One of the things that most troubles me about this age is the ease with which people of my age, or only slightly less, abandon truths and standards that they were brought up with. They don’t hang on to them at all.
I think I must have mentioned this before, but it is to the point and I’ll never forget this incident. The young amoral couple in the next apartment, the woman not yet divorced from her current husband, succeeded in conceiving an out-of-wedlock child. To celebrate, they threw a party on the lawn. The whole neighborhood turned out–all these people old enough to know that you don’t shack up with some jidrool before you even file for a divorce from the other monkey, let alone produce out-of-wedlock children by some guy who already has a kid somewhere California–a kid, but no wife.
This was not a thing to celebrate. People in their fifties and sixties ought to know that. But there they were.
Then another neighbor had an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and they threw her baby shower at the Baptist church. I thought Baptists knew it was wrong to beget children outside of marriage. Did God change His mind about that, or did the Baptists just forget?
What does it take to swing people around 180 degrees from their moral standards?
Not much, I guess.
I’ve noticed the same thing. It used to be that the morals of mature adults (perhaps 40 and up) were cast in stone and not negotiable. Nowadays, even seniors seem willing to go along with the majority and abandon the moral standards with which they were raised. I guess it’s just part of the degradation of this world.
And the dead churches. If the shepherds are amoral or immoral and don’t properly lead the sheep, what else could we have expected?
That’s a big part of the problem. If you have a clergyman willing to compromise the bible’s standards a lot of people will listen and use it as an excuse to do what they wanted to in the first place.
Which is why many will take the mark of the beast. Instead of listening to man, we should listen to Jesus. He actually wrote 7 letters specifically to the churches – for such a time as this..
Wasn’t that St.Paul who wrote those?
The letters in Revelation 2-3 are specifically from Jesus to those seven congregations.
The number seven should have clued me in. I wasn’t counting them as letters because Jesus spoke them. I should have realized John was taking dictation. So that does make them Jesus’ letters, and I stand corrected.
My understanding is that since the Book of Revelation is written to us in our time, so are the letters to the churches – aspects of all of them are present today. Jesus is preparing us (His Church) – telling us in no uncertain terms, what to expect, what problems exist and what to do to correct them.
Immorality is mentioned more than once in those letters and that seems to be a huge problem in our day. More than once, I’ve had someone whom identified as Christian try to convince me that sexual immorality was acceptable behavior for Christians.
Indeed. Immorality and idolatry – which sometimes are one and the same.
These days, just the fact that the parents didn’t hack the baby to bits and sell it off for parts might be worth celebrating.
My church has a very active Respect Life group, which has saved a number of babies from being slaughtered in abortuaries. The group is very prayerful and does very good work, praying outside abortuaries in all kinds of weather and taking all kinds of abuse from abortuary staff — but I’ve been a little disturbed by a project they’ve begun recently: having elaborate, festive baby showers for the mothers shortly before the babies are born. The showers are advertised for weeks ahead of time, with pictures and wish lists, and everyone in the parish is invited to come and celebrate. Scores of people turn out for these showers. I know the idea is to show that life is precious and a baby someone to be welcomed rather than to be disposed of, and that there are people who are willing to help mothers in crisis pregnancies — but it seems to me that, since all but one of these mothers has been unmarried, these festive occasions go over the line into celebrating fornication. (Yes, an old-fashioned word.)
I don’t know … am I being too “judgmental” and “rigid”? I just can’t bring myself to go to any of these parties.
God bless all of you, Phoebe. What a wonderful testimony to life and to Jesus who gives it.
I understand your feelings about the celebration of fornication. I’m inclined to agree with you. A public display lends acceptance to immorality. While I understand wanting to help mothers who are in need, maybe a quieter way would accomplish this without the fanfare.
We questioned ourselves a little for not attending the out-of-wedlock baby shower on our lawn… until they brought in the DJ. Then we stopped.
In this case, the two culprits–remember, the mother was still married to someone else–announced, months in advance, their intention to have at least one baby together (and they wound up with two before she finally woke up and dumped the guy). What they did, they did on purpose. We couldn’t celebrate that.
I think turning the event into a big wing-ding goes a bit too far. Certainly it’s an ancient Christian (and Jewish) tradition to comfort and support the fatherless. But there is difference between that and throwing a party.
Once you lay out free food and booze, people will come and whoop it up no matter what the occasion.
Our wanton disregard for marriage is what has led to where we are now. Divorce became accessible and socially acceptable. Promiscuity became the norm, and chastity became the oddity. It all paved the way for same sex marriage, because marriage no longer really means anything. And who knows what the next thing will be. It’s a slow downward spiral. Sin is deceptive in this way. It seems innocuous enough at first. What harm can it do? Marriage is just a piece of paper. But we don’t see the full of effects of sin as it starts to bud. Only when it is in full bloom do we see its full effect, and the destruction it brings. Unfortunately I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet.
There is no end-point, no final payoff, with this. Those who debase and debauch our culture don’t even know why they’re doing it.
Good points, Watchman. When sex became perceived as meaningless, then the doors were open to any and every-thing. It’s truly painful to watch what happens when people leave there morality behind.