“There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.”

While not quoted from New York Times, Washington Post, or Boston Globe this is an accurate description of our culture today.  It was written over 2700 years ago, Hosea 4:2, where the answer to moral decay, violence and treachery was not legislation.  There were plenty of laws already written with steep penalties  for violators.  The law merely served as a barometer , a gauge to measure man’s  innate potential for depravity.  If any law could successfully set boundaries  around man’s  behavior or curtail evil there would be no need for a Messiah, for Christ to die on the cross, for the Lord to come and “save His people from their sins.”

The timeless inerrancy of God’s Word continually exposes the futility  man’s attempts to create an orderly, civilized culture.  History will never record, ‘our society was out of control with violence, family destruction, drug and alcohol abuse and corruption but with the right laws, we put everything under control.’   Tragedies, vicious attacks, perversions, lying and conniving at every level are only fruits that we ourselves cultivate by fertilizing unrestrained freedoms, watering the lusts of our own fallen nature and lastly, cutting away that which would quicken our God given conscience.   Eliminating all shame, leaders puff up and posture around futile ‘controls’ to set boundaries around human nature, at which the devil laughs.

“What a man sows so shall he reap”. All the laws in the world cannot change these apples into oranges – a laughable endeavor!

“For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander”, declared Jesus in Matthew 15:19.  Change a man’s behavior without changing his heart?  Impossible if not laughable.

The United States can gauge the downward spiral by the leadership which we rally after and elect.  There were declarations for godly righteousness, there were cries for shame as the only impetus for change….      

 Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God…

And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon;

…to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

…. We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown.

But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.

Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

…. I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer….

By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward, Secretary of State

Those days are woefully gone.

The Ten Commandments ordered removed from Oklahoma Courtyard

“…the decision to remove the monument under the cover of darkness was made to avoid disturbing workers at the Capitol and to keep protesters from demonstrating…”  (Reported by Sean Murphy, AP News, 10/6/15)

Removing the Word of God ‘under the cover of darkness’ to avoid a dust-up with mortal man?  A tragic laugh/weep moment in history!  The devil is laughing and we should surely be weeping.  The problem is not when darkness is dark, the problem is when our light is dim.  The ‘treacherous days’ marked by the Apostle Paul in II Timothy 3 are here but can be the greatest days for the Body of Christ in the world if only we would ‘lighten our ship’ of the useless cargo of sin – materialism, greed, lust, and carnality.

The Lord Jesus, Creator of the universe, could have used the world as His podium.  However, He often displayed His power and deliverance by personally touching the lives of ordinary individuals.  While some wait for a  ‘call to great ministry’ the Lord is calling us to obey and enter into the simplicity of communing with Him, receiving the joy of His presence and allowing him to share His grief for the lost. Waiting upon Him, through prayer and study of His Word, enables us to break His bread with those ‘coincidentally’ around us.  The Word of God in us is a living word for the ‘woman at the well’, whether she is at the bus stop, market, the home next door or office across the hall.

Believers must ‘rally’ solely for the Word of God, embracing the truth –  the only source of ‘control’ – for peace, healing, deliverance, and restoration – is the Holy Spirit.   Contrary to popular mantras, we are not here to ‘change the world’ but called to represent Jesus Christ and enlarge His Kingdom as we anticipate His return.  It is impossible to legislate God or even morality but we can be surrendered and available vessels of truth for Him, in spite of the darkness, in spite of discouragements, in spite of a devil who laughs…temporarily.

“And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur….tormented day and night for ever and ever.”  Revelation 20:10