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"Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it." - Arab proverb
INTRODUCTION
There's a popular maxim these days that says, 'what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger." True Christianity can be defined in similar terms when it maintains that we are here on earth to overcome the tempting ease of the flesh, and that can only be accomplished by discipline, dedication and resolve.
Much of our human creativeness and ingenuity has been aimed at serving humanity and making life easier, but there’s another proverb that says, ‘technology is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master.’ This is not to say that technology in itself is bad or evil. As always, it is the use of these things that determines their moral stance. But a growing by-product of our dependence on our ‘devices’ is that we have become soft.
Here in America we are losing our resolve and witnessing a generation arising similar to that which existed when the Roman Empire began to decline. A generation saturated and seduced by a culture of distraction. For the Romans it was the brutal spectacle of the Games in the Coliseum. Now the brutality is ‘virtual’ with violent video games, or contrived wrestling matches, which even though they are far from reality, still desensitize young minds.
UNDER LOCK AND KEY
The ethical and moral shifting sands promoted as ‘normal’ today will be a ‘Pandora’s box’ opened tomorrow, if current trends continue unabated. In this regard, Paul Valery recently made these succinct remarks; ‘A man who is of sound mind is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key.’ It takes effort and resolve to learn to control ourselves, but our ‘it feels good, so do it’ generation has been encouraged not to make the investment. William Morrow put the same thought another way; ‘What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us!’
The inner unredeemed man is a spiritual ‘couch potato’ who will do anything to avoid any effort that might propel him higher towards a realm of greater spiritual strength. He innately knows what is right but is a slave to the flesh and never can find the resolve to go upward. He eventually looses his spiritual appetite and moral collapse soon follows. His flesh is continually pounded by persuasive ‘truths’ that spin him around so fast that he becomes giddy and can no longer stand up for righteousness.
BITTER SWEET
Has the social upheaval in America over the last forty years produced any different result than what Adolf Hitler wrote about in his book ‘Mein Kampf’ (My Struggle) in the 1930s; "By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell – and hell heaven. The greater the lie, the more readily it will be believed." And yet Isaiah 5:20 says, "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"
WIDE IS THE GATE!
The easy way is not always the right way! These days, taking a stand for biblical truth can be like swimming up-stream. Sometimes people find it easier to go with the flow of the shifting sands of popular opinion. The contemporary idea of truth is like building a house on those same shifting sands. But Matthew 7:13-14 declares another way; ‘Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.’
It is precisely because a diminishing number walks the road of truth and righteousness, that true Christianity has the best chance of becoming a new counter-culture movement amongst today’s young radicals. It will be up to them to keep the lid on the box, to keep the genie in the bottle and to squash the enemy’s plans..
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