Sometimes it’s hard to determine where prophecy ends and life begins. C.S. Lewis wrote a book called “The Screwtape Letters” in which he describes some of the tactics of the enemy. One of those is the pining for the past, another is the dreaming of a future. These two tricks are designed to keep one looking anywhere but the present.
“When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he [the unclean spirit] walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he [the unclean spirit], and taketh with himself seven other spirits [his former friends who are unclean spirits also] more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation (Matthew 12:43-45).”
Yesterday I was listening to a lecture by John Lennox on the relationship of information theory with the description of God. While most people don’t often entertain these high-minded concepts it sparked a thought in my mind that some of the most simple questions can be profound. Then I was listening to a lecture by Ken Ham on how the words and structures we all think of as common place don’t really have meaning in the modern, multicultural world. I thought to myself, there’s nothing new there. I’ve written a book on the subject, a book I started almost seven years ago.
Haughty eyes and a proud heart— the unplowed field of the wicked — produce sin. – Proverbs 21:4
Two things become obvious as we read and study Holy Scripture; the love, patience and tender care of God for His children and the faithfulness of those chosen of God to speak to those that were to come. Having not yet seen the events they – like Job – “[knew] their redeemer lives.” Knowing that the things of which they spoke were not to be for some indeterminate time, they persevered faithfully, speaking the words given to them through nothing more than faith.
Some of you may know that phrase as the title of a novel by Ray Bradbury. Some of you may recognize it from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Act IV, scene 1. In Macbeth, the wicked thing is the king himself, who, by this point in the play, has become a traitor and a murderer. In the scene, the witches are dancing around the cauldron, putting ingredients into a potion and calling out an incantation. The scene is set to tell the audience that these are wicked women, bent on sorcery. When the knock comes at the door, the “Second Witch” says that her tingling thumbs tell her that something wicked is at the door. Perhaps it should remind you of the phrase “it takes one to know one.”
“The word of the LORD came unto him, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.
The snows will be falling soon. The bells are ringing at the stores. The stores are full of products adorned with holiday season decorations and colors. Music stations are playing Christmas music. Then, there’s the new expectation. The expectation of the culture war.
Usually sin does not usually come to a person “full blown,” in an instant of time. Though, according to Christian belief, since Adam mankind has inherited a nature prone to sin, actions of sin becomes a part of the person over time, through small steps. How fast this happens depends entirely on the environment in which the child is raised. When a person is born into a family that cultivates virtue, there is a tendency to consider the norm that which is virtuous. This does not make one immune to sin, but the example is to do what is right. With this as a basis, as it was in Eden, sin has to be introduced from outside one’s normal environment.
Socialism is slavery.
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