be under law, for the penalty for breaking the OT Covenant is death, with no redemption. As perfect as we may try to walk, such as those Holiness Preachers from the days of no makeup, jewelry, or long hair for their wives, they really messed up in voting in Bill Clinton and dismissing his unrepentant sinful nature, and they brought about great sin by bringing pornography onto the TV screen later at night, making it harder for young Christian men to have to live under that they never had in their youth. The results have been disastrous with 128 STDs, 1 in 3 Americans with an STD according to our own CDC, 1% of homosexuals causing 83% of syphilis cases in this country, and on and on, and on. Yet these same preachers want to condemn anyone voting for Trump when James Dobson says he is a baby Christian who has just come to faith in the recent past, and so they kick the wounded while they are down instead of helping them up. paraclatos/parakletos - counselor/comforter are poor translations - NT GREEK - One who comes alongside to help - the imagery is of a parent holding a toddler's hand and helping their child learn to walk. This is what Jesus promised grown men he chose as his disciples when he promised he would not leave them as orphans. We have to praise Jesus for the New Covenant of Grace, so we can come before God when we stumble and mess up, and learn to walk anew day by day. The Holy Spirit does not kick the wounded toddler of time that is born anew of the Spirit, but when that child falls, it seeks to pick them back up, provided that child has enough humility to admit its righteousness is but filthy rags and to take the hand of the great Heavenly Parent who can pick the child up and clean them up too, and learn once again to walk anew, be born anew, and this is a daily task. None of us are at completion.