Ramon Arias | November 6, 2017
“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.” Proverbs 12:15 (ESV)Another mass killing has occurred, this time it was not with guns but with a rented truck and carried out by an Islamist soldier in the likes of attacks carried out in Europe. Families are mourning the death of their loved ones, and others are hoping for the recovery of the injured. Is this beginning to make you sick to your stomach?
If you are beginning to sense that evil is becoming too predominant you are right; it is on the rise. On October 9, 2017, I wrote about the mass murder shooting incident in Las Vegas, Nevada: The historical world battle between good and evil. This time we need to consider the jihadist’s attitude of satisfaction with the outcome of his murderous act. From the killer’s perspective of morality and ideology, there was nothing wrong in what he did to others and himself; it is part of engaging in a war against all people and nations contrary to his religious and ideological worldview.
Every person that has ever lived, who now lives and will ever live does so being guided by moral principles. The question then is, by whose morality? Are you old enough to remember that President Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union ‘the evil empire”? Reagan understood the ideology behind the Soviet Union’s atheism, its laws, and history and for that reason could not be trusted. After the Second World War, communism began to influence different continents, the results were loss of life in the tens of millions, in addition to oppressing and enslaving societies. Two years into his presidency, Reagan delivered an address to a meeting of The National Association of Evangelicals, on March 8, 1983. I have selected portions of his message to share with you and encourage you to invest the time to understand America’s increasing moral endangerment since 34 years ago:
The American experiment in democracy rests on this insight. Its discovery was the great triumph of our Founding Fathers, voiced by William Penn when he said, “If we will not be governed by God, we must be governed by tyrants.”
Explaining the inalienable rights of men, Jefferson said, “The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.”
And it was George Washington who said that “of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion [biblical principles] and morality are indispensable supports.”…
Now, I don’t have to tell you that this puts us in opposition to, or at least out of step with, a prevailing attitude of many who have turned to a modern-day secularism, discarding the tried and time-tested values upon which our very civilization is based. No matter how well intentioned, their value system is radically different from that of most Americans. And while they proclaim that they’re freeing us from superstitions of the past, they’ve taken upon themselves the job of superintending us by government rule and regulation. Sometimes their voices are louder than ours, but they are not yet a majority….
For some years now, the federal government has helped with funds to subsidize these clinics. …the drugs and devices are prescribed without getting parental consent or giving notification after they’ve done so. Girls termed “sexually active” — and that has replaced the word “promiscuous” — are given this help in order to prevent illegitimate birth or abortion.
Well, we have ordered clinics receiving federal funds to notify the parents such help has been given. One of the nation’s leading newspapers has created the term “squeal rule” in editorializing against us for doing this, and we’re being criticized for violating the privacy of young people. A judge has recently granted an injunction against an enforcement of our rule. I’ve watched TV panel shows discuss this issue, seen columnists pontificating on our error, but no one seems to mention morality as playing a part in the subject of sex.
Is all of Judeo-Christian tradition wrong? Are we to believe that something so sacred can be looked upon as a purely physical thing with no potential for emotional and psychological harm? And isn’t it the parents’ right to give counsel and advice to keep their children from making mistakes that may affect their entire lives?…
You may remember that when abortion on demand began, many, and, indeed, I’m sure many of you, warned that the practice would lead to a decline in respect for human life, that the philosophical premises used to justify abortion on demand would ultimately be used to justify other attacks on the sacredness of human life — infanticide or mercy killing. Tragically enough, those warnings proved all too true. Only last year a court permitted the death by starvation of a handicapped infant….
There is sin and evil in the world, and we’re enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might. Our nation, too, has a legacy of evil with which it must deal. The glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past. For example, the long struggle of minority citizens for equal rights, once a source of disunity and civil war, is now a point of pride for all Americans. We must never go back. There is no room for racism, anti-Semitism, or other forms of ethnic and racial hatred in this country….
And this brings me to my final point today. During my first press conference as President, in answer to a direct question, I pointed out that, as good Marxist-Leninists, the Soviet leaders have openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is that which will further their cause, which is world revolution. I think I should point out I was only quoting Lenin, their guiding spirit, who said in 1920 that they repudiate all morality that proceeds from supernatural ideas — that’s their name for religion — or ideas that are outside class conceptions. Morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of class war. And everything is moral that is necessary for the annihilation of the old, exploiting social order and for uniting the proletariat….
At the same time, however, they must be made to understand we will never compromise our principles and standards. We will never give away our freedom. We will never abandon our belief in God….
A number of years ago, I heard a young father, a very prominent young man in the entertainment world, addressing a tremendous gathering in California. It was during the time of the Cold War, and communism and our own way of life were very much on people’s minds. And he was speaking to that subject. And suddenly, though, I heard him saying, “I love my little girls more than anything — — “And I said to myself, “Oh, no, don’t. You can’t — don’t say that.”
But I had underestimated him. He went on: “I would rather see my little girls die now, still believing in God, than have them grow up under communism and one day die no longer believing in God.”
There were thousands of young people in that audience. They came to their feet with shouts of joy. They had instantly recognized the profound truth in what he had said, with regard to the physical and the soul and what was truly important….
It was C.S. Lewis who, in his unforgettable “Screwtape Letters,” wrote: “The greatest evil is not done now in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint. It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.”
Well, because these “quiet men” do not “raise their voices”; because they sometimes speak in soothing tones of brotherhood and peace; because, like other dictators before them, they’re always making “their final territorial demand,” some would have us accept them at their word and accommodate ourselves to their aggressive impulses. But if history teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.
…I urge you to beware the temptation of pride—the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.
Christian Europe has been on a moral downward spiral since they turned their backs on the biblical principles and the powerful call that came 500 years ago to uphold them through the work and voice of Martin Luther who spearheaded the Protestant Reformation of 1517. As long as Protestant Christian nations in the Western world continue to be indifferent to God’s morality, they cannot expect to stop the rise of evil. History faithfully reveals the impossible task of human-made morals to make the world a better place. The moral law of God applied to all areas of human development is the only standard for right living.
“The house of the wicked will be destroyed, but the tent of the upright will flourish. There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” Proverbs 14:11-12 (ESV)