How Long?

 

 

How long, O Lord, will I have to be a witness to the demise of our culture?

As a family we gave up TV sometime before the year 2000. It was clearly harming our children and disrupting family life. We turned off cable and started watching movies that we could choose and watch on our own time.

A few years later we went on vacation, renting a house with cable TV. We were horrified at how “loose” many of the regular shows had become with sexual innuendo and scenes.

This year, during the election process, we started to listen to and watch more and more podcasts in order to get to know the candidates. Many times they would show short clips of  TV shows like “the View” or “Saturday Night Live.” Oh. My. Goodness.

The downhill slide of the content and language were mind boggling. Just today I saw a Fox News headline that said, “Pete Lets Joe Eat Sh’t.”  It feels foolish to ask what has happened to decorum or respect for other people. Why isn’t foul language a problem? We have the most educated society ever and we can’t use decent language to convey a thought?

This is happening on conservative news stations, “Christian” podcasts, and everywhere I turn.

As we observe (visually and audibly) that “those who hate God love death” (Proverbs 8:36), we can see that our nation is not just under God’s judgment but our secular culture’s behaviors have become the Christian standard for judging our own behaviors. It seems that the more babies that are killed in their mother’s wombs or horrible truths revealed about our Hollywood entertainers, the more justified many Christians feel with, “I’m not like them.”

Jesus tells a parable in Luke 18 to teach about this attitude:

“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:10-14).

In this life Romans 8 tells us that we are to be conformed to the image of Christ. HE is to be the standard by which we judge right and wrong and good and evil.

Sacrificing babies for our convenience and treating others as if they have no value are sins according to the Bible. However, it does not make us “good” if we see that happening and rest in the fact that we didn’t do it.

The question of “How long?” will this demise last may be answered by what the children of God are willing to do to step in and teach others that what is happening is the judgment of God, that we need to repent of our evil ways and turn to the Lord for the standard of how we are to live.

The world is not our standard for living a life pleasing to God. Jesus Chris is. Sadly, our nation’s behavior reflects an apathetic Christian community unwilling to stand firmly for the Word of God or imitate His Son.

Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.                        1 Corinthians 16:13

 But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth.                                       Colossians 3:8