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Two experiments Part 1: In man we trusted Part 2. In God I now trust By Don Hank - July 13, 2012 “...unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." Luke 13:3, 5 |
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Part 1: Results: Failure
If we were to be honest with ourselves for just a brief moment, we would admit that Western society is deeply sinful. It even worships sin, celebrating with carnivals and gay parades, and teaching young children how to perform sex acts in schools. And of course, the Western world routinely commits infanticide. Romans 1:25 accurately describes the Western world (Paul uses homosexuals as an example but this issue ranges far wider than that):"Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen." (Romans 1:25)
The end of that discourse on sinners describes the outcome.
"...men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet." Romans 1:25)
A graphic depiction of some of that recompense for this particular group of sinners can be found here. I referenced that site in my commentary “The recompense of their error.”
So why do people deliberately engage in self-destructive practices that our superior intelligence should be telling us to avoid for the purposes of self preservation? Or for that matter, why do they pursue Keynesian economics -- amassing mountains of debt that no one could ever repay -- in a headlong rush to destroy our economy, our means of survival? No animal species would do that.
The answer is right there in Paul's discourse. This is the part Christians need to focus on when examining the failure of Western society to manage its laws, its immigration, its social ills, its finances and economy, its moral code, etc:
"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts." (Romans 1:26)
Did you ever consider what that means?
It was GOD'S doing. Paul is talking about people who worship nature instead of the Creator. Why would people who once worshipped nature turn around and do something unnatural, as Paul calls this behavior in this same passage?
A person analyzing this without spiritual discernment would say it makes no sense and would be at a loss to explain it in rational terms. Some spiritually blind (but otherwise very intelligent) analysts say that for this reason, Paul couldn't really have meant "unnatural" when describing this behavior, and they therefore tamper with the translation from the original Greek to make it say something else. (They forget that in the 4th Century, Jerome, a fluent speaker of koine Greek, rendered this term as “contra naturam” in his Vulgate Latin Bible).
The fact is, God allows people to do the unnatural—committing acts outside the laws of nature that can’t be explained by any scientific (e.g., psychological) laws—all the time. Once you turn your back on God, He abandons you and you fall into a behavior pattern designed by Satan. There is nothing natural about sinful behavior because it was not designed by God. If it is not natural, then is it supernatural?
No, it is not. Since God performs supernatural works—that is, works above nature—then Satan’s works might best be considered as infranatural, or below nature. An animal would not destroy its own habitat and economy the way humans are now doing. Nor would an animal devote itself almost solely to the pursuit of sex, especially homosex, the way many humans do. (Although homosexuality is known in the animal kingdom, there are no known strictly homosexual animal individuals that eschew all individuals of the opposite sex).
These infranatural phenomena are exactly why we face an imminent worldwide economic collapse. Economists, supposedly specialists in math, no longer "do math." Likewise, otherwise educated people who understand human anatomy deliberately and routinely utilize as an inlet a bodily organ designed as an outlet, a lifestyle that leads to horrific diseases and death (see here).
Just think: GOD facilitates this. Because people stopped trusting in Him and thought they could come up with their own answers. Look around you. How do you like the results of Western secularist, humanist political, economic, social, etc, behavior? Vote for either candidate and you will get more of the same. Look at Europe, an entire continent that thinks it is smarter than God is now drowning in debt and fighting for its economic life. If this is not sufficient evidence of the God that Paul describes, i.e., a God who deprives disobedient humans of their cognitive faculties, then I can’t imagine what is.
This is why the West does not need more laws or a better government.
It needs a spiritual revival. And that revival will not happen without Westerners accepting the love and forgiveness that Jesus taught and making an attempt to do what is morally right as dictated by our own God-given conscience. Americans, including the best and otherwise most civil and decent of us, are beating each other up because we think this is about people or the lack of wisdom of individuals or leaders. If people do this or that, or if we make this or that law or elect this or that politician, then we can get back on track. How can this group or that group be so stupid, they say?
But again, they ignore Paul's words, recorded in another letter of his:
"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (Ephesians 6:12)
If you think this is too lofty and ethereal to relate to your life and the world around you, consider this article on John Maynard Keynes, the author of our current failed economic system (bailouts and other government intervention that kill free enterprise were his brain child):http://www.keynesatharvard.org/book/KeynesatHarvard-ch09.html
If we take to heart Paul’s message in Romans 1:25-27, we can easily see it was no coincidence that Keynes was both a sexual pervert (pedophile, homosexual, etc) and the author of the most perverted economic system known to humankind.
Two experiments
Part 2. In God I now trust
Don Hank
Results: Real hope and change
As I have tried to show in the previous commentary, sin pervades every aspect of Western life, including the inhabitants’ very ability to survive as individuals and as nations.
Yes, what I have described is just a theory, but it is more than that. I have pointed to a situation you are aware of. I have shown what happens when human beings, God’s creations, turn their backs on the Creator. These were the results of a real experiment that failed.
However, I have not attempted in that commentary to show the opposite: what happens when fallen men and women hit bottom, at the end of a downward economic spiral with nowhere to go and nothing to eat.
I have not yet shown that side, partly because it hasn’t happened yet. But intelligent people who read the economics page of the newspaper know it is coming. When it does, you will have the opportunity to try that other experiment. (Of course, it would be good to try it now, but most minds don’t operate that way, unfortunately.)
How?
Simply by bowing your head and dropping to your knees the moment you realize the utter helplessness of your situation and that of your nation, the moment you know that as things are going now, if no one or nothing intervenes there is no reason under the sun for you to put one foot ahead of the other and keep going on with life. This is the moment when some commit suicide or hit the bottle hard. But instead, I beg you to try this experiment: pray the sinner’s prayer, in tears and agony, but above all, in faith. Go ahead. You'd have been too embarrassed before, but now there is nothing left:
Lord, despite all the “scientific” buzz aimed to make me believe You are dead, I now know You are alive and that it was you who brought me to this utterly hopeless state. I know it because there could be no scientific explanation for what is happening in the world. Only Paul's words
"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts"
could possibly explain the utter depravity of people all around me -- and my own depravity -- who have destroyed my world. I know that I am a sinner and that I can never get to heaven on my own.
I have been rebellious, arrogant, selfish and hard hearted. I didn’t care that others were suffering. I didn’t forgive my neighbors for the way they hurt me. I, an able bodied adult, whined like a simpering baby and demanded "my" rights as though I had been the only person on the planet who had rights.
And worse yet, I hurt others in the same way, wretched hypocrite that I am. I have watched my world slowly crumble under the weight of my own selfishness and my own utter lack of empathy.
But I know that you have the power to save me through the shed blood of Jesus and change my heart and the way I think and feel--to fill me with love for humans just as wretched and selfish as I have been. I have no idea what is going to happen now. But with you as my Friend, I am unafraid.
I know you won’t give me an easy life and I don’t ask for one. I ask instead for a burden, a cross to bear for You, knowing how many others are suffering all around me with a sense of godless loneliness. Give me the wisdom to reach them with the message I have received.
I know you won’t necessarily put money in my pocket or bread in my cupboard. But you will give me the wisdom to deal with hardships through love.
Thank you for loving me. Help me, oh God, to help others to find you as I have found you. I trust that one after another we will rebuild our civilization. This time we will get it right. We won’t forget you. Please, give us another chance, not for my sake but for the sake of my family, my friends, my kids, and especially for Your sake.
In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
And then? Put one foot ahead of the other, in contrite recognition and gratitude toward your Savior and never ever look back. That man or woman who was standing there where you bowed is dead. You are a new person in Christ Jesus. Believe it with all your heart, because you have nothing else to believe in. Love Him as He loves you.
When you falter, as you are sure to do, pick yourself up again. And again. You are now the master of your own destiny because for the first time in your life, you have accepted the responsibility for your actions. And more importantly, you are not alone. You never need be alone again.
"Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my thoughts;
And see if there is any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting."Psalm 139:23-2
Don Hank's email: zoilandon@msn.com | Website: http://laiglesforum.com
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