Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears. (Hebrews 12:14-17, NKJV).
My heart goes out to those young people coming of age in the world today, and to the children who come after them.
While the planet is not facing all out war, or imminent manmade annihilation (yet), as it did in the previous century with World War II and the Cold War, it is facing pervasive global economic collapse that will likely result in widespread chaos and anarchy.
This can already be seen in Greece and France, with Entitlement Riots undermining civic order and the financial stability of whole populations, and the trend lines showing more of this (and worse) to come.
The U.S. may have a few years left, depending on the outcome of the next Presidential election, but even that is likely to be a reprieve, not a resolution.
Much of the outward collapse can be traced to an inward moral collapse. The priorities and values of modern societies, particularly in the West, serve to destroy, rather than strengthen the foundation needed for peaceful living and a future based on realistic, rather than delusional, hope.
The evidence is everywhere and undeniable.
Young people in the West are being propagandized with moral relativism and situational ethics. They are being spoon fed a deceitful gruel that says there are no absolutes, nothing is of intrinsic value, and self-worth is based on how "awesome" the experiences of momentary joy or satisfaction prove to be.
This is a recipe for personal implosion and existential disaster, especially in the face of the impending crises looming over the horizon. We are growing a generation fed on substitutes rather than the real things that nourish and make life worth living, and when the facade inevitably crumbles, so too will those young lives, and the society that was meant to sustain them.
Without a desire for holiness - that substantive quality that drives men and women to do right and to be godly, even at great personal cost - there can be no lasting peace and security. When the underlying priority is to be "awesome" in the ways of the world, eventually and inevitably, disappointment and disillusion result.
The young man coming up in the world provided with all the accoutrements of a pleasant life by good fortune and affluent parents, suddenly finds himself faced with the crushing weight of reality when those ephemeral supports dissolve under insurmountable debt and hardship.
Where does he turn? To his lightweight college degree? He is one of a million, equally trained and bereft of employment prospects desperately searching for a sustainable income. Does he look to enter a real trade? For most youth today, that is an alien concept.
Does he look to his family? Tragically, the vast majority of traditional families today are one-generational. Extended multigenerational families are virtually nonexistent, and these are being dissolved by the same forces of relative morality impacting society as a whole. Consequently, the young man finds himself unsupported and ill-equipped to cope with the hard realities of life without hope.
If he survives at all in this amoral environment, he embarks on either one or another of two paths: cynical opportunism, or ruthless despair.
The first course leads to unprincipled usury and manipulation. Other people become objects to be used and/or discarded; means to an end. Relationships devolve into crass, superficial entities that are maintained only as long as they render some kind of return on investment.
When that is no longer the case, when these are deemed unworthy of the time and effort needed to sustain them, the relationships are thrown away, like toxic medical waste, or aborted body parts - with the consequences and broken hearts be damned.
The second course, ruthless despair, leads to barbarism and sadistic cruelty. Sometimes this takes the form of outright criminal behavior and violent crime. At others, it manifests itself more subtly, with conscious slander, and what has been termed the "politics of personal destruction". In every case, the empowering motive energizing the destructive behavior is rage born of utter hopelessness.
It is no wonder why the statistical suicide rate among young people in this country and Europe is the highest it has ever been. Crisis itself is not the cause. As a nation, we have faced existential crises in the past and have risen to overcome the seemingly insurmountable obstacles to our future.
No, it is crisis without hope, meaning or purpose, for in our quest to destroy absolute truth to free us from the moral accountability of our actions, we have replaced it with the thinnest soup possible, making all thought of self-sacrifice, doing what is right, and yes, holiness, appear futile and worthless.
Never before in this nation's history has the pursuit of goodness been so devalued. Never before have we implicitly and explicitly taught our children that the virtues of family loyalty, commitment, nobility, courage, honor, honesty, integrity, and godliness are a "fool's game".
We teach this as a society by our words and deeds; by our literature, entertainment media, by our public debates over the very value and origin of human life itself.
We are bringing up generation after generation of increasingly amoral children, who will no doubt one day be in the position to decide whether the continued existence of their elders is worth the dwindling resources to maintain.
Divorce, abortion, euthanasia, political and ethnic "cleansing" are all here. Now. There is no reason to believe that these will decrease over time, and every reason to predict the opposite.
Is this gloom and doom? Or a simple, honest assessment of reality?
Clearly, it is still possible for many to live in denial. The evidence of this pervasive degradation can, for now, still be ignored, and life can be lived with blinders on in that quest for the "awesome good life".
Yet, it is also clear, just beneath the papery-thin surface of civility, that a day of reckoning is approaching.
The Bible is full of prophecies regarding the chaos and destruction of the "last days". Until recently, with the advent and advancement of mass weapons of destruction, planet-wide communication and information networks, and our increasing reliance on technology for global commerce, these prophecies were dismissed out of hand by "modern" academia and the cultural movers and shakers.
But now, what seemed impossible, is becoming increasingly likely. Even the most irreligious skeptic is proclaiming clarion warnings of the impending destruction of our world, whether it be from Anthropomorphic Global Warming, Pollution, Nuclear Energy, Chemical and Biological Warfare, Terrorism, or a myriad of other causes, the perception that the end is near is on the rise.
Hopelessness, rather than hope is the result, because we have pursued pleasure, rather than holiness; substituted man for God. The encroaching darkness IS judgment - the consequence of continuing the long and futile war against our Maker.
“For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, And hewn themselves cisterns--broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:13, NKJV).
There remains, however, a Light in the darkness. There is a Way that leads to Life rather than death. There is Hope and a Peace that passes all understanding.
We find it by discarding all the substitutes and seeking the One true source of goodness and love; by casting off the bankrupt relativism of modern beliefs (though, in truth, it is as ancient as the Devil himself), and putting on the holiness of Christ.
We can't do this ourselves, in our own feeble strength. We must first and foremost seek Him, and then He will transform and empower us to be increasingly like He is - good and just and loving and righteous… and holy.
And we can never be perfectly these things this side of Heaven, but we can accept the gift that He has offered through His death and Resurrection. And while the gift is free, the consequences of appropriating that gift through faith is guaranteed to be painful, at least for a little while.
He promises that we will lose most, if not all, of what the world considers valuable and worthwhile, perhaps in the process, even losing our lives in the here and now.
We may no longer be popular, or looked upon with favor. We may be reviled and called evil. Even those in our own household or from our own families will come to despise us and hold us in self-righteous contempt.
But in potentially losing all that the world has to offer, we gain God Himself, the very author of Reality. And in gaining Him, we gain all that He is and has, and that Pearl Beyond Price, eternal life in His Presence.
Not as an undifferentiated spirit or an amorphous consciousness, but as unique individuals, made in His image, fully corporeal, fully alive, and filled with unspeakable joy.
To obtain that reward, we need only believe in Him. There is no jihad we have to wage. No Crusade we have to undertake.
We need only to forswear the empty substitutes of this life, and embrace Him and His holiness.
