The noted journalist Malcolm Muggeridge once lamented the nefarious ideas which have shaped modern
beliefs. This Englishman said, “We have educated ourselves into imbecility.” Why the aberrant behavior in our culture, which postulates its genius from academia and regal halls of learning? America’s moral degeneracy is the fruit of her unbridled liberty and absolute individual autonomy. You see, America’s cultural “freedoms” have come at the expense of social constructs, Judeo-Christian convictions and moral absolutes.
A new breed of thinkers was unleashed to prejudice the minds of this generation’s young scholars and opinion makers. They worked in concert to deliver society from the tyranny of our God-infested past and remake our culture in their own image. They intended to vanquish philosophically anything that smacked of moral restraint. The pen became their sword and the professor’s lectern, their pulpit.
Until now, this generation has decided in the ecstasy of her “freedom” that she will not be bound by anything – not by the Bible, not by conscience, not by God Himself. So, from believing too much that they never did have to believe, now they have taken to believing so little that human existence and the world itself no longer seem to make any sense. Poets and script writers talk about wastelands where the ghostly live, moving among fragmentary ruins which have lost their significance. Nothingness has become the subject of conversation, nihilism a motive, frustration and despair a theme, and the edge of the abyss a nautical term among the intelligentsia!
Thus, we have a society fractured from the moorings of Christian ethic and teaching; a nation divorced from precepts and principles of a monotheistic God whose plan for us was a redemption of love from us… for it was the sins of our father Adam, which has soiled our souls with sin. The rapid rise of unbelief excoriates those who practice life with faith in Jesus!
It is noteworthy to remember the words of the famed writer and atheist, Bertrand Russell. It was asked of him, “What will you do Mr. Russell, if after you die you find out there is a God? What will you say to Him?” Russell said, “I will tell Him He just did not give me enough evidence.” In stating that, Russell took a position diametrically opposed to Scripture. The Scriptures teach that the problem with human unbelief is not the absence of evidence; rather, it is the suppression of it. That’s why Richard Weaver once noted, “Nothing good can come if the will is wrong. If the disposition is wrong, reason increases malficence.” George MacDonald rightly argued that “to explain truth to the person who loves it not is to give more plentiful material for misinterpretation.”
It is because of this willful and woeful cultural mental disposition and philosophical belief that this generation is more often than not presented with a Christ-less Christianity. Reinhold Niebuhr said, “We want a God without wrath who took a man without sin into a kingdom without justice through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”
The Apostle Peter said, “5 Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. 6 For, for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. 7 But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. 8 And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. 9 Use hospitality one to another without grudging. 10 As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 11 If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” 1 Peter 4:5-11 KJV
Pilate asked Jesus, “37…Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, … To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.” John 18:37 KJV
And the Hebrew writer said of Jesus, “15 And for this cause He is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” Heb 9:15 KJV
Jesus said, “9 Jesus saith unto him…he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? 10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.” John 14:9-11 KJV
Jesus taught the existence of God, and He taught that in His person He was God incarnate, the self-disclosure of God Himself.
That’s why atheism is so bankrupt as a view of life. It miserably fails to deal with the human condition as it really is. You see, atheism for the unbeliever posits the negation of God. But more disturbing are those whose actions do not espouse the language of a believer nor do they intimate the heart of Jesus. They are too busy – and thus, they live as practical atheist, living a lifestyle as if there is no God and that His existence does not matter to them.
Friend, it was the eighteenth century Scottish political thinker Andrew Fletcher who once said, “Give me the songs of a nation and I care not who writes its laws.” What Mr. Fletcher articulated then is so real and relevant today. The extraordinary influence song lyrics have had over the moods and convictions of our young reveal how they have been embattled by the pressure and tug of so many alluring philosophies, until today – from the canyons of their mind, they wander on stumbling blind. They wander through this tangled maze of starless nights and sunless days, hoping for some kind of clue – a road that leads them to the Truth. But who will answer?
Live the reality of a risen, real, relevant Savior! “There is none like Him! Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved!” Acts 4:12
Living life without Jesus requires a passion-less existence, thus that life is lived in the boredom of practical atheism, living in the inevitable consequence of emptiness. However, when you live JESUS – you enjoy the bounty of His work resident in your life, because you live and move and have your being in Him. He said, “I have come that you might have life, and that more abundantly!” John 10:10
