There are days when I find many things to read from other
Christians and days when I read nothing. I have been a reader since childhood.
It started with children’s chapter books, progressed to romance novels,
eventually became only ‘Christian’ romance novels and nonfiction, and now…well
I think I’d be safe in saying I am no longer able to find very many books or
writings that don’t promote worldly thoughts even among the so-called Christian
market.
As I write this post I find myself thinking of the multiple
things I read before starting, of the sermons I watched, and I quite honestly
don’t know where to start. Recently I wrote a number of posts that tied
together through the nature of their topics. Each one stood alone but they all
kind of flowed one to another to…I hope…paint a bigger picture than any one of
them alone painted.
There is a way of life in America, probably the world, in
which people prepare for what they call ‘the end of the world as we know it’.
There are probably as many ways of doing that as there are people that do it. I
recently saw an article about a family that discovered a hidden bunker in their
backyard packed with food and other supplies from years ago.
Someone, at some point, prepared for ‘the end of the world’
as they knew it. They filled an underground room with food and other things
they thought they’d need to be able to survive whatever might come.
I have to admit the idea does have some merit. Wouldn’t it
be nice to have a room filled with….whatever’s…that could see you through anything
that might come. You’d be well supplied should a tornado come your way and wipe
out your home. You’d be well supplied should rioting or other civil unrest
happen in your area that kept you from going to the store.
But those things can only prepare you for physical
happenings that might come your way in the same way having insurance on your
vehicle prepares you for an accident should you have one.
They are a safety net.
They’re there should the ‘end of the world’ as you know it
come in this world. They are temporal.
But as I read more and more of what’s happening in the world
I can’t help thinking that the end of the world as we knew it is already here.
There are so many different issues in the news today that never came up in the
news when I was a child. There are so many things happening in our country and
the world that have never been seen before.
I recently wrote a post about calling evil good and good
evil. That was what I saw as I read articles in Christian sources. At least in
the Christian sources the evil is being portrayed as just that. If I had read
those same articles in secular writings I’m sure I would have heard just how
wonderful the evil was.
One of the things I read this morning, which I didn’t finish
reading, spoke of a young woman that used to claim to be a born again Christian
that now openly speaks against at least some of the beliefs held by Christians.
Another one was about a television commercial that not only
speaks of, but outright shows, homosexual relationships. And it’s done so in a
way that makes it look as normal and natural as the wonder of intimacy when it
happens in marriage, which I must admit would be wrong to portray on TV.
There is a belief among scientists that says every so many
hundreds of years the weather flips. The months that had been summer will
become winter and winter will become summer. It will flip. As I understand that
belief the only change that occurs is what the weather will be like in any
given month. There will be no catastrophe, no widespread change beyond how the
weather acts at any given time. Life will go on as it always has only people
will need coats when they used to need shorts and they’ll need winter boots
when they used to need sandals. It will be a flipping of seasons.
Today we have a flip in life, in long held beliefs, in right
and wrong. Our world has…in a good number of ways…flipped upside down. What
once was right is now wrong and what once was up is now down.
Someone close to me recently said ‘I just want to be a good
person’. I had to ask what exactly that meant to them. What is a good person?
They flipped the question on me and asked me what I believe a good person is.
My answer had two sides. I told them that Biblically there
is no good person, that we are all sinners, that the only way a person becomes
a ‘good person’ is to be saved by Christ. But I knew what they were looking for
and so I gave them the answer they were seeking in addition to the first one. I
told this person that strictly from a worldly perspective I’d have to say that
a good person is someone that doesn’t hurt other people, someone that thinks of
others, someone that stands for what is truly right and wrong.
And as that conversation progressed we also got into what
defines right and wrong. If we accept that the Bible is the infallible Word of
God, if we accept what it says at face value, if we understand that there are
certain rules set forth in the Bible then we have a written record of what is
right and wrong. We have a measuring stick.
Recently my husband, in jest I hope, asked me if I was
measuring him. I told him I never measure him but if I did he would come out
well past the end of the ruler. I don’t measure him but I do see how he
measures up. I see in Scripture what it says a Christian is to be and I see
those qualities in him. The reason I can so clearly see those qualities in my
husband is because 1) the Lord has saved him, and 2) because my husband
believes the Bible sets the standard for what is right and wrong and he tries
to live according to those standards.
There’s a Christian man that has a video program where he
goes out and questions people on the street, he gets their views on things, he
challenges them, and he tells them the truth according to Scripture. I don’t
watch him very often but I have seen it enough times to hear some of what the
people he talks to says. I must admit that until I watched his program I had no
idea that anyone held such beliefs. It is basically a belief in nothing. As
some of the people he spoke with said… if you believe it’s right then it’s
right for you, and if I believe this is right then it’s right for me but they
held the exact same idea on what constituted wrong. Most of them had no
measuring stick by which to decide what was right and wrong. They had no line
on which one side was right and one side was wrong. It was more like some kind
of swirling area where right and wrong were all mixed up and each person just
chose what they saw as right and wrong.
According to the people that this man spoke with anything
could be right or wrong depending on the person. You were free to decide what
was right for you and what was wrong. There were no absolutes. No certainties.
What…I ask…about murder? Is a person free to decide if
murder is right for them? Apparently so. All we have to do is look to the
murder of unborn babies to see that murder is allowed and condoned, to see that
it is a personal choice as to whether or not murder is right or wrong.
I read something a while back about a ten year old girl in a
predominantly Catholic country that is pregnant. Her country does not allow
abortions except for a few very clear reasons, I think if the life of the
mother is in danger, and this little girl does not fit the definition to be
allowed to have an abortion. From what that article said people from all over
the world, especially America, are having fits because this little girl is
being denied the opportunity to kill her child.
I had two thoughts on that part of the story. The first one
was that people thought they had the right to demand a country do anything,
especially a country in which they do not live. The other was to wonder if the
little girl even wanted an abortion. She is a child that has been raised in a
country where abortion is seen as wrong…does she believe it is? She’s also a
little girl at an age where most little girls love babies…would she want to
kill her own?
This little girl conceived under evil circumstances, the act
that resulted in the life of her child wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t about love, but
I still have to question if a child living in a country where abortion is seen
as wrong would want to kill her own child or if someone is demanding this
little girl be given an abortion because they think her having the baby would
be bad for her.
Who is deciding what is right and wrong for that little girl
and her baby?
That is just one case in a world of many where a list of
circumstances can be given and a decision come to. Many couples put off
starting a family until circumstances are just right for having children…but
who decides what is just right for having children. If a couple has decided not
to have a child until they have so much money in the bank or own a minivan or
have a house with so many square feet and they discover they’re expecting a
baby…who decides if it’s right or wrong for that child to live?
My grandmother is living in a nursing home. She’s got
afflictions that affect the elderly. She can’t care for herself. The law in
America protects her right to live. But what if those laws weren’t there? Who
would decide if she had the right to live? Who would decide if murdering her
because she’s too old to be able to care for herself is okay?
In cities across America dogs and cats are killed every day
because someone decided they weren’t worth saving. Some of them are vicious and
aggressive, some of them so sick or injured that saving them is impossible or
nearly so and it can be understood why the decision would be made to kill them.
But others are killed because they’re ugly, because they’ve been in the shelter
more than their allotted two weeks, week, three days. The choice of whether it’s
right or wrong to kill those animals rests in the hands of the people that are
in charge of them.
What if our country looked at human life the same way?
Well…many people may argue that there’s an over population of dogs and
cats…many people argue the same thing about people.
I’ve had strangers ask me why I would ever want to have so
many children. I’ve heard people speak badly of couples that have lots of
children because they say we’re ruining the earth.
When does murder become right and when does it become wrong?
There are countries where euthanasia is legal. It’s been
proposed in America. Some people believe that anyone that requires full time
care, lives in a nursing home, or lives with chronic pain should be euthanized
for their own good.
There are people that have suggested that ‘abortion’ be
legalized through the age of four. That is…some say a parent should have the
right to ‘abort’ their child until they’re four years old. We’re talking about
a living, breathing, walking, talking child here. There’s no way a person could
not realize that this child was a live person and yet there are those that
believe it should be okay to ‘abort’ them at the parent’s discretion.
In a news article I read not that long ago how once our
medical care is put into the hands of computers the right to life will transfer
to whether or not the computer thinks we should live. A couple of years ago our
local hospital was bought out by a nationwide hospital company. The new company
immediately started changing what was, at that time, one of the best hospitals
in our local area. They immediately began building a newer, bigger hospital.
Was it better? I have no idea because I’ve only had to go there once and they
weren’t able to handle the issue that took us to the hospital…they sent us by
ambulance to a children’s hospital in a large city. The thing is that as they built and began
using this ‘better’ hospital they also instituted some things our area had
never seen before. The biggest that I know of is the use of robots to perform
surgery.
When I first heard that I was very much against the idea. My
opinion on that hasn’t changed in the last couple of years. My sister told me
how much better it would be because robots have steady hands, they can be
programed to act in certain ways and they won’t deviate from what they’re told
to do.
And in light of what’s come out lately that idea only
solidifies my opinion that I don’t want a robot operating on me or one of my
loved ones. Recently a computerized car was hacked. What would happen if the
robot performing surgery was hacked? Or worse? I heard a news reporter speak
about how once our medical care is placed into the hands of computers it would
be only too easy to program a computer to save only certain people. This man
also said it would be easy to tell a computer not to treat certain conditions.
There’s been talk of microchipping people. Some of that talk
has said that with a microchip in a person’s brain their life would then rest
in the hands of the people controlling the microchip.
In essence our lives would rest in the hands of the
government.
Now…let me say that all of what I’ve just said has come from
what I’ve heard from news media’s. I can’t vouch for the truth in any of it
beyond saying that I heard it from a news source. What I can say is that it’s
all feasible. Whether or not something is being planned or put into practice…it’s
certainly within the realm of possibility given all the technology we have
today.
But right or wrong…it’s just another example of the end of
the world as we’ve always known it. The very fact that those things are
possible and are something we can even think of means the world our parents and
grandparents knew is gone.
And all of those things…if not held to a higher power of right
and wrong…can become reality based on the beliefs of one or more people in a
position to implement them.
There have been many mass shootings in America in recent
years. With every one of them the public has cried out. They’ve protested the
killing of people by one person (or two or three…). They’ve spoken of the evil
of those shootings and demanded the punishment of the shooter.
But when man decides for himself what is right and what is
wrong…who is to decide if those shooting are right or wrong?
In those cases the shooter believed that killing those
people was the right thing to do. Let’s say they killed seven people. In their
minds they had a very good reason for killing those seven people. Murder…to
them…was right. If we look at a woman that has had seven abortions the world
won’t cry out in protest over the death of her seven babies. It won’t demand
she be punished for killing them. But what is the difference? In her mind
killing those babies was the right thing to do. In her mind she had a good
reason, a justifiable reason, for murdering her children. Yet…she walks away
without even having to explain her reasoning.
If a mother of seven kills all of her living children…she’s
a murderer and the public, rightfully, calls it murder and demands her
punishment. But what is the difference?
Why is it murder to kill seven children that have been born,
to kill seven people in any setting, but it’s not murder to kill seven unborn
babies?
Another recent event that has gained the public’s attention,
and the outcry to do something about it, is the very real, very sad, case of a
large abortion company that sold baby parts to different companies after
killing the unborn babies. The doctors in these clinics not only sold the parts
but were very careful in how they killed the babies in order to preserve the
parts they needed.
If that’s not evil I don’t know what is.
And yet…in our modern society what makes that wrong? Why is
it that the mothers of those children can kill their babies without the public
saying a thing but when this large company sells parts of those babies it’s all
of a sudden a horrible things and the public is demanding something be done
about it?
Again…let’s say there are seven women that walk into one of
those clinics and have their unborn baby killed. Our society says that’s okay.
If the doctor, the clinic, then sells any part of that baby our same society
cries out in protest of how wrong it is. What makes the selling of dead babies
any worse than the murder of them?
If that mother of seven children killed her living children
and sold their organs…she’d be prosecuted on numerous charges. If another woman
kills seven of her unborn babies it’s okay, overlooked, and not questioned. The
woman that had seven abortions could teach children in schools, sit in public
office, run for president or preside over the case of the next criminal walking
into the courtroom.
Think about that for just a minute…a female judge could
legally kill seven (or any number) of her unborn children then be the sole
person to decide if someone that killed their child or children spends the rest
of their life in prison.
Why?
Why is the murder of one set of babies legal while the
killing of another set is legal?
Who decides the right and wrong of those situations? The law
says one’s legal while the other’s illegal but why? And who made that choice?
The people that instituted those laws were mere people. Not only that but they
were people that didn’t look to a higher power to determine right and wrong.
Their own ideas were what they based right and wrong on.
As a result…we have murderers in prison. And just as many,
if not more, murderers walking the street.
Your child’s teacher may be a legal murderer. Your doctor
may be. Your best friend could be.
What defines right and wrong when there is nothing to
measure right and wrong by?
Whether we’re discussing little issues or big…there must be
a standard for which we determine right and wrong.
The argument could be made that murder is wrong when the law
says its murder but then the question must be asked… whose law? Why is it wrong
when murder happens against those protected by the laws of our country but its
okay when it happens to those that don’t have those protections?
And that’s just one subject in a long line of things that
must have a definition of right and wrong. Is it wrong to steal? To cheat on
your spouse? To sell your children for money? To use drugs? To sell drugs? To
say something against another person? To beat them up? To be intimately
involved with someone before marriage?
Where is the line in right and wrong?
Who defines what is right and what is wrong?
Who makes the decision of what any one person will stand
for? There was a time in our country when a person’s last name was seen as very
important. You upheld your family name, you did your family proud or dishonored
your family based on how you acted and believed. A man passed his name on to
his children. Men wanted son’s to carry on the family name. A person, especially
a man, stood for his family because he wore the family name.
That wasn’t the only way he stood for his family. He stood
for them by being the husband, the dad, the provider. He was the line of
defense between them and any threat that came their way. He stood for his
family in so many ways but even an unmarried man stood for the family name.
For many years Americans have stood for America, many still
do. It can be seen on t-shirts and bumper stickers. It can be seen in the
number of American flags flown in our country. I was sitting in a restaurant
not too long ago when it began pouring rain. Minutes after the rain started
workers went out, took down the American flag and brought it inside. Not only
did they stop everything to go out in pouring rain and get the flag but they
took the time, outside in the rain, to roll up the flag.
I’m not giving my opinion, one way or the other on that, but
pointing out that there are people in America that stand for America and go to
great lengths to support what they see as America.
I’m sure some of the same people that stand for and support
America at all costs are the some of the same people that support abortion and
hold to the belief that a person decides what is right and wrong for them.
Now I must ask…who or what defines what America is? How do
we know where America ends and Mexico or Canada begins? We know because someone
drew a line and declared this side to be America and that side to be Canada (or
Mexico). And that line is upheld. Whether it’s crossed or not everyone
understands that on one side of the line is America and on the other side is
another country.
My sister and her family live in an apartment. Everyone
understands that the wall that separates the two apartments marks the line
between her apartment and the neighbors. If people were given the same rights
in an apartment that they claim to have in life then my sister or her husband
could knock out the wall separating their apartment from the one next to them
simply because they believed their apartment was too small and they wanted more
space. The line that says this is their apartment and that is the neighbors
could be erased, removed, based on their own beliefs.
Funny thing about all that…if I want to go to Canada or
Mexico I must pass the line between the two countries and I must have proper
identification, given by America and accepted by the government that I want to
go to, that gives me the right to cross the line between the two countries. It
is wrong, illegal, for me to cross the line without that permission. If I did
so I would face consequences based on the laws of both countries. If I held the
belief that all land belongs to God and therefore I should be able to go where
I want to when I want to without having to get permission from a certain country,
or countries, I would face the very real consequences of crossing a line that
was drawn, literally in the dirt, and declared to be the right place for me to
be and the wrong place for me to be.
If my sister decides that she wants her apartment to be
bigger and knocks the wall down dividing her apartment from the neighbors not
only will she be thrown out of her home but she’ll most likely be arrested,
fined, and who knows what else. And all because she crossed a line between
right and wrong. Not a line that she believed to be right or wrong but a line
that someone else set the standard for.
And yet…day after day, news article after news article,
person after person, right and wrong is defined as being in the eye of the
beholder. So many people today believe that anyone can decide, at any time,
what is right and wrong for them. There’s no higher standard to decide where
the line is. What may be right for me may be wrong for you. And so you are free
to decide what is right for you while I decide what is right for me.
Based off that belief…no parent has the right to teach their
children what they can and cannot do. No parent has the right to tell their
child that they can’t do something. Because what may be right for mom or dad
may not be right for Jr. or Susie. What may be right for son may not be right
for daughter. What may be right for big sister may not be right for little
sister.
Does any of that make sense?
What if a person believes it’s wrong for a business to
charge for the products they carry? Does that make it wrong? Are they then
required to give them the items they want free of charge because that person
thinks it’s wrong to be charged for them?
If everyone is free to decide right and wrong for themselves
what would make that belief wrong?
What if a person believes it’s wrong to tag their vehicle?
Who gets to decide that they have to do it anyway?
Today marriage is rapidly being redefined until it will soon
bear little resemblance to marriage as defined by the Bible. California has
passed a law making the use of the words husband and wife illegal. No longer
are women in California married to their husband, they now simply have a
spouse. I’ve seen where it’s being proposed to make that a nationwide law.
But if each person gets to decide what is right and wrong
for themselves…can a woman still claim her husband as her husband in California…even
on state documents… if she wants to? Or will she face legal consequences for
doing so? If she’s filling out a state form and it lists spouse can she cross
out the word spouse and write husband without worry of legal ramifications? Or
has the line been drawn that she isn’t allowed to cross?
We are at a point in history that is making strides in
directions that our country has never before seen. We are at a point where
right and wrong are quickly being erased. We are at a point where a person that
holds a belief in right and wrong as right and wrong are being labeled as
wrong…does that seem right?
We are at a point where there is no line to right and wrong
except the line that certain people want drawn at certain times. It’s showing
up in all manner of society. Because what is right and wrong has become so
mixed up that it’s nearly impossible to find.
Because what is seen as right and wrong has flipped. Where
people, our country, once had a set standard for what was right and wrong, now
they have themselves. And ‘themselves’ get to decide where the line is. It
doesn’t matter if their line and mine are in different places, it doesn’t
matter if I see one thing as wrong if they see it as right. It doesn’t matter
if the law says something is wrong if they don’t like it they can change it.
What was up is now down and what was down is now up…and our
society reflects the flip that has taken place.
I watched a short video clip a while back where a group of
teenage/20 something girls were questioned on what they thought and believed on
a certain subject. They all professed to be ‘Christians’. Their answers were
disturbing because everything they said went against the Bible they claimed to
believe in but what was even more disturbing to me was the complete lack of
common sense.
When I was growing up I heard many times about how so-and-so
had book smarts or how they had street smarts. There were those that might be
very educated but they had no knowledge of how to survive ‘on the street’ or
they had street smarts but might fail every written test they might be given.
Taking Spanish class was the same way. You might spend years in a Spanish class
but what you learned ‘by the book’ wasn’t usually transferable to the street.
You could learn enough from the book to barely get by but there will be much of
the actual language that they can’t speak.
That group of girls could spit out all sorts of beliefs,
they might be able to survive in today’s world because they hold to a worldly
belief despite their claims of ‘Christianity’ but they lacked common sense.
Some of the things they said simply made no sense.
The people questioning those girls didn’t ask them what they
thought on who or what defined right and wrong. I’d be surprised if they those
girls didn’t hold some sort of belief that the individual is who defines right
and wrong though. Despite their profession of ‘Christianity’ those girls held
beliefs that were very anti-Christian.
It’s another example of society flipping. Can you imagine
anyone two, three hundred years ago standing there claiming to be a Christian
and speaking against something the Bible clearly speaks against?
I can’t imagine them standing there displaying the lack of
common sense those girls did much less publicly speaking out for something that
was morally and Biblically wrong in those days.
What is seen as right and wrong has flipped and it hasn’t
been for the good of our society. It hasn’t been for the good of any individual
and it sure isn’t good for Christians.
Right now in our country all a person needs to do is turn to
any news outlet to see all the changes that have taken place. For the first
time in history marriage is no longer defined as being between a man and a
woman, a person is no longer born with their gender set but can choose what
gender they are, murder of babies happens by the thousands every day, selling
those babies is something some see nothing wrong with, the shooting of one
person can be blamed on an inanimate object…and the list goes on.
I think it’s safe to say that the end of the world as we
know it has arrived.
And it didn’t take a catastrophe. It didn’t take a worldwide
disaster. It didn’t take a nationwide disaster. It didn’t take a disaster at
all. Nor did it take a mass riot, a nuclear war, a world war, or any other
physical occurrence.
It simply took the transfer of who decides what is right and
wrong from the hands of God and placed it in the hands of evil men.
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