The Darkened Understanding

Remember the story of the frog in the kettle?  It all begins with a frog in cool water with the heat being gradually turned up until what do you have?  Cooked frog! It is so with so many things.

If 30 years ago someone would have proposed any of a number of things we find "normal" today they would have been named "extreme," laughed at, or called to repentance.  Yet today we are deeply immersed in a culture that while moral (from word mores--that which at least 50.01% label as normal) is far from ethical (normal based on transcendent, universal, objective, and immutable reality).

How did we get here?  It was not a radical change but a gradual change, imperceptive change, millimeter by millimeter change.  Those who earned the name "extreme" in the past are now viewed as "mainstream" while those once considered to be normal or "mainstream" are now named "extreme" or "radical!"

Why did we get here?  It may be summed up in one word, "depravity."  Man is depraved and that depravity knows no depth.  In other words, without there being an intervention in the heart of man, he will continue the slide deeper and deeper into depravity with the resulting darkened heart and of course sinful behavior.

The minutely gradual nature of this means that with little recognition, man's heart becomes deeply darkened.  The ultimate outcome is that one loses the capacity to comprehend the existence of and the standards of the Divine.

Even a slight recognition of God serves as a restraint.  Such is so even for those who have no faith experience.  Once gone there is nothing to check one's decent as without the buoyancy provided by faith they slip ever deeper into the depths of spiritual and ethical darkness.  Understanding without God's intervention becomes impossible.

Depravity is sinister in that its actions are gradual almost imperceptible until whether it be a culture, sub-culture, or an individual, there is no escape.  Like the frog in the now boiling kettle.

When one uses the moral messages provided by the media and in much of academia to measure what is correct and normal, then one uses a set of depraved principles to measure the behavior of another.  In other words it is like the village watchmaker who sets his clocks by the factory lunch whistle only to find out that the factory time keeper set his watch by the clock in the watchmaker's window.

To know whether one's standards are right or wrong, one needs an external source or standard.  Such is provided by religion in general and by Judeo-Christian faith in particular.

What is one to do?  In past days there were national and international spiritual movements.  Two were called, "Great Awakenings."  It was then that even whole societies awakened to their plight and to their need for change.  Of course the only lasting change is found in the salvation provided by Christ on the Cross.

It is as one becomes a follower of the Lord, Jesus Christ that he can change not just direction in his life but also his family, and his group to include his society.  It is as that change took place that the effects of depravity were held in abeyance for a time.  May it be so again!