Our u.s. society
Is reaping what it has sown
Well, my blog reader, what do you think of the social behavior of people across this United States of America?
One could be led to think that this country is facing a crisis of greater proportions than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, that engulfed this country in World War II! Or, that this country has had a catastrophe greater than the terrorist attacks of 9/11, September 11, 2001! Yet, nothing of the kind has happened. Yes, we are faced with the coronavirus epidemic, as is all the world. Some numbers of people have gotten sick with it. Some or them, particularly the elderly and those with previous medical conditions, have died. But by and large that is a very, very small fraction of the U. S. population. That is nothing at this point that warrants the social behavior we have witnessed in this country since the end of last week. The people of America are failing to recognize that as of the end of last week, 55,000 people in the world had already survived the coronavirus. So, it is not like contracting the virus is an automatic death sentence. Nor does it entail an eternal quarantine.
I cannot help but wonder what the people of this society today would have done during the Great Depression when the people of this country were really desperate with little to nothing? Or, how would they have behaved during World War II when everything in this country was necessarily rationed to support the war effort? Can you imagine the mass hysteria and fits of anxiety the people of today would have exhibited if they had lived back in those truly dark days of this country’s history and uncertainty?
Because of the coronavirus that has entered this country, look how the people have been acting and behaving from coast to coast. They have made a mass assault on the stores across America. As one store clerk told my daughter three evenings ago after the store had been overwhelmed by shoppers all day long, “This is like the Christmas shopping rush on steroids!” The people are not running to the stores to get items they really need just then; they are flocking to the marketplaces to hoard what they maybe will need two months from now, or to grab up everything that might be needed for their intended profiteering of those items on E-bay. They have emptied the store shelves of paper products, baby wipes and diapers, can goods, frozen foods, and whatever else might be needed should they have to be quarantined in their homes for a couple of weeks.
The hoarding has been bad enough. But on top of that is the criminal behavior of which people have been guilty. In the process of trying to grab what they want for themselves before someone else can get it, shoppers in the stores have been fighting over packages of such things as toilet paper! Here in southeastern Wisconsin a small businessman operating a porta-poddy business had his porta-poddies broken into and badly damaged to the tune of $10,000 by thieves who wanted to steal the toilet paper and hand-sanitizer bottles out of them! How bad can people get, right?
How bad can the people of this U. S. society get? Much worse, if some could have it their way! Like the young man who told my daughter that he was glad to see all the people’s craziness in emptying out the stores and spreading the coronavirus. He was glad, because then no one could work in the stores. They would be too sick to work and quarantined at home, in which case no one would be able to get the necessities they need, and anarchy would then arise. He said he had been wanting anarchy for years!
He has no idea of just how bad a lack of governmental control with police protection and military enforcement would be. He himself would be a target for the next mugger, robber and murderer who came along. No one would be safe out on the street or in their own homes from thieves and robbers. Those criminal hoodlums would attack out on the streets or break into homes to take whatever they wanted without any hesitation to kill and murder in order to seize it. Barbaric values and violence and atrocities would reign commonplace. Let us thank God for the government that we have that ensures law and order, so we can live in safety and peace from such would-be anarchists like that young man wants on the loose! Yes, the riffraff in our American society could get a lot worse! And they just may do that. The future does not look good.
The massive anxiety, hysteria and pandemonium that we have witnessed these past few days may have surprised some people. It has not, nor does not, surprise me. In my opinion our society has been cultivating this kind of ungodly, fear-driven anxious, even criminal, behavior and moral depravity for decades. Our U. S. society is now reaping what it has been sowing.
What we have been witnessing these past few days reveals the spiritual degeneration that now characterizes so much of our U. S. society. What has contributed to that spiritual degeneration? The visible Christian church in the United states has been, and is, declining at an alarming rate. According to the Gallup Poll church membership in the United States from 1937 to 1976 was 70% of the population. That has declined since then. It is now only 50 %. But that 50% is not all that it would seem to be either. That is because 54% of our country’s population, which I strongly suspect is made up of a large part of that 50% church membership, only attends worship services a couple of times per year. The rest of the year those people do not attend services at all. Such a lack of church attendance means those people are not being built up in their Christian faith and godly living by the Word of God, because they are not hearing that Word of God.
That Christian decline inevitably, as I see it, is to a great extent responsible for a decline in the Christian morality in the society of this country. As the Christian faith and morality has declined, the unchristian, ungodly social behavior has increased. It seems obvious to me, that as a result, over the past decades the moral fiber of our society has been progressively degenerating and becoming more depraved.
Why do I say this? Because the Lord Jesus says we Christians are the salt of earth. (ref. Matthew 5:13) We are what preserves and flavors the social order of morality and integrity of the world. That being the case, the fewer we Christians are in number in our United States, the less taste of morality and integrity there will be in our country’s society. To put this matter plainly and bluntly: If the salt disappears, the flavor disappears with it!
Contributing to the decline of Christianity with its positive moral influence on American society has been this: A growing number of people professing to be Christians have adopted the secular, modernity mindset that now predominates social thinking. It is evident that increasing numbers of Christians have been apostasizing, that is, falling away and giving up their Christian faith. In place of their former Christian faith they have adopted a religious indifference, becoming instead “nothings”, known as “nones” who have no religious affiliation whatsoever.
As a result of this Christian degeneration in our society over the decades, we are now witnessing to the extent that it has become a lack of Christian trust in God to watch over, protect, and provide for his Christian people. There was no sign of such trust in God in the masses of our country’s society that exhibited the panic-driven pandemonium of the past few days.
So, we are now seeing masses of people that have abandoned their trust in God to build their lives instead on the groundless shifting sands of their own self-reliance, self-endeavor, self-sufficiency, self-centeredness, selfishness, and self-morality. Having no faith in God to see them through the dangers and inconveniences due to the coronavirus, they go to pieces. They cannot handle what they are facing. Fearing the worst of consequences for themselves, they are overcome with anxiety and a hysterical concern for their self-preservation. They will allow nothing to stand in their way of getting what they want for themselves to secure their own well-being, even if they have to punch another shopper in the mouth to get a roll of toilet paper.
By way of contrast, look at the God-fearing Christian believers in Jesus Christ these past days who have taken the coronavirus in stride. They have been trusting in our gracious God to watch over them, provide for them, and preserve them until such time as he calls them home to heaven. They have not been out in the stores fighting over rolls of toilet paper or bashing in porta-poddies for bottles of hand-sanitizer. They have behaved uprightly and morally as Christian believers in Jesus. They have been producing their good works of faith to the glory of the Father, which included being good, upright, law-abiding citizens. In the process of being such Christian believers in Jesus, they have set a good example of how God wants all people to behave themselves in their respective society.
As God’s Christian people in Christ we have great comfort and hope. Yes, we are sinners who have disobeyed God’s holy moral laws, including failing at times to entrust ourselves to God’s providential care. Because of Christ Jesus, however, we have the divine assurance that all our sins have been forgiven, whatever they might have been. Because of Jesus’ redeeming sacrifice of himself as the payment for all of our sins, God has forgiven our sins. Having been forgiven in Christ Jesus, God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. (ref. Ephesians 1:3) Therefore, in view of God’s mercy in Christ by which we have been saved for eternal life in heaven, let us each day go quietly about our lives clinging to God’s reassuring words to all of us believers in Jesus, who are caught in the midst of this coronavirus panic and pandemonium:
And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)
16 For this reason we do not lose heart, but even though our outer man is being destroyed, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.
17 For our momentary light affliction[1] is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all measure and proportion,
18 while we do not keep our eyes on the things that are seen but on the things that are not seen; for the things that are seen are temporary, but the things that are not seen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
31 If God is for us, who can be against us?
32 As a matter of fact he who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things?
33 Who will bring charges against the elect of God? God is the one who justifies.[2]
34 Who is he who will condemn? Christ Jesus is he who died, and what is more who was raised to life, who is also at the right hand of God, who is also interceding for us.
35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or hunger or nakedness or danger or sword?
36 As it is written,
“FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG,
WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP FOR THE SLAUGHTER.”[3]
37 But in all these things we gain a surpassing victory by means of him who loved us.
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor demons nor things present nor things to come nor powers
39 nor height nor depth nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31-39)
Amen!
God’s blessings to you.
Rev. JC
One could be led to think that this country is facing a crisis of greater proportions than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, that engulfed this country in World War II! Or, that this country has had a catastrophe greater than the terrorist attacks of 9/11, September 11, 2001! Yet, nothing of the kind has happened. Yes, we are faced with the coronavirus epidemic, as is all the world. Some numbers of people have gotten sick with it. Some or them, particularly the elderly and those with previous medical conditions, have died. But by and large that is a very, very small fraction of the U. S. population. That is nothing at this point that warrants the social behavior we have witnessed in this country since the end of last week. The people of America are failing to recognize that as of the end of last week, 55,000 people in the world had already survived the coronavirus. So, it is not like contracting the virus is an automatic death sentence. Nor does it entail an eternal quarantine.
I cannot help but wonder what the people of this society today would have done during the Great Depression when the people of this country were really desperate with little to nothing? Or, how would they have behaved during World War II when everything in this country was necessarily rationed to support the war effort? Can you imagine the mass hysteria and fits of anxiety the people of today would have exhibited if they had lived back in those truly dark days of this country’s history and uncertainty?
Because of the coronavirus that has entered this country, look how the people have been acting and behaving from coast to coast. They have made a mass assault on the stores across America. As one store clerk told my daughter three evenings ago after the store had been overwhelmed by shoppers all day long, “This is like the Christmas shopping rush on steroids!” The people are not running to the stores to get items they really need just then; they are flocking to the marketplaces to hoard what they maybe will need two months from now, or to grab up everything that might be needed for their intended profiteering of those items on E-bay. They have emptied the store shelves of paper products, baby wipes and diapers, can goods, frozen foods, and whatever else might be needed should they have to be quarantined in their homes for a couple of weeks.
The hoarding has been bad enough. But on top of that is the criminal behavior of which people have been guilty. In the process of trying to grab what they want for themselves before someone else can get it, shoppers in the stores have been fighting over packages of such things as toilet paper! Here in southeastern Wisconsin a small businessman operating a porta-poddy business had his porta-poddies broken into and badly damaged to the tune of $10,000 by thieves who wanted to steal the toilet paper and hand-sanitizer bottles out of them! How bad can people get, right?
How bad can the people of this U. S. society get? Much worse, if some could have it their way! Like the young man who told my daughter that he was glad to see all the people’s craziness in emptying out the stores and spreading the coronavirus. He was glad, because then no one could work in the stores. They would be too sick to work and quarantined at home, in which case no one would be able to get the necessities they need, and anarchy would then arise. He said he had been wanting anarchy for years!
He has no idea of just how bad a lack of governmental control with police protection and military enforcement would be. He himself would be a target for the next mugger, robber and murderer who came along. No one would be safe out on the street or in their own homes from thieves and robbers. Those criminal hoodlums would attack out on the streets or break into homes to take whatever they wanted without any hesitation to kill and murder in order to seize it. Barbaric values and violence and atrocities would reign commonplace. Let us thank God for the government that we have that ensures law and order, so we can live in safety and peace from such would-be anarchists like that young man wants on the loose! Yes, the riffraff in our American society could get a lot worse! And they just may do that. The future does not look good.
The massive anxiety, hysteria and pandemonium that we have witnessed these past few days may have surprised some people. It has not, nor does not, surprise me. In my opinion our society has been cultivating this kind of ungodly, fear-driven anxious, even criminal, behavior and moral depravity for decades. Our U. S. society is now reaping what it has been sowing.
What we have been witnessing these past few days reveals the spiritual degeneration that now characterizes so much of our U. S. society. What has contributed to that spiritual degeneration? The visible Christian church in the United states has been, and is, declining at an alarming rate. According to the Gallup Poll church membership in the United States from 1937 to 1976 was 70% of the population. That has declined since then. It is now only 50 %. But that 50% is not all that it would seem to be either. That is because 54% of our country’s population, which I strongly suspect is made up of a large part of that 50% church membership, only attends worship services a couple of times per year. The rest of the year those people do not attend services at all. Such a lack of church attendance means those people are not being built up in their Christian faith and godly living by the Word of God, because they are not hearing that Word of God.
That Christian decline inevitably, as I see it, is to a great extent responsible for a decline in the Christian morality in the society of this country. As the Christian faith and morality has declined, the unchristian, ungodly social behavior has increased. It seems obvious to me, that as a result, over the past decades the moral fiber of our society has been progressively degenerating and becoming more depraved.
Why do I say this? Because the Lord Jesus says we Christians are the salt of earth. (ref. Matthew 5:13) We are what preserves and flavors the social order of morality and integrity of the world. That being the case, the fewer we Christians are in number in our United States, the less taste of morality and integrity there will be in our country’s society. To put this matter plainly and bluntly: If the salt disappears, the flavor disappears with it!
Contributing to the decline of Christianity with its positive moral influence on American society has been this: A growing number of people professing to be Christians have adopted the secular, modernity mindset that now predominates social thinking. It is evident that increasing numbers of Christians have been apostasizing, that is, falling away and giving up their Christian faith. In place of their former Christian faith they have adopted a religious indifference, becoming instead “nothings”, known as “nones” who have no religious affiliation whatsoever.
As a result of this Christian degeneration in our society over the decades, we are now witnessing to the extent that it has become a lack of Christian trust in God to watch over, protect, and provide for his Christian people. There was no sign of such trust in God in the masses of our country’s society that exhibited the panic-driven pandemonium of the past few days.
So, we are now seeing masses of people that have abandoned their trust in God to build their lives instead on the groundless shifting sands of their own self-reliance, self-endeavor, self-sufficiency, self-centeredness, selfishness, and self-morality. Having no faith in God to see them through the dangers and inconveniences due to the coronavirus, they go to pieces. They cannot handle what they are facing. Fearing the worst of consequences for themselves, they are overcome with anxiety and a hysterical concern for their self-preservation. They will allow nothing to stand in their way of getting what they want for themselves to secure their own well-being, even if they have to punch another shopper in the mouth to get a roll of toilet paper.
By way of contrast, look at the God-fearing Christian believers in Jesus Christ these past days who have taken the coronavirus in stride. They have been trusting in our gracious God to watch over them, provide for them, and preserve them until such time as he calls them home to heaven. They have not been out in the stores fighting over rolls of toilet paper or bashing in porta-poddies for bottles of hand-sanitizer. They have behaved uprightly and morally as Christian believers in Jesus. They have been producing their good works of faith to the glory of the Father, which included being good, upright, law-abiding citizens. In the process of being such Christian believers in Jesus, they have set a good example of how God wants all people to behave themselves in their respective society.
As God’s Christian people in Christ we have great comfort and hope. Yes, we are sinners who have disobeyed God’s holy moral laws, including failing at times to entrust ourselves to God’s providential care. Because of Christ Jesus, however, we have the divine assurance that all our sins have been forgiven, whatever they might have been. Because of Jesus’ redeeming sacrifice of himself as the payment for all of our sins, God has forgiven our sins. Having been forgiven in Christ Jesus, God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. (ref. Ephesians 1:3) Therefore, in view of God’s mercy in Christ by which we have been saved for eternal life in heaven, let us each day go quietly about our lives clinging to God’s reassuring words to all of us believers in Jesus, who are caught in the midst of this coronavirus panic and pandemonium:
And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)
16 For this reason we do not lose heart, but even though our outer man is being destroyed, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.
17 For our momentary light affliction[1] is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all measure and proportion,
18 while we do not keep our eyes on the things that are seen but on the things that are not seen; for the things that are seen are temporary, but the things that are not seen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
31 If God is for us, who can be against us?
32 As a matter of fact he who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things?
33 Who will bring charges against the elect of God? God is the one who justifies.[2]
34 Who is he who will condemn? Christ Jesus is he who died, and what is more who was raised to life, who is also at the right hand of God, who is also interceding for us.
35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or hunger or nakedness or danger or sword?
36 As it is written,
“FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG,
WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP FOR THE SLAUGHTER.”[3]
37 But in all these things we gain a surpassing victory by means of him who loved us.
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor demons nor things present nor things to come nor powers
39 nor height nor depth nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31-39)
Amen!
God’s blessings to you.
Rev. JC
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