Decay Pt. 3: The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste

I don’t recall the TV show or the movie that I had seen, but the scenario went something like this: There was a boy who decided to start smoking and was hiding it from his parents. Eventually they had caught on to what he was doing and decided to punish him. What was the punishment? They made the boy smoke an entire pack of cigarettes at one time. Of course in doing so the boy got extremely sick. This experience was not a favorable one for the boy and he decided that his lesson was learned and he would not smoke another cigarette. I don’t particularly agree with this method, however it had its desired effect. It kind of reminds me of the golden calf incident in Exodus. As Moses descended down the mountain he was appalled as to what Israel had done. They had cried out for an idol to worship, and so Aaron fashioned for them a golden calf. However, “then [Moses] took the calf which they had made, burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder; and he scattered it on the water and made the children of Israel drink it.” (Exodus 32:20). They wanted an idol. They got their idol. They were forced to taste their vile desires, and just like an entire pack of cigarettes in one sitting, I’m sure that the end result was bitter.

            As you may recall from part 2 that I had mentioned that in Romans 1 God had abandoned man because man had abandoned God. “We don’t want God” they say. Fine! May your wish be granted. However, in order to fulfill the inward desire for man to have a god, man has elevated himself to the position of god. Man’s current desires become the idol, no matter how vile. Every man does what is right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6). Every man for himself! This is why there is so much fighting. Because each man, void of the one true God, has become his own god and expects everyone else to bow down to him. Have you noticed why people can no longer have a civil debate over their differences of opinion or politics? It at least seems that way. One god (man) and one way of thinking. This is called “tolerance”?

            I had mentioned that man has become his own god in part 2 from Romans 1:19-23. The problem is that without God’s gracious restraint, man decides what is right and wrong. Left to his own carnal hunger, man spirals into a pit so depraved that right becomes wrong and vice versa. This is why you have men stand one day and say “I feel like a woman”, and then everyone agrees and refers to him as “her” from that point on. If a white woman says “I feel like a black woman”, then everyone says “That you are! Black lives matter” and she is therefore an African American. If someone says that they are a cat, hey, let’s give them some cat food and see if they can purr. Sin is no longer sin in this world and if you say otherwise then you are the evil one. Darkness is embraced and has become the bride of this world.

            The things that are being accepted as normal behavior these days would have gotten you locked up in the looney bin 25 years ago. Yet, the things that were once irrational have become rational. The secularists would call this “progress”, as if mankind’s way of thinking for thousands of years had been wrong this entire time and now we have finally found the “truth”. Mankind has become so confused that one of the big controversies in 2016 was which bathroom men and women should use. But how has man become so confused that his mind has become darkened to logic and truth? “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting” (Romans 1:28).

            Because man had suppressed the truth of God (v.18), and chose instead to worship vain things and idols (v.25), and rejected God (v.28), he was left to himself as God had left him alone. God had given man over to himself. The result was that man was left alone with his debased mind. What does the word “debased” mean you ask? It doesn’t matter which Bible translation you may use for this word, but it basically means “worthless”. Ouch! Can you imagine God testing your mind and then saying that it is of no worth? It can no longer function properly. It is broken. This explains the upside down way of thinking that our modern godless man possesses. Without God, you are nothing.

            Paul goes on to illustrate what this debased mind looks like: For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due (Romans 1:26-27). I am going to stop right here for a moment. As I had mentioned in part 2, people tend to flock to this passage as a justification for homosexuality being a sin. I would like to illustrate that in ancient Jewish culture homosexuality was viewed as the last resort for a depraved person. In other words in regards to depravity it was as low as you could go when you turned what was natural between a man and a woman upside down. Ironically, 2000 years later, if you disagree with homosexuality then you are considered as low as you could go. You may recall in Genesis 19 that the men of Sodom sought to have sexual relations with the angels that had come to Lot. We can assume that like every town and society that homosexuality was not the only sin that the people of Sodom were committing. However the issue of homosexuality was illustrated in order to show just how low and vile that Sodom had become. The men were burning so much for these angels that instead of running like a bunch of wounded dogs once they were struck blind (like normal people would do), they stayed and continued to try to get into Lot’s home. Never mind the blindness, we want those men!

            Paul singled out homosexuality here to not illustrate that it was the greater sin, but that it was the greater evidence of man’s fall into the dark abyss of his own debased mind. He goes on to say “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.” (vv. 28-32). Sound familiar?

            Have we not become a society full of children who dishonor their parents? People who hate God and His people? People who want the newest things and will stop at nothing to acquire them? People who verbally destroy each other? People who gossip and slander? I could go on forever and ever, but I don’t have to because you know that I am right and this secular godless nation, as well as any other nation that has rejected God, is as guilty as the sin that they celebrate. When a person thinks that they can change genders simply by speaking it, demands that boys and girls share the same restroom based on the feelings of one’s gender, has sexual relations in all sorts of unnatural ways as God had not intended, verbally attacks those who think on the other side of the fence, sees no value to human life but their own, says that only one particular race’s life is more important that another’s, believes that unborn babies are not human, sees the value of a wild animal as being greater than the value of a child (Oh, so many people who are pro-choice, but want to save the whales) and, to top it all off, has no problem with murdering unborn children in the womb even at the end of being full term…my friend…THAT IS WHAT A DEBASED AND WORTHLESS MIND LOOKS LIKE. A mind that lacks an understanding of God and does not possess His gracious restraint within their conscience is nothing more but a waste. Such a mind is a dangerous mind and sadly, with the help of our secular government and the media, these dangerous minds have brought this whole nation down into the pit of God’s judgement. The judgement of abandonment.

But, there is hope…

We are past the halfway point of this series. Hang in there! But I will warn you now… part 4 will shock you to your core.

Decay Pt.1: The Beginning of the End

No time in the history of American civilization has the depravity of man been on display as the most recent election year in 2016. When I was growing up I remember men with integrity and character being the nominee of their respective party and I am certain that it had been that way since the beginning. I remember a big tantrum being thrown during the 1992 presidential race because both George Bush and Bill Clinton were accused of having affairs. As a matter of fact, we all know what became of Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. An adulterous affair and the following cover-up were certainly the black cloud that threatened Clinton and his presidency. America wanted honest men. Men who stood for something and were faithful to their country, their families, and their God.

However, 2016 was different. The decay became evident, yet many Christians and conservatives couldn’t see it, and many anti-Christians and liberals failed to believe it. The sphere of decay was evident before the nominees were even named for the Republican and Democratic parties. Marriage had slipped into nothingness as men began marrying men, women began marrying women, pedophiles began to cry out for the same privileges, and men and women continued to treat the sacredness of their marriage as if it was just some passing new flavor at Starbucks. You don’t like it? Throw it out and get something else! The innocence of the children continued to dissolve as they grew up too fast on Twitter. And a million innocent babies never got to see the sunshine, stars, and moon.

These things shouldn’t have surprised anyone because we knew that eventually we would get there. The most baffling, however, is that the police became the enemy. Black lives were the only ones that mattered as officer after officer took a bullet and left behind children and wives. As a matter of fact, if you even said that “all lives mattered”, you ran the risk of being assaulted because to state such obvious truth was “racist”.

If you disagreed with the left, you were a foolish bigot (especially if you were a Christian who disagreed with homosexuality). If you disagreed with the right, you were called a “libtard”, among other things. Hate became redefined as simply disagreeing with or questioning someone else. More and more mankind split itself right down the middle in America. We became a nation divided with wounds split wide open for the whole world to see and the blood flows like the Nile.

Then came the election. There were many to be chosen. Men of honesty, integrity, character, and faith. However, on one side, we chose an angry, foul-mouthed narcissist with multiple marriages who, despite his “Christian faith”, has nothing to repent of. On the other side we chose a woman who has a track record of dishonesty and lying and had ample evidence stacked against her before she even became the nominee. And she won!?! Even though socialism has failed every nation that has tried it, there were a lot of people who really wanted the socialist to take her place as the nominee. This is what we wanted as leaders. Despite our choices this is what we chose to lead us. This has become the American people’s idea of good leadership.

During the debates both candidates fought and spewed insults that were even below that of two fifth graders fighting by the monkey bars during recess. And their supporters followed suit against the other side. It became a contest as to see who could insult the other the worst. But the worst of the worst came after the election. Trump supporters were beaten in the streets by Clinton supporters. The insults increased and people were smeared just as much as the blood that was in the streets. Rioters looted and destroyed property because the election didn’t turn out the way that they wanted. Hatred reigned supreme. Over two months later, the day after Trump’s inauguration, the fires still burned as many women marched in the streets, dressed as their own perverted genitalia, holding signs spewing hate, rioting still, and cursing those who they had seen as a threat to their cause. But how can we call the mass murdering of unborn children a “cause”?

I was once a “metal head” and one of my favorite bands then was Tool. On one album they have a song called “Right in Two” and there is a lyric that has returned to my mind in these recent days:

Monkey killing monkey killing monkey.
Over pieces of the ground.
Silly monkeys give them thumbs.
They make a club.
And beat their brother, down.
How they survive so misguided is a mystery.

            How did we get here? Men exchanging sexual relations and vows with the like, women as well? Brother killing brother over political differences? Christians being persecuted over their beliefs that have been intact since the beginning of creation? Bullies bullying bullies over their differences of opinion? Crimson rivers flooding their banks? Eyes fixated upon darkness in lust? God in the grave and mankind upon the pedestal?

And society calls it good!

How did we, as the evolutionists would like to say, become like the Neanderthals?

Black vs. white vs. citizen vs. non-citizen vs. gay vs. straight vs. woman vs. man vs. family vs. urban vs. rural vs. upper class vs. middle class vs. lower class vs. veteran vs. pacifist vs. well off vs. welfare vs. you vs. me vs. America vs. everyone else vs. thugs vs. police vs. media vs. truth vs. common man vs. Hollywood vs. Christian vs. atheist vs. my rights vs. your rights….

Republican vs. Democrat…

Conservative vs. Liberal…

Trump vs. Clinton…

But…

THIS ISN’T ABOUT POLITICS.

He Is Not Here

And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here…” (Luke 24:5-6).

So Jesus said to them, "The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light."(John 12:35-36). I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness (John 12:46).

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols?(2 Corinthians 6:14-16).

Why do folks often seek light within darkness? To seek life among death? Never has there been such an obvious and simple contrast throughout the world and all nations as night and day, and life and death. No human is immune to the knowledge of either. “Why do you seek the living among the dead? HE IS NOT HERE!” But who is “He”?

He is the Living Water and the Light of The World. He is Life. He has the ability to quench the thirst of our soul, overcome the darkness within, and give life where we were dead. His name is Jesus Christ. And if you are swimming in darkness, bathing in death, and running to the desert to find water…He is not there. You will not see Him peeking from under the bed in a porn movie. You will not see His face in that puff of smoke. No, you will not find Him in the bottom of the bottle. He isn’t buying rounds for adulterers and their mistresses at the bar. He isn’t writing a hate speech that is about to be delivered to a neighbor or co-worker. He isn’t in any other sin that one may seek in order to drive away internal darkness and offer temporary false peace. He isn’t in darkness. He isn’t in death.

But so many people put Him there. Alcoholics may say that Jesus is in the booze because He turned water into wine. Smokers may say that God made tobacco and weed so that it can be smoked. And since God put sexual desires into man, I reckon lust and adultery is OK? To say these things is to say that God created the darkness, death, and sin that plagues the hearts of mankind. Therefore Satan must be innocent.

A great book to read in the New Testament is the Gospel of John. If you want to read about the contrast between darkness and light, then this is it. If you read, you will find that the god of this world, Satan, is the giver of darkness and lies in the hearts of men. When a man’s heart is pummeled by darkness and lies, and his heart is parched, exhausted, and dehydrated from truth, then death is imminent. Jesus Christ is the polar opposite of that darkness. He holds the keys to light, truth, and life and is the water that dry hearts seek (John 4:7-15).

Many things cannot coexist. Light and dark is one of them. For darkness to prevail means that light is absent. For light to prevail means that darkness is absent. You cannot say a room is well lit when it is in total darkness, nor can a lit room be called a darkened room. It doesn’t make sense, right? So how can the living be among the dead? How can a dry, battered, and lost soul say that it is comforted? How can righteousness be found in sin? How can love be found in hate? How can Jesus be found in Satan? You cannot put your hand in a fire and say it is cold. It makes as much sense as trying to breath underwater.

You will not find life in death. And if you find that your life is among the dead, then you may be void of Christ altogether. As a matter of fact, you may need to examine if the Holy Spirit is even dwelling within you. Because if He was, then the darkness would have been overcome by the light.

Oh, if I had a dime for every miserable Christian that I have met! Miserable about life, their job, money, themselves and the company they keep. Everything is just dark and dead to them. Yet they profess to be Christian. My friends, do not be fooled and do not fool yourself. If the Holy Spirit dwells within you, then there is no way that death and darkness has it’s grip on you. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope (Romans 15:13). To say that the Spirit is within you, and yet to say that death and darkness is within you as well, is to say that the gift of The Holy Spirit, delivered to you by Jesus upon your salvation, is broken. Therefore The Spirit has failed. Therefore Jesus Christ has failed. Therefore God has failed.

It isn’t God that has failed, but maybe your faith has failed, or maybe there was an error at your repentance. Maybe you didn’t fully trust that you would be saved, or maybe you wanted to be saved for personal, not spiritual, gain (for example; a man being saved so a Christian woman would date him). I don’t know the reasons, but it is up for your personal examination and between you and God. But as the scriptures above have said: He is alive and is not among the dead and He is the light that overcomes the darkness. And what fellowship does darkness have with light?
“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24). Confess the sins that are found in your heart and nail them to the cross, that you may bare them no more. Seek true repentance from Christ, that the Holy Spirit may truly take hold of you and separate you from the darkness, the sin, and the death that is within you. And may your thirst be quenched.

Love In Christ!

NOTE: I will not be posting any blogs for the month of July as I will be taking the time out for prayer to further my walk and faith in the Lord and for the future of this blog. Thank you and God bless!