Religious Commentary

2Timothy 4:3-4 tells us that “the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine.  Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.  They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

We are now living in the time described above, a time when more and more people, including many who call themselves Christian, would rather hear what their itching ears want to hear than hear the truth of God’s Word.  This has always been the case to some extent; however, I believe it is more prevalent today than any other time in our history. Moreover, there is certainly no shortage of false, pretentious pastors, teachers, theologians, and professors who are ready, willing, and anxious to scratch those itching ears, ready to manipulate, corrupt, and interpret God’s Word according to their own desires and defy truth, wisdom and common sense in order to do so.

We live in a time when certain secular-liberal beliefs, ideologies, and practices which would have been discarded decades ago as utter foolishness and clearly contradictory to God’s Word, if not downright dangerous, are considered to be innovative and even intellectually advanced. Truth is considered as relative instead of absolute, and sound doctrine, ideologies, and religious, political and cultural traditions and practices which have proved true and valid and of inestimable value to humanity for the past three or four millennia are shunted aside as no longer relevant to a “sophisticated” post-modern culture.

This rejection by many of God’s objective standards of righteousness, right and wrong, good and evil, and choosing the subjective and relative standards of truth and righteousness contained in secular-progressivism and post-modernism has infected culture, politics, education and even the Church. And it is in the Church where this infection poses the greatest danger. Why? Because the Church is the repository of God’s Word, His authoritative Revelation to humankind, given through the Holy Spirit Who inspired the Prophets and Apostles to write that Word and Revelation. It is the Church that Christ entrusted with the Gospel of His redemption of humanity, whereby those who receive that Gospel in faith are adopted as God’s sons and daughters, receiving salvation and the inheritance of eternal life. It is the Church, referred to in Scripture as the Body of Christ, which is to take this saving Gospel to every corner of the world. It is the Church which is to be a beacon to the nations, reflecting God’s standards for holiness, righteousness, and morality.

Satan is a brilliant strategist and tactician. He knows that in order to accomplish his objective of bringing total corruption to people, nations, and this world, he must first corrupt the Church. Corrupt the Church and corruption of society and its institutions will inevitably follow. Or, at the very least, make the Church irrelevant to people and the doorway is open for turning a nation and society away from God and toward the moral relativism that will enable corruption to work its way through society just as yeast works its way through the whole loaf. We see a clear example of this in western society today where, with the Church having become irrelevant to many people, God’s standards of truth and righteousness are no longer considered binding on people or nations. We have, to a great extent, bought into the heretical and foolish notion that we humans decide what is right and wrong, good and evil, truth and falsehood, and if God’s Word contradicts what we decide, then God’s Word must be changed to conform to our decision. In short, God is no longer sovereign over every aspect of our lives and the nation’s life. We are. This is a path to confusion, chaos, and ultimately judgment.

Satan is quick to take advantage of flaws, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities in the national and cultural character and exploit them for his purpose of corruption. Our Founding Fathers saw this so clearly; hence their emphasis and insistence on religion (specifically the Judeo-Christian standards and teachings on morality and virtue) as the cornerstone of our nation’s foundation and absolutely crucial for our democratic society to survive and thrive. Our Founders understood human nature and repeatedly stated that the protective and guiding hand of God – the only true God, the God of the Bible – would only be ours as a nation only if we humble ourselves before Him in faith and obedience.  George Washington stated that, without God and the Bible, it is impossible to govern. John Adams stated that our Constitution was designed for a religious and moral people, and that it was totally unsuitable for any other. James Madison stated that the security and prosperity of the nation was dependent on a citizenry that conducted their lives and activities according to the Ten Commandments. The Founders would be appalled at the removal of the Ten Commandments, the Bible, and expressions of Christianity from the public square, schools, and other institutions taking place today.

Our nation faces tremendous challenges today in the political, economic, international, and cultural spheres. I submit that none of these challenges will be successfully overcome until we get our spiritual house in order, until we return to our Judeo-Christian roots and foundation, until we return to the standards, precepts, virtues, lifestyles, behaviors, and attitudes established by God for individuals and nations, until we again acknowledge Him as sovereign in every aspect of our lives as a people and a nation.

Sin and evil are synonymous, and in their essence, are rebellion against God and His Word. Tolerance, according to the secular-liberalists, is not just accepting something, but condoning, approving, and supporting it. Thus their demand for approval and support for beliefs, lifestyles, and cultural changes that are in direct opposition to God’s Word. God does not tolerate sin, at least not in the sense that secular-liberalism defines tolerance. God is incredibly patient, loving, compassionate, and merciful towards us sinners (and we are all sinners), but He is intolerant of our sin. This is clearly seen in the cross of Christ, where we see the incomprehensible love of God for us sinners in His Son suffering the just punishment for our sins that we deserved so that we could be saved, and the utter and absolute intolerance of our sins that made that punishment necessary to satisfy God’s holy standard of justice. Thus, there is forgiveness and salvation only through faith in Christ and His redeeming work. To approve and support that which God has called sin is to deny the efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice for us and reject the salvation He achieved for us at such a terrible price.

To compromise with or tolerate evil will inevitably result in more and more evil until it finally overcomes. This is clearly shown throughout all history up to the present day. God can certainly prevent evil; however, He will not override our free will or force us to do anything. He did not create us to be robots without choice, but as free agents with reason and intellect. We can choose fellowship with Him and obedience to Him which is our highest good, or we can choose to reject that fellowship and obedience to our downfall.

History shows us that it is possible for a people, a nation, a civilization to reach a point where they are no longer willing to undergo great sacrifice in order to maintain their heritage, culture, and way of life. This usually occurs when a society has become so affluent, so materialistically oriented, and so tolerant that they refuse to take any action that might endanger that affluence, any action that requires material sacrifice, any action that requires submission of self-interest and self-desires to a higher cause, to the greater good. “What is God’s will and best for the nation?” becomes “what is my will and best for me?”

The only hope for our nation, as well as Western civilization, to defeat the dangers and overcome the challenges facing us today is to reclaim the Judeo-Christian heritage and beliefs that bound us together over the centuries and which we have foolishly and ignorantly either discarded or forgotten. If we don’t, it is a sure bet that the protecting and guiding hand of God, which our Founders depended on, will be removed from us and we will not find the inner strength, willingness to sacrifice, and the iron will necessary to confront and defeat the dangers battering on the gates of Western societies today. Implacable, fanatical enemies, both within and without, bound on our destruction cannot be defeated with the soft mush and straw of a soulless, faithless secular-progressive humanism, moral-relativism, and touchy-feely tolerance. Only by seeking again, through national repentance and humility, the power of that protecting and guiding hand of a merciful and gracious God will we be able to overcome those dangers and continue to be the most powerful, affluent, and generous nation in history.

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