There are some days when I just don’t want to say too much but feel that I need to say something. Rarely do I pluck something out of the headlines and focus my attention on it in a blog post but this week has left me unable to refrain. Perhaps what is most amazing is that many in America will know the story to which I refer and their responses will be little more than a minute or two of startled disgust and then they will resume life as they know it. To what do I speak? On Saturday afternoon, May 26 a young man in Miami ate the face off of a homeless transient. There is no dignified option for describing it other than to say that the perpetrator used his jaws and teeth to rip the skin and facial muscles off of the other man in a manner like some wild beast devouring its prey. When he refused to stop the gory crime, the police had no choice but to shoot him dead in order to save the victim’s life. Welcome to America 2012.
“The Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.” – Hosea 4:1-2 {ESV}
If you expect me to declare that humanity has never been more depraved than it is today then I’m sorry to disappoint you. What God said to Israel 2,700 years ago through Hosea could be layered over our culture today with clear relevance. What I do submit to you is that humanity now has opportunity to be more aware of our overt depravity than at any other time in history. The Internet and social media transmit in seconds catalogs of information which would have taken weeks to disseminate forty years ago. Rampant wickedness is no longer hidden from our eyes and I am suspicious that we are being made very numb to it all. We don’t enjoy all the overt insanity, crime, violence and decadence in our culture but we are rarely made to blush about it. I offended some people in a recent sermon where I highlighted a popular movie that was centered in child-on-child violence. It was suggested that I might have stepped over a line into legalism by cautioning Christians about the wisdom in taking their children to see such a film. It is likely that it was not the most solid footing upon which I stood and reasoned out my point but the desire of my heart was to call people back to think through their daily decisions in light of what is happening around us in a dark world to which we are to be the light of God. Part of my calling to preach the whole counsel of God demands that I expose the social ills of our day and the danger of our hearts being calloused to the point where we shrug our shoulders and dismiss its danger with the quick quip of, “It’s only make-believe, it’s not that bad. Simple entertainment, preacher.”
Until simple entertainment begins to be played out on our city streets in real lives…and very gruesome deaths.
I’m not demanding that you agree with me and I’m not really sure I have a singular point to make today. Please just give some consideration about the spiritual air that we suck in every day and how much of what colors our thinking is rooted in a very evil culture. We abort our babies and applaud our liberated freedom to choose to do so. Husbands and wives walk away from one another at epidemic levels when they grow tired of working at it; yes, when your marital love-tank runs empty you can simply pull into a different station down the street and fill ‘er up with something possessing a little more octane to keep your motor purring. Sexual promiscuity, violent porn, pedophilia and epidemic rape are so commonplace today that we have now lost our ability to be taken aghast. It’s just part of our world and though we feel pity and compassion for those who are harmed by these things, we simply aren’t motivated to do anything to reel in the process that makes it easy for these things to continue.
How does a man come to chew the face off of another man in the middle of a sunny Saturday afternoon? How many deviant men are plotting to abduct, molest, murder and dispose of children right now? How many women in your social circle are making plans to divorce their husbands and splinter the homes of her children? How many of my friends and brothers in Christ are deleting their browsing history so nobody will know that they are addicted to online porn? You see, I’m just skimming the surface and can think upon enough depraved activity to push the breath right out from my lungs. By the way, I don’t have to look outwardly to note unrighteous depravity…I can find it with a 60-second perusing of my own heart. This is not about finger-pointing at them. This is us.
For those who are followers of Christ, do you think we might take some time this week and consider if our attitudes and actions are more in line with our culture or still remaining distinctly against the grain of society? None of us are wholly righteous in our actions and I’m aware that Scripture doesn’t go out of its way to classify big sins versus little sins. I’m just at a place where I’m desperate for God to eradicate the foulness of my own heart, the intermittency of my own commitments and the casualness with which I note the sinfulness of my culture. You and I are leaving something behind us for our children and grandchildren to call their homeland. There’s a Goliath in the valley and he’s mocking our God while we, the soldiers of Christ, shuffle our feet and wonder who will silence the foe. So I borrow the words of that ancient Hebrew teenager who would become a king one day; he heard the growling giant and saw nobody advancing to the fight and asked with disbelief in his voice,
“Is there not a cause?”
I agree, it’s all too easy to just accept the deterioration as “just how things are” and “the world will always be the world, what do you expect?”. We get de-sensitised degree by degree – and of course it is much more comfortable to shut ourselves away in our holy huddles.
But (admittedly in a re-arranged order) there is a progression in David’s thought in Ps 119, if we will be brave enough to follow him :-
Psa 119:158 I beheld the transgressors, and was grieved; because they kept not thy word.
Psa 119:53 Horror hath taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake thy law.
Psa 119:136 Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law.
Looking … then growing awareness leads to heartfelt horror … and that leads not to condemnation but weeping before the Lord. See also Ezra 9:5ff and Nehemiah 1:4ff. On the one hand, the glory of the Lord is at risk in the rebellion all around; but the honour of the Lord is also at stake when His people are not what we should be. There is sin in the camp, heresy & apathy in the church, and the vast majority are “at ease in Zion and … are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph” (Amos 6:1 & 6)
And then we could go further – if brave enough – to pray with Jeremiah:-
Jer 9:1 Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
To ASK for that sort, and that degree, of burden because we care about the nation and especially about the state of the church is not something to consider lightly. May the Lord open OUR eyes to see, and touch OUR hearts to pray – and may the Lord bless you with courage & zeal & steadfast resolve as you proclaim the truth, brother!
Jeff, thank you for speaking the truth, His truth. We have become so accustomed to seeing and hearing the evils of this world, we do not give it more than a passing glance nor thought at that which should be mind-boggling, nor do we take a stand. This brings to mind Ezekiel 22:30 “I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one”. if ever there was a need for a cry for grace and mercy from the nations, it is now. Lord, lead us in the way You would have us to stand in the gap between you and the unsaved. . .give us the courage to stand against evil…..Lord Jesus, forgive us, help us to keep fighting the fight, to persevere….Lord Jesus, mold me…..
Jeff,
It’s sad that we get caught up in our own world, our seemingly important tasks at hand, what we could call responsibilities, when the truth gets muffled under our shuffling of duties and chores. This hits home to me because I had not heard a word about this until reading your blog, which also is a fairly recent sideline for my busy-ness. Many of us hide from the “news” because we just don’t want to see the tragedies, the corruptness, the evils of the day. We feel that we can’t do anything about it anyway, so why not just ignore it. This is not someone else’s job, or responsibility, to work at correcting the problem. We should not wait until God solves it for us; no, we cannot wait! We need to, each one of us, address the cause of the problem, not the symptoms. As Tim asked in “The Way of the Master” class last night, “how many of us share our faith regularly?” I’m guilty! I’ve fallen into silent times. I’m taking up the challenge, no, commandment! God, give me opportunities!
Pastor Jeff, I have listened to a number of your messages over the last couple years and I have seen and been stirred by your zeal for empowered, victorious Christan living. It seems that you believe that the followers of Christ should be growing to exemplify the righteous character of Christ in ever-increasing fashion. This blog, and apparently some sermon you reference, is just another clear invitation to those who belong to the Living God to live in such a way that there is evidence that Christ Himself lives within us. Any lessing of the downward spiral of the culture in which we live will only come when the church awakens an repents. Thank you for these bold words of truth. ‘Dad says’ is right on target. Press on. Speak up. Stand alone. But know that you are never alone when you stand with Christ.
Chuck, thanks for taking the time to share encouraging words. Welcome to the TT blog comments – feel free to add your thoughts to future posts. I’m grateful for the affirmation that you and my father wrote above. I believe the are many more who share our thoughts but, for one reason or another, have fallen silent. It’s not that the Church doesn’t care. It’s that we don’t speak. I discern that this needs to change or things will become worse as we sit by as passive observers instead of thoughtful communicators.
Only those who have been numbed to sin will call you a legalist, Jeff. Keep doing the often lonely work of a prophet. Keep calling on believers to decide each day whom they will serve. Keep pushing us to come out from among them and be separate. Paul’s words in Ephesians 5:1 come to mind…”Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children…” God hates sin, so like Father, like son/daughter.
And, for me, this isn’t just about decrying sin as evil. It’s about our culture too. The accumulative effect of ignored sins will bring our culture down like a cheap tent one day. Many of the tent poles are already cracked and wavering. And when the tent collaspes, it will fall upon the heads of my grandchildren. And everyone esle’s.
May Christians everywhere suffer a really bad case of burning righteous indignation, clean up their own lives and begin to speak out collectively against evil wherever it is found. It is not somone else’s problem to solve. It’s ours.
Couldn’t agree with you more, dad