As God grows distant in the minds of a nation’s leaders and people, perilous times are sure to be the result. History is replete with examples of the turmoil that ensues when the face of the people turn away from God. Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed because of the perversion of homosexuality. The Egyptians were a people who worshipped a variety of local deities and suffered horrible plagues because of their denial of God. The Roman Empire fell over a period of years as the people turned from God to sinful practices of all kinds. Nation after nation over the course of history has suffered due to becoming lost in darkness.

Evil demands that it not be subject to light so that people will remain in its clutches. Jesus said: [John 3:19] And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. [John 3:20] For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.  All around us today we see the forces of evil demanding that light be turned off so that the evil deeds will not be seen destroying God’s creation. Evil directed by Satan isn’t directed at the earth as such, but toward humanity which is created in God’s image. Only by destroying humanity can Satan prevail in his quest to hurt God.

In the United States the Supreme Court has ruled that assisted suicide is now legal in Oregon. People are losing the will to live when living continues to bring them pain and suffering. We as a people are becoming a culture of death, if not having reached that stage already, rather than embracing life though it may be and often is a struggle.

A question, one of many, must be asked. How can those who believe in God and say they are Christians follow the darkness of self induced death? Jesus said: [John 12:46] I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. Abide here means to dwell (or live) as a matter of living in reference to a place devoid of light. Jesus is that light that illuminates since light and darkness cannot exist in the same environment at the same moment. Light drives away darkness and those who continue to tout evil have to deny God in order to do so. Can it be said that the wish to die is a denial of the life that God has given us through Jesus Christ, and that such belief allows evil to enter a Christian’s life?

The forces of darkness employ all kinds of means to deny that Jesus is the truth and the light of the world. John wrote in reference to Jesus: John 1:4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. John 1:5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.  John wrote Jesus was life, and light did away with darkness but that men refused to allow their minds to grasp the teaching and the person of Christ. In other words, they loved darkness more than life and darkness today fills the hearts and lives of many people.

A nation of people lost in darkness embraces perverse forms of selfishness, wishing for death being the ultimate form, and its companion, that of being the agent to facilitate the death of others which the government is now making legal, including the travesty of abortion. But as we read in scripture that isn’t the way of God for the Christians. As Paul said: [1 Thessalonians 5:5] Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. As Peter wrote: [1 Pet 2:] But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; 1 Pet 2:10  Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.

Darkness is caused by evil and Jesus came so that we can be in the light. For as Paul wrote: [1 Cor 3:11] For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.  There isn’t any room for darkness in the life of Christians for one is either in the light or lost in the darkness of Satan’s deadly evil.

© 1-22-06 DEC

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