When Man Rules

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).

In a mere 50 years we have come so far and fallen so low in regard to Western sexual mores that what was once considered shameful is now the accepted norm. This is precisely what has happened throughout human history when human authority and judgment supplants the divine.

Take God out of the picture and all you have left is man. Nothing could be more dismal and hopeless. Nothing could be more antithetical to all that is good, except perhaps Hell itself.

This is the issue of sovereignty; the question of who has authority and who can rightly demand or enforce submission. If it is the eternal transcendent God - omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent - then the absolute standards He establishes are reflections of His character. Since He is good and just and merciful, so too are His laws.

But what of the ruthlessness recounted in the Old Testament? What about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? 

The answer is simple. Divine judgment based on an all-knowing God can determine rightly what constitutes fitting punishment. Human judgment, steeped in sin, self-will, woefully limited knowledge, and cultivated in the hotbed of intense emotion, can not. 

When God commanded that whole city-states be exterminated by the Children of Israel, men, women and children, it was not only fitting retribution but a necessary lesson for His Chosen People. 

Left to flourish, those ancient people groups would have further contaminated the culture and era in which God had ordained that Abraham and his descendants would live, making them unfit to receive His revelation, and thus depriving the world of its most important asset: knowledge of God.

Using Israel as His instrument of judgment was a graphic and dramatic illustration for them of what it meant to fall under God's righteous wrath.

These horrendous events are often used as an argument against the goodness and love of God, but this is a specious argument for two very good reasons.

The first is founded on the assumption of human innocence, and prefaced by the arrogant, whining, and self-serving question of "How could a God of love do X or Y or Z?" 

To exterminate evil is not only good and loving, but a moral necessity. To promulgate an environment for good to flourish is also loving. Both those things were accomplished by the Old Testament judgments. Had these been initiated by man, that would not have been the case, but commanded by God it would have to be the case, since God is just.

Unless of course, and this leads to the second specious argument, mankind is, and knows "better" than God.

The assumed innocence and goodness of mankind is belied by history. Godless human authority, from Nimrod to Ghengis Khan to Hitler to Pol Pot to Kim Jung Ill, has not only resulted in miscarriages of justice, but in genocide. In reality, the limiting principle of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" is a soothing lullaby  in comparison. 

The idea that humans know better and would rule better if only we put aside all those things that make us quintessentially human in our fallenness is simply delusional. We are incapable of justice or mercy or love for more than a moment in and of ourselves. Without God, we are minions of the devil by default.

Every single instance of a society ruled by men without God has quickly devolved into an unmitigated disaster. Just look at the atrocities of the French and Communist Revolutions, both founded on rabid atheism. Look at the slow death and decay of whole cultures that sought only human rule.

Logically, if those nations founded ostensibly in faith toward God, like the United States, are rampantly imperfect and fall far short of expectations, how could any that emphatically rejects Him hope to be any better?

The answer is that it can't.

When man is the sole source of authority, moral values become relative. What is "good" and "proper" for some are profoundly evil for others. This is where we find ourselves today.

Vile evil is propagandized as tolerance and choice. Insistence on absolutes is deemed the only true evil, unless of course the "absolutes" originate from those paternalistically deemed as "backward" or "primitive", then these are viewed as quaint sensibilities that must be respected by the more enlightened.

The equation is damningly inevitable. When man rules chaos results.

Only when those in authority acknowledge and rely upon a Supreme Being, can there be any hope of justice or mercy in human society. To believe otherwise is sheer fantasy and a denial of the raw facts of history.

Aside from the devil himself, a human being without God is profoundly evil, and that evil manifests itself primarily in the buying and selling of justice or benefit or privilege or position or power.

When the pricelessness of righteousness is assigned a crass material value, every other virtue is rendered worthless.

Look at Esau, who for one morsel of food, sold his God-given birthright. In effect, he cast aside divine goodness and authority for a meal; to satisfy the momentary lusts of his belly. When he realized the self-defeating stupidity of his transaction, he repented, not of his motives or heart, but of the deal he had struck - momentary gratification at the expense of lasting blessing.

And that is the deal we all face in this life.

When we discard God from our thoughts, words and actions, man takes His place. We exchange delusional momentary benefit, "the passing pleasures of sin", for eternal blessing. Eventually, every evil becomes justifiable under the auspices of tolerance and enlightenment, or business, or survival of the fittest. Fairly soon, even the attempt at justification falls by the wayside.

The end is suffering, injustice, exploitation, chaos and death.

Look around.

Bitter Roots

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).

This is a truthful saying worthy of contemplation and repetition: you reap what you sow.

Sometimes the outcome is slow to break ground, at other times it comes with sudden and surprising intensity, but in the end, whatever the result, it emerges into the light for all to see; either goodness or defilement.

Ultimately, nothing will be hidden. The Word of God guarantees that all will be made known about every word and deed of man, woman and child. No escape. No shelter. No cover-ups.

Bitterness in the human heart, no matter how well disguised day-to-day, will manifest itself one way or another. And the more that bitter root is nurtured and coddled, fed and watered, focused upon and cared for, the deeper that root will penetrate until only radical and transformative spiritual surgery can excise it (always painful).

Or the resulting corruption and defilement will take permanent residence, becoming eternally fatal.

The fecund soil of bitterness is pride; stinking, decay-promoting, selfish, and self-focusing pride.

The only effective balm is sweetly reasonable humility - the certain knowledge that you deserve nothing but judgment and continue to exist (indeed, exist at all) only by the loving grace of an almighty God who desires, above all else, that you seek forgiveness in His Son.

Bitterness is a foot-stamping, breath-holding temper tantrum directed at the cold, cruel world, and is an indictment not of the Universe, or your circumstances, but of you yourself.

Believe me. I know. From tedious personal experience.

Bitterness cannot ever be contained. It will ALWAYS leak out, like pus from an infected sore.

If, when it begins to take root, you do not remind yourself of who you are in reality (and not in your own delusional self-image), it WILL grow. Like a weed. Or fungus that thrives in the dampened darkness.

When that happens, and the effects externalize, others in your life are particularly vulnerable to the contagion. Bitterness is as communicable as pride in that regard.

Again, the only workable defense is inoculation with humility before the outbreak occurs.

The equation is simple and devastating, like the cascading implosion of fissionable material. Thwarted pride leads to bitterness which leads to defilement of self and others.

How much Christian witness has been rendered moot by backbiting and conceit? How many Christian relationships have decayed and rotted because of offenses, real and imaginary, that just cannot be put aside?

How many opportunities to serve God are willfully bypassed simply because of bitterly wounded pride?

In the family of God especially, these things should not be.

Bitterness will come, like all temptation, but it can be conquered through Christ within you, the hope of glory.

“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you." (Matthew 6:14, NKJV).

Falling Short

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).

I am constantly amazed at what the modern world, versus the Bible, expects from each of us.

In this era and culture, at least, the world expects men to be almost androgynous, women to be powerful, and children to be unbridled containers of impulses and cascading hormones who are uncontrollable by any traditional means. Rather than abstinence based on morality, free contraceptives. Instead of self-control, prescription drugs.

When men fall short of this expectation and display inherent masculinity, protectiveness, and leadership they are deemed insensitive, Neandertalic, paternalistic, and oppressive.

When women value their inherent femininity, devote themselves to managing the home and raising children, serving God and their families sacrificially, and opposing barbaric reproductive rights, the world decries them as not real women, gender traitors, and brain-washed pawns of the patriarchal tyrants who rule the world.

Likewise, children who respect parental and civil authority, desire to obey, are self-controlled, moral, and seek the things above rather than the ephemeral goals of this world, are looked upon as hapless victims, throwbacks and damaged goods needing repair. Repressed. Brain-washed. Weird.

The world hates Christ and Christians, and whereas before this antipathy was largely covert, it is becoming increasingly open, contemptuous and bitter, culturally acceptable, widespread, and a hallmark of social "edginess" and popularity.

Condemn a Christian in a public, media influenced venue and you are a hero. Defend one, or worse yet, be vociferous in your own Christianity, and you are a villain. Or worse.

When not vilifying people of faith in films, books, and television, the idea-generators focus on the evils of capitalism, corporatism, and business as a whole, while the inhabitants of those profit-making spheres themselves expect undying effort on the part of their employees, ruthless dedication to success and income, and a devotion to the enterprise that leaves no room for anything else, including family and religious pursuits.

That is one summation of what the current version of the world expects.

Expectations in Scripture are nothing like that. Nothing like that at all.

For instance, it is often said that "God helps those who help themselves." Where this came from is a mystery, since nowhere in the tens of thousands of verses in the Bible are those word even remotely strung together.

In fact, the Bible proclaims the opposite - sinful humans are incapable of doing anything of value in and of themselves. We require a Savior of, well, Biblical proportions. We are so broken and ineffectual that to improve we need to be regenerated and become new creations with new hearts and renewed minds. None of that is DIY ("do it yourself"). 

It is all "of God" and comes not when we strive for self-improvement (as the world insists in various forms), but when we strive to enter His rest.

There is none good. No not one.That is the unequivocal proclamation of the Bible in regard to humanity. 

And without Christ, that depravity is eternally fatal.

So the Bible expects something very different than the world. It expects surrender, not conquest. It expects reliance on Christ, not self-reliance. It expects an acknowledgement, soul-deep, of our helplessly broken and sinful state so that we seek the only cure available - salvation through faith in Christ.

From Scripture's perspective, a Christian falls short not by not succeeding in worldly terms, but by rejecting the grace of God given to him or her through faith in Christ.

To understand what this means, two concepts need further discussion: grace, and being in Christ.

Technically, grace is unmerited favor, and the opposite of mercy, in that grace is being given those good things underserved, while mercy is reprieve from those bad things we do deserve.

Grace has been couched in the acronym God's-Riches-At-Christ's-Expense, and that is true, but hardly exhaustive. In reality, grace is an expression of God's love in seeing us not as we are now in time and space, but as we are in His precious Son. He looks at us in our vile brokenness and chooses by His grace to see us in the same light He sees Christ, with all the perfect fellowship and love that perspective entails.

He sees us as we are guaranteed to ultimately become, for He who has begun a good work in us will complete it.

Grace is that aspect of divine behavior that rewards even the slightest holiness with riches beyond conception. For a glass of water given to someone in need, we are given the entire Universe in return. For the slightest inkling of true faith mountains are moved, the world rearranged, eternal life in a new Heavens and a new Earth is bestowed.

Despite these pictures, the grace of God is beyond our ability to grasp because it is so…huge. All of Creation cannot contain it. Our finite minds would explode if shown its true extent, yet its benefits are promised for all eternity by a Creator who sacrificed His Son on our behalf to demonstrate the surety of His guarantee.

Grace is the foundation of forgiveness. It is the receiving of life when death would be more than just. It is light and love where darkness and hatred abound.

Consequently, failure in the eyes of God - the only failure that counts eternally, is to fall short of the grace of God. To continually and willfully ignore the goodness of God, to deliberately overlook, rather than looking carefully.

Now to be lawful recipients of that grace has one prerequisite: to be in Christ.

In turn, being in Christ  has one prerequisite, faith, even as small as a mustard seed. Faith that Christ is the Son of God who died as a sacrifice in your place and on your behalf, and rose again on the third day.

Faith that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Falling short of this grace is catastrophic. It is an irremediable act of stubborn, gritted-teeth, foot-stomping self-centeredness that denies the existence and goodness of God and in its place substitutes self-reliance.

And self-reliance, given who and what we are, is like attempting to circumnavigate the oceans of this planet without a vessel, chained to an anchor. 

There is NO chance of succeeding.

The world demands success on it own fallen terms that are largely antithetical to God.

The world's motto is "what have you done for me lately?"

In utter contrast, God implores us to seek His face and help and mercy in time of need. That is the access we are provided by faith through His inestimable grace.

‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’ (Jeremiah 33:3, NKJV).

As in all things regarding Christ our Lord and Savior, there is no comparison.

Substitutes

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.