April 2010

There are signs all around us that our society is terminally ill, but like the proverbial frogs in a pot we ignore them until it is too late and we are frog soup.

I feel sure that you have seen the recent story about the young Guatemalan immigrant in New York City that was left to die on the sidewalk after rescuing a woman from an attacker and getting stabbed for his trouble. Pedestrians walked around him as he lay dying in a pool of his own blood. One man actually emerged from a building and photographed him with his cell phone, then stepped back inside without attempting to help.

Multiple Pedestrians Ignore Dying New York Hero

Just a simple event on the streets of a large American city, but very symbolic as well as symptomatic of the current condition of our society.  It brings to mind the warning in Matthew 24 verse 12:

“And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold”

Another simple but symbolic event: Last week, I witnessed the following in an airport.  A man with his cane was wheeled up to the gate in a wheel chair   He surrendered the wheel chair and tipped the helpful sky cap went on his way to help someone else.  The man sat in an unoccupied seat next to a seat that had bags of some sort in it, indicating it was being saved, presumably by the teenage girl sitting on the other side of it.  Soon a teenage boy approached and began berating the girl (apparently his sister) for not saving his seat, and demanded that the man with the cane get out of his seat.  The man was embarrassed and struggled up and turned to leave.  He noticed that there was not another unoccupied seat in the gate area and he turned back to the boy and pointing at the unoccupied chair (with bags in it) between he and his sister asked “who is that seat saved for?”  The boy looked up from his magazine and informed him “that’s where we put our stuff” and returned to his reading.  The boy’s father, sitting on the other side of his girl, observed the whole scene and said or did nothing.  The man leaned shakily on his cane until the plane was boarded ten minutes later.  Similar scenes are repeated millions of times daily across our nation.

The condition in which we now find ourselves has been decades in coming.  I suppose it was inevitable that we would eventually have the government we now have.  I am afraid we have earned it.  Look around you.  See the greed, the corruption, the apathy, the lies, the selfishness, the laziness, the complacency, the stupidity, the inhumanity that surrounds us.  Check out our media, our entertainment, our “role models”.

We banished God from our schools and public places.  We accept that its is just freedom of choice to slaughter 40,000,000 unborn babies.  While admittedly there are some dedicated and talented teachers in our school systems, they are the exceptions.  We have allowed our schools to become sanctuaries for poor teachers instead of places for our children to be prepared for life.  We  tolerate pornography and filth and all manner of evil in the name of freedom of speech.  We have become a nation of spectators, of pop-culture-worshipers, of deniers-of-truth in the name of political correctness.  We allow our “press” to screen and censor our news and tell us what to think and believe.  We tolerate corrupt politicians and allow them to lie to us and steal from us, and worst of all, to steal our very liberty which was purchased with the blood  of our fathers.

We have failed to heed the warning of Isaiah:

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”

Now we face woe.

THIS IS AMERICA!  THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING TO US!  Yet it has happened right under our noses.

You and I, we permitted it.

We ignored each descending step, never believing this could actually happen here in our “One Nation, Under God, With Liberty and Justice for all”.  Go ahead, deny it.  Your denial won’t change things.  It is denial that has brought us to this place.

I am optimistic by nature, but I am convinced our society is so rotten that it must crash and burn before it can be rebuilt. I pray that those to whom the task of rebuilding falls will be blessed with the faith, wisdom and humility to re-base America on the same principles upon which it was originally founded and grew to greatness. God Bless America!

{ 1 comment }