One of the most powerful lines in a film that I ever heard
was when Cate Blanchett’s character, Galadriel, narrates the beginning of the
first Lord of the Rings film. She says, “… Nine rings were gifted to the race
of men, who, above all else, desire power.” Now we understand that this is
fiction, but words on paper and produced on screen are powerful mediums that
influence people whether they admit it or not. Note how men were gifted rings
of power. Like all gifts, they have to originate somewhere, as nothing cannot
produce something. But why is power such a fundamental desire in mankind? When
one looks at the history of the world, all rights & wrongs are based in a
world of governmental order & authority to varying degrees of success, but
eventually all ending in collapse. If all ends in failure, why does mankind
hope? Atheism is a belief system telling one that hope is fruitless. Without an
origin for morality outside of mankind, each demographic, race, and sex will
decide its own future and that future will most certainly come at the expense
of another. This is why the survival-of-the fittest mentality is so prevalent
in atheism even if atheists do not necessarily espouse evolution. Said ideology has nothing left to which it can cling to other than a Creator God, which they [atheists] summarily dismiss.
The outcry
in today’s Western civilizations has become apparent even to the untrained eye.
Humanity’s economic woes, evil at the expense of others, sicknesses, and
natural calamities on massive scales have all become the norm as people make
light of an expected WWIII, so-to-speak, in casual conversation. However, these
are all “symptoms” without so much as a word, from our ever-imposing, but very
influential mass media, on the root cause. Oscar Wilde, the renowned
playwright, who was imprisoned for homosexuality, even with young boys, in
Victorian England, wrote some of his most powerful works at the end of his life
when he was imprisoned for sodomy. In his suffering, he cried out to God and he
came to the realization of his sinful nature and what his pursuit of pleasure
cost him. Ravi Zacharias elaborates, “Prime Minister Konoye of Japan, who
committed suicide after his role in the Second World War, is a fitting
reminder. On his night table was Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis, The words he had underlined read, ‘As terrible as it
was what I had done to others, nothing was more terrible than what I had done
to myself.’”
Like Oscar
Wilde, we have grown comfortable in our everyday lives dismissing as common
practice or even human nature what God has deemed sinful. Not strictly speaking
on sex, but even in our daily lives, a devotional life toward self and not
toward God only promotes an atheistic lifestyle to others when we claim to be
Christians. This is why, when we do pursue the Lord, those around us grow
uncomfortable with how to approach us, even in small talk. It is not the
God-pursuing Christian that bothers them, but the conviction of the Holy Spirit
that prompts them. I am reminded of the great evangelist Smith Wigglesworth,
who drew people to repentance simply by being in their presence. As one reads
this from an outside perspective, they may dismiss these writings as those of a
Christian belief and that is only one of many religions. Yet, in our
pluralistic culture where any belief is encouraged, it is interesting that
Christianity is the one so heavily critiqued. One piece of commentary I saw
after the Martin/Zimmerman trial was that everyone on Facebook had suddenly
become lawyers. So true is this kind of thinking in terms of understanding the
Bible and the notion of truth. People dismiss the Bible as a racist, sexist,
homophobic piece of simplistic literature where the God of the Old Testament is
cruel and the God of the New Testament was just a good teacher. Yet, when one
is presented with all the words of Jesus, one can find that they compliment the
Old Testament in a miraculous way that only a miraculous God could have
presented. The Bible is made of sixty-six books, written by multiple authors,
establishing one narrative: God’s kingdom established on earth. Note how the
God of the Old Testament continually woos the children of Israel back to Him
after His justice has been served. Note that the story of Ruth shows God’s mercy
while the Book of Esther never actually mentions the word, “God,” but shows his
divine intervention into humanity’s affairs. Note how Eve’s eyes were not open
to her sin after she ate the fruit, but only when Adam ate after her, did they
both realize their nakedness and hid themselves. Adam could have spiritually
covered his wife’s sin by rebuking the serpent and not eating the fruit. Even
in perfection, the husband was to be the wife’s covering. She was never to be in submission as
a servant or slave, but in the authoritative structure ordained by God.
By not
accepting the supernatural along with the natural, we have relegated our
society to the depths of despair mocking the very notions of hope & truth. In
Ravi Zacharias’ powerful book, Deliver Us
From Evil, he refers to C.S. Lewis’ classic work, The Abolition of Man. “But alas! What have we done to ourselves? We
have told a generation that science is real and therefore the human brain is
real. We have told them that food is real and therefore our stomachs are real.
But we have told them that good and bad do not exist and therefore our emotions
have nothing to do with reality. In effect we have produced a generation of
‘men with brains and men with stomachs. Men with no heart. Men without chests.’
Now as we witness wickedness at its worst we wonder how the criminal could be
so heartless. ‘In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without
chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are
shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings
[castrated animals] be fruitful.’”
As I then decided to open up my own copy of The Abolition of Man to read on, I found the compelling argument,
which definitely needs to be reiterated in Western societies. Lewis refers to
Natural Law as not being “one among a series of possible systems of value. It
is the sole source of value judgments. If it is rejected, all value is
rejected.” Natural Law, like any law had to originate with a Creator. The idea
that biblical morality is traditional, or dare I say, conservative is because
conservatism is defined as holding to traditional values. Thus, American law
traditionally stood upon the Bible as its chief source of influence. Yet our secularizing of biblically based
American culture means focusing on a different "ethic." As Lewis further
elaborates, “The Nietzschean ethic [God is dead] can be accepted only if we are
ready to scrap traditional morals as a mere error and then to put ourselves in
a position where we can find no ground for any value judgments at all.” In
accepting the secularization of the culture as a whole, misuse of the Bible to
oppress others actually gets replaced entirely as atheism enslaves the minds of
the people. Putting focus upon mankind instead of God allows for the hope to be
seen in the present instead of faith in God for an unseen hope in the future.
However, atheism breeds despair not hope. Evidence of this can clearly be seen
across the globe where atheism breeds socialism and inevitably, communism.
People discuss the horrors of the African slave trade and yet they do not know that
its very existence can clearly be seen as starkly contrasting what the Bible
says on slavery [I refer to my researched “Revolution” blog post as well as The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Bible
by Robert J. Hutchinson]. Yet, one wonders if anyone has read of the
horrors that Communism wrought throughout Russia and Eastern Europe post-WWII.
Richard Wurmbrand wrote that the horrors that the Nazis brought, he felt God
used to prepare them for what was to come after that. In fact, in all his years
in Russian imprisonment, witness to horrific tortures, rape, and murder, none
of it can be justified, to be immoral, outside of a moral Creator God. It is
survival-of-the-fittest coming to fruition. It does not care what skin color it
persecutes, but it will seemingly use it to its advantage. The Bible says that
the thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. How
fitting that in a secularized world, we have seen our definition of the removal of slavery [only through Christian influence], but we have aborted millions upon millions
of future generations, which through our reasoning, were redefined, as humanity
is wont to do when pleasing self, not God. The sex trade becomes more and more
prevalent in secularized nations, subjecting the woman to the evils of sexual
desire outside of God’s plan for the marriage bed. We’ve told the black race in
America he/she is now equal, yet one look at how they’re treated shows no trace
of Christian influence, but an atheistic focus has kept them enslaved to men
who desire power above all else. One can Google the pdf file, “Democrats and Republicans: In Their Own Words A 124 Year History
of Major Civil Rights Efforts Based on a Side-by-Side Comparison of the Early
Platforms of the Two Major Political Parties,” not because of the Republican party having a moral high
ground, but because there was always a focus on persecution that can only be demonically influenced [The conservatism of the Republican party is not always
biblically based, but that is another discussion]. To say one is racist only
focuses on the outward manifestation, the symptom, when the Bible says that the Lord looks at
the heart or the root cause. A few years back, I remember a French pastor saying that the true
Church in France, which was very small, was heavily the work of Africans who
moved to France. Something about the worship I have witnessed, in African style
worship, is something that is not necessarily recognizable to the white American, but their worship does show that God pulls
leadership from all walks of life and worship is one area where the African is blessed & blesses. How sad that reports have gone out of God sending Africans today
to the United States as missionaries [which itself shows God's grace] when our nation was to be that City
on a Hill and has sent out missionaries on a grand scale only to ultimately allow our own nation to crumble from within as President Reagan lamented in the past.
However, in
all of this, there lies a glimmer of hope amidst despair. God still reveals
himself to mankind. The calamity around us should encourage us to read The
Book of Revelation. True worshipers understand the need for a life of devotion
to God and not self. When our thoughts are for those around us and not
ourselves, we begin ministering first to our spouses & children, to those
around us at work or school, and the love of Jesus Christ will inevitably transcend racial
lines amidst a corrupted secularized nation. If God did not continue to reveal
himself, hope would be lost and yet, Jesus said to preach the gospel to all
creation. God continues to woo his people just as he did in the Old Testament.
When the Holy Spirit reveals Jesus to the unsaved, they are to be discipled and
then to disciple. This is why it is fruitless to be caught up in the cares of
the world, even though they bombard us every day. Each person has a destiny in
God, which is why we hope and also why abortion is morally wrong…, because we
understand it to be so from a biblical perspective. It is why we men are to love our wives as Christ loved the Church. It is also why slavery was always a
contradiction that should never have been imposed upon America. As the Declaration
reads, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator…” Peter Marshall’s excellent historical
critique on where they went wrong submitting to the negation of abolition can
be found in his work, From Sea to Shining
Sea. That being said, Gandalf can summarize more eloquently than I when he
says, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
