Watching the news over the last few days as rioters destroy property not their own, burn police cars into cinders and take the dreams of small business owners and turn them into nightmares of the most intense variety has been truly heartrending.
That those perpetrating these vile acts do so in the name of "honoring" someone who was involved in a felonious assault only moments before being killed by a police officer in the commission of his duty is sickening.
A grand jury refused to indict and returned a lawful verdict of "no true bill" meaning that the police officer was not guilty of any unlawful conduct.
There are so many opinions and so much hatred swirling around and the people aren't even really sure what happened, so instead of allowing cooler heads to prevail, they have taken it upon themselves to destroy their town.
Why?
When we replace God with idols of clay, allow the decency and respect for one another to be replaced with bitterness, fear and hatred, allow civility to be shunted aside for thuggery, then our nation is losing the moral center of right from wrong and accepting the shallow replacement of situational ethics to become our one true god.
Too many people are willing to equivocate on every single decision. Far too many are allowing the words of reporters, race baiters on every hand and hustlers seeking power to decide for them how they should act.
We have not much distance between us and mere animals when we do so.
There is an old hymn called "Know This That Every Soul Is Free" that talks about the sacred moral agency God has granted to each one of His children.
Verse one states:
Know this, that ev'ry soul is free
To choose his life and what he'll be;
For this eternal truth is giv'n:
That God will force no man to heav'n.
Although we are FREE TO CHOOSE, that freedom of choice is limited by the consequences of what we have chosen.
We are free to rob, loot and destroy. But we are not free to feel peace in our heart and home within that environment.
We are free to lie, distort and twist the truth for selfish ends. But we are not free to be trusted by others when our duplicity is discovered.
We are free to morally abdicate responsible and Godly choices. But we are not free to be accepted by those who obey the commandments of God as if our disobedience didn't matter.
God will not strip us of the moral agency to choose. He will never force us. But he cannot bless those who refuse his mercy and his grace.
Verse 2 explains:
He'll call, persuade, direct aright,
And bless with wisdom, love, and light,
In nameless ways be good and kind,
But never force the human mind.
In the song, there is one particular phrase that has always touched me deeply even from the time I was just a little child. It is found in the third verse and is a truth that we cannot run from nor deny. The words of the third verse gives clarity to the truth of what our moral agency entails. We have the freedom to choose, but we must marry that freedom with reason in order to be useful creatures capable of rising above the station of an animal.
Freedom and reason make us men;
Take these away, what are we then?
Mere animals, and just as well
The beasts may think of heav'n or hell.
The last verse of this hymn is also telling as it reminds us that we ALWAYS can choose to change our course. We are endowed by our Creator with power from on high, but we can only employ that power in His service to His praise and our blessing OR to our condemnation and destruction of our ability to perceive and receive His blessings. He cannot go back upon His word. No unclean thing can enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
May we no more our pow'rs abuse,
But ways of truth and goodness choose;
Our God is pleased when we improve
His grace and seek his perfect love.
If we wish to feel that perfect love in our lives, we must live in such a way as to be in receipt of that love. While God loves us always, He cannot and He will not tolerate our sins forever. If we do not seek to improve our life, if we refuse to repent and change and if we become the kind of morally bankrupted individuals we are seeing, we truly have given up a noble divine birthright to accept the mess of pottage offered by lesser souls willing to devolve into mob rule that benefits no one.
Within every culture and society that has failed, there is a sad moral truth. When that society so invested personal gain above all else has reached the tipping point, society cannot hold up under the strain of self seeking power. The wolves no longer howl at the door, they are in the parlor and range about the room ravening and ravaging the helpless, the innocent and yes, even other power seekers who get in the way of the bigger wolf.
There is no loyalty in the power struggle to own it all, destroy it all, take it all and rule it all.
As destructive as the one ring in the immortal Ring Trilogy of J R R Tolkien, the power that is promised to "the one" by Satan is more deadly. He is willing to destroy anyone and anything to grasp at the glory he trampled in his twisted attempt to thwart the Divinely appointed Plan of Salvation.
Those who listen to the subtle whispering of Satan soon learn that subtle becomes quite insistent and he is a taskmaster of unbelievable destructive and manipulative power.
Getting out of his grasp is hard work that requires a level of self-sacrifice that is most unpleasant and uncomfortable for the "ME" generation.
In order to change, it must be change in every facet of life. Not merely saying but doing a complete life alteration.
Dropping destructive habits, changing thought patterns, losing the influence of "friends" who intend harm, leaving behind the wicked life habits that corrupt.
But it can be done!!
Many have walked the path of repentance, receiving forgiveness and feeling the approval of a loving God who can indeed help in every step of the process.
None of those who have so destroyed their communities and defiled themselves are beyond the reach of a loving Heavenly Father and the Atonement of His Beloved Son Jesus Christ.
We need a return to God. We need a return to Christ.
Only then can the world be healed.
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