Radical - Radical Deception and the Cultures of Death
Part 6.2 - Choices, Consequences, and the Edge of the World
The dear Lord Jesus said:
When evening comes, you say, "It will be fair weather, for the sky is red," and in the morning, "Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast." You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. - Matthew 16:2-3
If you've been to the beach on a dark and stormy day, you've seen the waves crashing down and crumbling into chaotic swirling whitewater off shore. The wind blows fiercely and you shield your eyes as sand gets in your face. Try to swim out to those tall waves on a day like that and you may find yourself violently tumbling underwater, fighting what's left of those crashing waves, or very likely dead.
If you make it past the whitewater surf left over from the crumbled waves, you know what an arduous task it will be to go any further. The waves rise up leaning over you, and you pray they don't fall on top of you. What on another day would be a simple swim becomes a terrifying life and death struggle just for survival.
While others would be frightened, if you're a surfer - a really crazy surfer - you will be excited by the sight of such huge waves. However, if you set out and don't paddle as hard and fast as you can at just the right moment to sweep up and over the waves, the waves will push you forcefully back toward shore and you'll be right back where you started - bruised and injured in many cases. If you're just a little late, tons of water crash down, you will lose control of the board, and you'll have to swim back to shore and grab it.
If it's not a hurricane, and the waves are the result of strong but steady winds, you'll find that it's quite different when viewed from the other side. Way out from shore, sitting on a surfboard waiting for a wave, or watching from a boat, you can see huge waves roll toward shore and see further on, the expanse of whitewater and then the beach far away in the distance.
But during a storm when you're in a boat, if you lose a sail, a mast, break a rudder, or find that the motor won't start, you'll drift helplessly with the tide! The violent swells and currents will send you closer and closer to the edge where waves crash down.1
The roar of the surf drowns out everything else and you will feel fear grip you and roll through you from your heart down to the pit of your stomach. You will know terror!
Rough Seas and Big Waves at Lighthouse Photo: Rough Seas and Big Waves courtesy of Freefoto.com You'll understand that where you see the waves fall apart is the point of no return. You can't - or at least don't want to - go there at all. It appears like a "cliff" of water where you and your boat would suddenly fall off the "edge" of the ocean and slam down into the sand or rocks beneath. Depending upon the conditions, you will already know that you, everyone with you, and your boat may not survive that collision.
Many ships have been wrecked that way. In fact, that is one reason the lighthouses shine their beacons at night to warn sailors of the dangers that lurk if you venture too close. They're there to protect you and all others who sail by.
It's one thing to intentionally beach a boat on a calm sunny day heading in to a sandy shore to take a swim, but if your boat drifts sideways out of control in a storm, you can capsize, break apart, and sink! Having no sail or no power leaves you in the thralls of the merciless currents. They will take you where they go!
If you fall overboard, you will realize how small you really are compared to all the world, and the waves will carry you away or drag you down to the bottom of the sea.
If you're sailing with a crew and they panic during the storm, there may be a mutiny: some will loyally choose to support the Captain, but some will betray their pledge to serve him and join the rebels who no longer trust his judgment or disagree with the mission.
There's a world of difference between where the Captain will lead and where those rebels would lead if they gain control, and sometimes, in the battle for control, the ship is lost to both.
In life, we, too, find ourselves caught in the currents created by the hundreds of decisions and choices we and others made long ago. We, too, may find forces vying to control the direction of our world.
The decisions you, I, and others made long ago and even recently might have taken us in quite an unanticipated direction and our world changed forever. Isn't that so? Do you remember those decisions?
If we're honest, sometimes, we made very poor choices and have had to live with the consequences, because time moves in only one direction, some decisions are irreversible, and the consequences always follow. We can't avoid them. Every cause has its effect. Every decision makes some difference in what follows in our lives.
Each of us is responsible for what we choose to do, but we are also carried by currents as powerful as the sea. Trends in society set the stage for change not only at the individual level, but the local, state, and national level.
Trends in civilizations even affect people living on entire continents and around the world. Individuals - like those sailors helplessly drifting along in boats without power - are swept along by the historic trends of their time.
Like ripples and larger waves on the water, those trends may last for decades or centuries. Some ripples don't matter much at all, but others change the entire trajectory of society, government, and even the worldview held by the people. They can turn a society upside down and inside out.
Any time a nation's values, law, and security are threatened or abandoned, such a turning point arrives, but violent war is not always necessary to begin a major change. Sometimes, if enough people mutiny and rebel, change comes from within. Sometimes, peaceful migration or an invasion brings changes that transform the society.
Or, lasting change arises after values and power start to shift and opposing factions struggle violently to determine which side prevails. That is civil war. It has happened over and over again throughout history and in every nation at one time or another.
Even though we make decisions daily and believe ourselves to be shaping our own destiny, we really are not fully in control of our future. Today, our nations and the world as we know it have intentionally been set adrift. Groups have been funded by the powerful to destabilize society, to foment conflict, riots, and chaos. These forces threaten to and do intend to break our world into pieces.
Today, many feel alone and powerless. Throughout past ages and generation after generation, millions of young men have died after being swept away by the currents of war. Many women and children have also died in the struggles for power.
These trends and forces cannot be avoided, but we can choose how we face those currents when they endanger our ways of life, our nations, and our lives. We can choose to add our voices to the debates and decisions that are made.
Even if we can only start a ripple effect, joined with others, that ripple will become a wave that also changes the course of history. Those who start such ripples in the world have a vision within them. They have faith. These are those individuals who arise from time to time in varying conditions, with sometimes overwhelming obstacles, and persevere.
They may not even know that they will be starting something new, but they are impelled by the voice within to do what they believe to be right. Sometimes they accomplish much good. Sometimes, their efforts are swept aside by others. Sometimes, others step in to do terrible evil and harm many.
Those who have the ability to see the great forces moving the nations and their peoples advise leaders and warn them when they act unwisely, but most often, the people and their leaders ignore them. In these cases, whether the nation is ruled by a king, a dictator, a President, or Prime Minister, the national ship of state will drift with the currents of the time, may crash upon a reef, and be destroyed.2
The nations and people do not always suffer what is "fated," but what inevitably results from their own collective choices - both past and present. People often suffer horrific losses. Homes, wealth, positions, and every other aspect of their lives are lost to societal chaos and war.
When we hear about or see the refugees fleeing war zones, what we are witnessing is the tragic collapse of their societies and nations - their world. Those gaunt refugees shuffling slowly along with ripped clothing and dirty faces may have worked as professors, farmers, scientists, or even served as powerful judges, but when their world collapsed, those careers and achievements became nothing more than memories of a lost reality.
Though leaders of the nations may pretend to be working altruistically for the people, the nation, or for a higher cause, leaders are most often guided primarily by their own interests, agenda, and ideology. Historically, many have been so self-interested that they only acted to protect their own welfare and that of their own allies and friends.
Even in modern times - as all times once were - the people truly are at the mercy of their leaders who are enabled by their powerful positions to create the currents of history at the time. Some of them may be intent on destroying what has been in order to re-make society in their own way, just like pirates who seize a ship and sail their own way, or intentionally scuttle the ship as they set off in their own vessel waiting nearby.
If we go sailing and then - believing we are doing the "right thing" - rip our own sails to shreds or wreck our own motor, anyone could see that we were completely irrational. When a nation's leaders choose to act just like that, they destroy the nation and the people with it. Sometimes, it is the rebels who revolt who achieve that ruin. Revolution after revolution, nations rise and fall.
When a nation's leaders make laws that assure evil actions in the nation, and when a large majority of the people choose to support these decisions, the consequences will follow. God doesn't need to curse them to punish them for what they have done, but the people and their leaders doom themselves by violating His law and acting in ways that assure the loss of stability, prosperity, and security.
Just as that doomed ship without a sail, a functioning motor, or a broken rudder ends in disaster, our society's leaders have led us to the precipice. Now, we have a choice to either repair the ship of state, reform our lives, and turn our hearts with great reverence toward God and pray that our society finds the right way, or, we can choose to follow blind leaders into the abyss of evil they have opened up before us (Jeremiah 4).
Some might say that the path opening up is unrecognizable and unbelievable, but it is happening. Even if we have failed to follow it consistently, the Judeo-Christian ethic has encouraged ever-increasing cooperation between and freedoms for all the peoples of the world. The idea of universal human rights arises directly out of this ethic which has been best expressed by the dear Lord when He shared the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).
On the other hand, radical socialists are using wedge issues to indoctrinate the young who do not know history, to utterly re-make society, to divide brother against brother and sister against sister, to divide families, ethnicities and generations, and to foment the flames of hatred, violence, intolerance toward opposing views, and intolerance of the very existence of those the Nazis labeled "life unworthy of life":
- That some wish to impose socialist government control over all aspects of society even though this has historically inevitably resulted in millions and millions of deaths through genocide wherever it has been adopted3 (like in the communist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (The Soviet Union), National Socialist (Nazi) Germany, the communist People's Republic of China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and elsewhere),
- That some have legalized the killing of millions of patients worldwide who we once assumed we would care for - one by one, officially through State-sanctioned euthanasia or de facto through stealth euthanasia practices,4
- That some bizarrely rejoice when the killing of newborn babies or embryonic or fetal human beings is legalized and considered a "human right,"5
- That medical genetic engineering is increasingly being used to determine who should live and who should die,6 - just like the Nazis and other eugenicists did,
- That many are increasingly condemned for simply expressing one's faith in God and for affirming the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman - and a man and woman only - as designed by God for the creation and raising of children,
... all of these and more make many of us wonder with terrible dread filling our thoughts : - like those being swept dangerously closer to the crashing waves7 and reefs below:
"Is this what all our soldiers have died to defend? Is this what our founders had in mind when they established the United States of America assuring the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to all?" "Is this insanity going to take over our world?"
Is it really possible that some still do not even understand we are nearing the point of no return? The good captain steers clear of the reefs, the surf, and only enters safe harbors, but rebels, mutineers, and pirates rampage and destroy the good that is and has been. Like sailors helplessly being sent toward sure destruction on the reefs, many fear what is to come.
Now, many of those who seek to advance socialism or Islam have openly revealed themselves. The threat of communism has reared its head again with new faces like a snake that has cast off its old skin.
We live in different times with different historic trends. The advance of Islam is being pushed simultaneously, and both Islam and socialism are utterly incompatible with Western-style ideas of freedom. Both are legalistic and demand complete obedience to the elites who rule with iron fists. Both demand global conquest and global government.
Now, those who have been sleeping are opening their eyes. Islamic nations and groups have reminded the world what their goal is all about: world domination. How can it be otherwise?
Islam is a political movement seeking to establish a theocracy. In other words, there is no separation of church and state in Islam. Absolutely everything in society or in private life is controlled by the edicts of the elites in charge.
Socialism - which ends in communism - is exactly the same except instead of displaying an openly religious veneer, it imposes its Satanic atheistic faith in fallen man. Socialists set policies that directly conflict with human nature!
Its secular utilitarian humanism devalues anything and anyone who does not support the State. No opposition is allowed. No true faith is allowed. Darkness reigns supreme and misery spreads like a hellish wildfire.
Yes, a few now recognize the signs of the times. Either we listen to the good Captain (John 10:1-18) and turn away from the evil of our times and our hearts, and turn toward Him, or - as has happened to nation after nation throughout the ages - the end will come swifter than most could ever imagine.
You doubt this? Most don't really believe history will repeat itself, but in 1812 through 1815 - just 200 years ago - the English fought with and invaded the United States and burned our capitol! From 1846 through 1848 Mexico and the United States were at war.
There was peace between Japan and the United States in 1941, but suddenly Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Terrorists flew jets into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, but who expected that? Only those who were paying attention to what the terrorists said they would do.
Most prefer to pretend that misfortune would never come their way, however war can come at any time and comes as a surprise only to those who refuse to read the signs of the times.
It is time for each one of us to decide. Will we utterly trust in Him when the seas around us rise up and roar (Matthew 8:23-27)?
We are called to set the example and light a way to restore the culture of life that has been discarded.8 When even more destruction and chaos arise, will we have His Light within us or will we have been swallowed up in the darkness around us?
The decision is yours and mine. Jesus has invited you and me to join Him. He told us:
... I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. - John 8:12
Endnotes:
1 JJO Video Media Top 5 Waves vs Lighthouses, Accessed 2019, JJO Video Media posted on Youtube.com [Back]
2 Ron Panzer Man in the World: The Duty of Man, April 19, 2013, Hospice Patients Alliance [Back]
3 Edvins Šnore, The Soviet Story, 2008 Labvakar Productions (Latvia); also available at Youtube at: The Soviet Story [Back]
4 Staff, In places where it's legal, how many people are ending their lives using euthanasia?, March 2, 2017 TheConversation.com
Staff, Concerns about Euthanasia, Accessed 2019 Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
Staff, Review of countries where Euthanasia has been legalised. Increasing involuntary euthanasia, without consent by patients, Aug 15, 2017 Bioethics Observatory - Institute of Life Sciences UCV. [Back]
5 Caleb Parke, New York 'celebrates' legalizing abortion until birth as Catholic bishops question Cuomo's faith, Jan 23, 2019 Foxnews.com
Amelia Bonow, Emily Nokes, In "Shout Your Abortion," a Celebration of Life, Jan 22, 2019 YesMagazine.org
Steven Ertelt, Hillary Clinton Celebrates Abortion, Says Abortion Rights "are Human Rights", Nov 13, 2018 LifeNews.com [Back]
6 Julian Quinones, Arijeta Lajka, "What kind of society do you want to live in?": Inside the country where Down syndrome is disappearing, Aug 14, 2017 CBSNews.com
Penny Starr, 'Eugenic Abortion': With Pre-Natal Testing, 9 in 10 Down Syndrome Babies Aborted, Oct 13, 2008 CNSNews.com
Lloyd Lewis, The rise of a new eugenics, July 3, 2013 DenverPost.com [Back]
7 Richard Jones, Crashing waves storm sea swells with white wash waves El Niño, Accessed 2019 VideoBlocks.com [Back]
8 Ron Panzer, Restoring the Culture of Life, 2013 Hospice Patients Alliance [Back]
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