Christians and all good people must remember that our fight isn’t against marxism, or racism, or any ism, but against powers, evil and spiritual forces. This is where many have allowed themselves to become confused.
I am just as guilty as anyone. I rail against socialism. I rail against the counterfeit morals of the world such as racism. But we should probably dig beneath the surface, to explore why people are turning to these ideologies.
I think it is because people no longer believe in the power of love, but instead believe in authority, and control. Perhaps because they cannot control themselves, they believe that everybody must be controlled fully, by government, by the state, by the sword, if necessary.
Our christian concepts have not gone away. The truth is that people still feel a deep desire for these moral ideas. All you have to do is listen to the godless, the political maniacs, the atheists and socialists. It is obvious that they do indeed believe in evil, but they just call it by another name.
For example, racism has become the new evil. We are told it is everywhere, systemic, invisible, in everyone, and we are to repent of it.
Every christian and good person can unite under the flag of a war against evil, against sin, against hatred. But when we use the world’s moral language, confusion and chaos is the result. The proof is all around us today.
The real problem with these new concepts is that they do not have a strong claim to accuracy.
For example, any moral fault that an accuser is free from is not a valid religious moral concept. Jesus said as much. We are all guilty of murder, of adultery, of hatred, he said. When a sin (racism) can only be owned by a certain race, it is not valid.
We have to be careful as believers not to promote an alternative moral dynamic to the one laid out over 2,000 years ago, not one based on humility, not one that can be solved by love, as it only exists in the mouths of accusers as a secret, dubious deposit of intent on the souls of others.
The world has abandoned evidence, reason, logic, and all good sense, it seems. They apply their slurs on their opponents without discrimination.
We need to ask ourselves why. What do they see?
They see exactly what you and I see.
They see evil, everywhere, in everyone.
But they have lost hope in love, succumbed to defeatism and nihilism, and now support fully the authority of the state to impose order on everyone.
I had a kind of epiphany the other night about truth and the seeking of it.
I have always felt that most believers I have known are extremely curious people, and have often considered them to be seekers of truth.
Now, an atheist hears this and maybe scorns at the idea. They think of themselves at pure rationalists, following logic and reason to their inevitable conclusions. I believe, for most of them, this is a self-deception.
I say this because you often find, especially concerning social and political issues, atheists allow emotion to override their sense of logic and reason. You often find that they believe that if a man claims that he is biologically a woman, then he just is. The traditional husband/wife/child nuclear family structure can be replaced with alternative models, and nothing of value is lost. And there many more examples such as this.
What is happening is that truth is being discarded for a false sense of self-righteousness.
I find that the majority of atheists do not believe in truth at all. They believe in good feelings, and acceptance to the point of being enablers of suffering.
Christians believe that only the truth can set someone free. It seems to me, on the other hand, that many agnostics and atheists believe that truth, in regards to social issues, such as those just proffered, should take a back seat to niceness.
The problem is, it is not nice to enable someone in their own self-destructive behavior. It is reprehensible, pernicious and evil.
Another example is the absurdity, in the atheist worldview, in being politically or socially active, at all. In a godless universe, where we are just assemblages of meaningless matter, where all morals are subjective, or a matter of cultural preference, the idea that a person should be socially or morally inclined to the point of emotionalism is absurd. In such a world, more of a selfish and self-serving moral philosophy makes sense– that is, if you determine that life is worth living out, at all.
But on Twitter and in message forums all over the internet, on any given day, you find atheists using the strongest of moral language in indignation and judgment toward those that think or believe or vote differently from them. They call their interlocutors reprehensible, racists, and even go as far as to use the word evil.
This is a great mystery and betrays an inconsistency in their reasoning processes. It is not truth that blindly follow, but their souls, in the end.
All of that said, after midnight, a couple of nights ago, I had an epiphany that put all of this together. I made two Tweets at the time to express my realization.
“Most live in a world of bad guys and good guys. Christians live in a world with all bad guys. The only natural thing left for us do is to seek truth, as we already know we won’t ever make a heaven here on earth.”
This is an important point. I’m not trying to fix the world. It is man’s heart or soul that needs fixing. I’ll leave the endless cycle of legislating morality through government to those who don’t know better. The cycle of suffering isn’t going anywhere. Governments will grow in scope and power, the people will be oppressed by the swelling power of the government, The people will either revolt or capitulate. Nothing is gained. No moral progress has been had. The world becomes no better, but more confusing to our befuddled social scientists and humanities engineers.
Believers are not sidetracked by all of this moral wrangling. We are left to seek out truth. It is all we have left to accomplish.
The other tweet:
“Being a truthseeker is what ultimately leads people to God. You can only find God by sorting through the chaos of the moral singularity inside man. But you can only find yourself there by seeking truth.“
And that is closer to the point. Unless you confront the greatest mysteries and tackle them head on, you cannot make a claim to truth. You cannot claim to be a seeker of truth. We who believe have already looked into the noisy turbulence of the cosmic eye, and found truth in it. And because the truth sets a person free, we are free of the moral and political confusion that often finds a home inside the godless man.
I was thinking last night about how to deal with a distant daughter or son. I have two daughters myself, and sometimes children will go through phases. They may become distant, even manipulative, or seemingly aloof or disinterested in almost any kind of interaction with their parents.
I was thinking about the frustration a parent feels in this case, and actually know it well. You feel hurt. You would die for this child, give your life for her or him if it came down to it.
But she has her face buried in a phone all day. She ignores instructions, requests, even greetings. Maybe she has a hundred excuses for why she cannot talk right now or do some simple task.
Maybe the parent will become so frustrated that they begin to feel their heart hardening against the child. The parent feels dishonored, disrespected, and plainly dissed.
I feel like God spoke plainly to me about this subject, and it was a simple and short message.
We have to remember that we too have a heavenly Father. We have, at times, disrespected Him. We have ignored Him for weeks on end, even years, sometimes decades. We too have had our head buried in child-raising or a career or a relationship or a pet sin. We have at times been rebellious, cold, undeserving of his love and the great gift of existence that he has given to us.
We are hypocrites if we complain about our children’s inattention.
Once we realize that we too have been distant children, we also realize that the answer to the problem we are facing is grace, mercy, and unconditional love and patience. We must be patient with them. We must wait for them. We must constantly let them know that we are always there for them. We must be ready to receive their love and attention back at any time.
Of course it is our instinct to grow cold against those who are hurting us. We must never allow that to happen. We must always remember the unlimited grace and mercy our Father God had in dealing with us, and model our behavior after Him.
I had a revelation about Old Testament law years ago. It came after reading a verse by Jesus where he says: “Man is not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made FOR MAN.”
I began to think of the different laws and commands and guidelines issued in the Bible in a new light, as if they were given for our own benefit, one way or another.
And this brought me to “the law,” as it were, which seemed harsh, strict, and imposed discipline on the community and the small nation.
It was actually the story of the man gathering up sticks on the Sabbath outside city limits that altered my view on all of this. I mean, why was it such a dastardly deed on HIS part? A man was found wandering outside the city limits, and he was collecting sticks on the day of rest. Moses ordered the man to be stoned.
The answer is that, for a small nation surrounded by larger and more powerful enemies, where each boy and man is a soldier as well as a citizen, STRICT MILITARY LAW must be observed.
You may see these rules and laws as hyper-puritanical, but they had to be. An outside attack or war could come at any moment, and the people needed to be sober and vigilant at all times.
TODAY we consider these laws abusive or immoral. But we are not in the same context or situation as the Hebrews were 2 thousand years ago, where perhaps these laws were necessary for the survival of the tribe/nation. Remember: the Sabbath was made FOR MAN.
But what does that even mean?
Well, how could the sabbath, or a day of rest benefit a man?
Well, that seems obvious. Men who overwork themselves, and put in 7 days a week at 12 – 16 hours a day will quickly find themselves exhausted, physically sick, and in distress mentally and emotionally.
Men should definitely have a day off, or a day of rest. This is just a common sense principle.
So, now we can understand why Christ said that the Sabbath day was made for man, or for his own well-being.
To quickly go back to the example of the man collecting sticks, we have to remember that a small, wandering desert nation will be responsible for its own defense. Every man is a citizen, but also a soldier.
In the military, almost anywhere in the world, if a soldier breaks the rules and guidelines set out, and deserts his post, and he is caught doing so, his punishment will be severe. And everybody understands this. But when atheists and skeptics look to the old testament law, they seem to forget just exactly what the situation was that the ancient Hebrews lived within, which was a cold, ruthless, dangerous existence, where they are always teetering on the edge of annihilation or destruction.
They must always be sober, at the ready for a skirmish or a surprise assault by a neighboring tribe.
It must be understood that they must be a warrior society. They have no other choice in such a dangerous world.
Their lives are defined by constant war. Their world is dog eat dog. Not at all a situation we are familiar with from the cozy comfort of our air-controlled bedrooms.
So, the next time you read or hear about a non-intuitive command or law in the bible, and immediately draw back from it, being repulsed by the harshness of it, stop and ask yourself what function this law might serve in that ancient society. Ask yourself why this law was given, and how it would benefit this society to institute it. Always remember that their world was much, much different from the sterilized one you live in.
If you are going to judge, judge correctly. Inform your assessment with context. Understand that the Sabbath was made for man. Man was not made for the Sabbath.
In a previous blog post, I tackled this question directly, explaining that God does heal amputees, giving them and millions of others the greatest and most evident miracle one can find on earth. You can read this post here.
But the fact is, amputees aren’t in need of healing. They are not sick, by definition. They are disabled. But there is no disease present to be tackled by an immune response. Therefore, healing is not necessary.
What amputees may desire is regeneration of limbs. But unfortunately for us, in human beings, limbs do not regenerate. They do not grow back. Therefore there is no normal and natural healing process. So when an atheist speaks of a healing, there is no standard present in humans to account for what he is talking about. This is important, that there is no natural expectation for this kind of healing in the world. Given this, they go on to demand a supernatural intervention of which there is no precedent, either in the natural world and in the biblical literature, as well.
Fact is, nowhere in the biblical covenants is there a promise of the regeneration of amputated limbs or missing limbs. This is not an example of God’s failure, but of an atheist understanding of the covenant contract between God and man.
But wait. Hold out on all of this.
The Bible does say that nothing is impossible with God.
There have been a few reports of amputated limbs growing back throughout human history.
Probably the most well-known is called The Miracle of Calanda. It is even documented in a Wikipedia article here.
“The Miracle of Calanda is an event that allegedly took place in Calanda, Spain in 1640, according to 17th century documents. The documents state that a young farmer’s leg was restored to him after having been amputated two and a half years earlier.”
That said, it is important to note a differentiation between an expectation of healing and an expectation of extraordinary miracles. There are many documented healings in the biblical canon. They are healed of fevers, of epilepsy, of colds and viruses and deafness.
But then there is another, higher level of miracle. This concerns the dead being raised, or someone being taken up to heaven. These are remarkable events, rare and infrequent.
I believe there is a reason for this. It really comes down to choice, and free will, and the ability and freedom to choose your own spiritual fate. If physical and extraordinary miracles were commonplace, this trend might or would impinge on a person’s ability to freely choose or reject God and his gospel message. The truth is that, believing in God means to believe in love, in Christ, in the gospel message, more than anything else. There are no shortcuts to heaven. There are no cheat codes. God probably wants your heart, and not just your head.
If you saw a man’s limb regrow under the hand of a prophet, by force of natural logic, you would have to believe. And you would have missed the point of the scriptures and God’s message completely. Which is all about charity, personal sacrifice, love, kindness, and the church.
Now, there is a reference in the New Testament to the loss of a limb. Jesus says:
“And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”
Notice that Jesus says that when you lose an arm or a leg, it has perished. Things that perish do not often return, if they ever do. They become nonexistent. There is nothing left to heal.
What atheists are really asking for is equivalent to asking that a man blown to a million pieces by a landmine be re-cogitated magically. This is a ludicrous ask, as such a man has already perished. He is gone. He has died and is awaiting judgment.
I also want to make the point that our sufferings on this earth are negligible, in the grand scheme of things. If a child is missing an arm for his childhood, and dies, and has 3 billion years in heaven whole and complete, do you think he or she will consider his time maimed on earth to be significant in any way?
Almost definitely not.
That said, some miracles require more faith than others, as Jesus constantly said: “according to your faith” it will happen to you, this when He performed miracles. I believe that it is possible for a man’s limb to be regenerated by faith in God, but who has that kind of faith? It is possible to part a sea, and it was done only once, but who has that kind of faith?
I suppose it is not hard to have faith if the Son of God is physically present in front of you.
Furthermore, we must remember that God always works persuasively, and not coercively, so as to not violate our right to freely choose to serve or reject Him.
Looking deeper into this topic, I discovered that most limb loss is due to diabetes. The loss of a limb itself does not pose a threat to a being’s life or eternal salvation. There is almost always an underlying illness, of which amputation is a treatment, in most cases.
Now, one last point is that, Jesus did perform miracles in front of many, sometimes. And still people would not believe on him. Maybe it is no different today. If you witness a miracle right in front of you, you can always justify it somehow, or explain it away, or ignore it, and many did exactly this.
In that case, a genuine miracle is of little evangelistic value. Maybe it violates freedom to reject God or choose God. Maybe it doesn’t.
