How Far We Have Fallen When...

 


How far as a nation have we fallen spiritually and morally when a dictator, or at least a perceived dictator like Vladimir Putin appears to be more principled and morally upright than many people within our own nation including many within our own representative government.  Some time ago, in an address to his respective nation, Putin stated:
 
 
 
 
Let’s answer some very simple questions for ourselves…I want to address all the citizens of the country – not only to those colleagues who are in the hall – to all the citizens of Russia: do we want to have, here, in our country, in Russia, instead of mom and dad there was “parent number one”, “number two”, “number three” (they were completely crazy already there!)? Do we really want perversions that lead to degradation and extinction to be imposed on children in our schools from the primary grades? To be drummed into them that there are supposedly other genders besides women and men, and to be offered a gender reassignment operation? Do we want all this for our country and our children? For us, all this is unacceptable, we have a different, our own future
 
I repeat, the dictatorship of the Western elites is directed against all societies, including the peoples of the Western countries themselves. This is a challenge for everyone. Such a complete denial of man, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, the suppression of freedom acquires the features of a “reverse religion” – outright Satanism. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ, denouncing the false prophets, says: “By their fruits you will know them.” And these poisonous fruits are already obvious to people – not only in our country, in all countries, including for many people and in the West itself. [1]
 
 
 
 
And who can blame him for not wanting the same madness that has infiltrated and entrenched itself in our culture to enter into his?  After all, if Putin and the Russian people are well aware of the consequences of the affirmation, celebration, and imposition of LGBT ideology and of the harm suffered by those who, under the delusion of thinking themselves to be something they are not, attempted to change themselves into something that they never have been and never really could be and if they are well aware of the consequences of the rejection of sound moral standards, then why would they ever want the same in their own country? Why would they ever want to embrace philosophies and ideologies in their own nation that they know have caused a great deal of harm in other nations?
 
And based upon Putin’s own statements, it should be no wonder that he has gained sympathy, respect, and even admiration from some members on the political right, social conservatives, and nationalists and regardless of where one stands on his actions in Ukraine, we ought not stand opposed to his efforts to maintain moral stability in his own nation but instead should stand by him insofar as that is concerned because why would we want for any nation, including those that happen to be rivals and adversaries of ours, the things within our own country that are causing us a great deal of grief and harm and will invite eventual judgment upon our nation unless we turn away from those things and back to the very God upon whose precepts, virtues, laws, counsels, and principles this nation was founded?
 
To his credit, Putin seeks to preserve, in his own nation, the integrity of the family and marriage as God created them to be while we have mocked and perverted the sacredness of marriage and distorted its definition and not only that, have persecuted those refusing to endorse, affirm, or celebrate, by either word or deed, that which is a mockery of the sacred institution of marriage which was designed to only be between a man and a woman
 
And also to his credit, Putin is striving to retain some degree of sanity and common sense within his respective nation as far as basic facts are concerned while we, in the name of political correctness and so-called tolerance, are poisoning the minds of our children by deceiving them into thinking that gender is not determined by fixed biology but by deluded feelings and giving approval and affirmation to that which is perverted madness.
 
But that is what happens when a society abandons the belief in and due worship of Almighty God for with the abandoning of a God who is a God of absolutes, then comes with that the abandoning of absolute truth and moral absolutes and when there is an abandonment of truth, then comes the rejection of even basic facts and that is not what Putin wants for Russia, then clearly wisdom and common sense still reside within its government and its people whereas wisdom and common sense have left our government and many of the people because we have left the God who is the source of knowledge (Prov. 1:7) and wisdom (Ps. 111:10) and based upon the current state of our culture, we have fallen further away from the knowledge of God and of His ways than even Russia.
 
At one point in our history, America was regarded as the most “Christian” of all nations.
Now, we are becoming more pagan and more anti-Christ than many other nations throughout the world have become.
 
And with a moral and spiritual decline, has come academic decline, economic decline, the weakening of our defenses, and an increase in unrest, instability, corporate and civic corruption, lawlessness, a mistrust in our institutions, and even a loss of liberties and independence.  It should be no coincidence that MAGA stands for two things: Make America Great Again and Make America Godly Again because the greatness of a nation is not found in its economy, its academic institutions, its private sector, media, government, or military, but in the spirituality and virtues upon which it rests as was observed and relayed to his own respective government by a French statesman called Alexis De Tocqueville:
 
 
 
I went at your bidding, and passed along their thoroughfares of trade. I ascended their mountains and went down their valleys. I visited their manufactories, their commercial markets, and emporiums of trade. I entered their judicial courts and legislative halls. But I sought everywhere in vain for the secret of their success, until I entered the church. It was there, as I listened to the soul-equalizing and soul-elevating principles of the Gospel of Christ, as they fell from Sabbath to Sabbath upon the masses of the people, that I learned why America was great and free, and why France was a slave. [2]
 
 
 
The nation that is the greatest is not the nation with the most territory, the strongest economy, the mightiest military, or even the best quality of education, or even the nation that is the most innovative.  The greatest nation of all is the nation in whom the love and fear of God reside in the most.  If America wants to be the great nation it once was, it must fear and love God again for the fear of God drives us to examine ourselves before Him and repent of all those things that displease Him and it is the love of God that should motivate us to commit ourselves to serving Him, giving Him due reverence and worship, honoring Him and including Him in all things, abiding and walking in His truth only and in nothing more or less and if we are to restore America to the greatness it once had, we as a people have to recognize and admit our own wretchedness which is a wretchedness shared in common with all men of all nations, ethnicities, lineages, and tongues going all the way back to the first man Adam and his wife Eve who are the first man and woman whom God had created (Gen. 1:26, 2:7-25) and from whom all nations and peoples descend. (Acts 17:26)
 
And it was from them that this wretchedness was passed on for it had entered into them before it was passed on to the rest of us.  But before this wretchedness which is the inherent corruption of our very nature which is called sin entered into this world, Adam and Eve were created without fault or blemish.  They were a perfect being and pure inside and out and as far as the divine scripture is concerned, there was nothing forbidden to them except one thing and that was the fruit from a tree called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:16-17) having been warned by God that in the day that they ate thereof, they would surely die. (Gen. 2:16-17, 3:3)
 
And it was in the day that they ate of that fruit that sin had entered into them and brought upon them the sentence of death as they had been warned (Gen. 3:19) and from them, this inherent corruption passed into all of humanity causing all to sin (Rom. 5:12) and as a consequences death, through sin, has come upon all of mankind. (Rom. 6:23) 
 
But the consequences of sin did not stop with man for the curse that it brought fell upon all of creation which is why death and decay are present everywhere and why all forms, kinds, degrees, and severities of miseries, hardships, adversities, sufferings, griefs, sorrows, pains, and evils abound in this present world for as it is written, the entire creation groans and travails in pain to this day. (Rom. 8:19-22)
 
Sin affects, taints, distorts, corrupts, and perverts far more than we can even comprehend which is why nothing, in which sin dwells, can ever enter into the Kingdom of God lest the Kingdom of God be defiled just as the earth itself has been defiled.
 
Sin is not merely defined by just our actions or even the words we speak alone, but is rather the inward corruption of our own nature influencing not only our actions, behavior, conduct, deeds, or the words we speak, but it also defiles, perverts, and darkens our very thoughts, minds, hearts, attitudes, and motives which is why even our own goodness falls short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23) rendering us unable to earn our way into the Kingdom of God by our goodness.  We can only enter into Heaven by the goodness and merit of our Creator who, in His goodness, and in His love, and in His mercy, has provided us salvation in Christ Jesus who, being without sin (2 Cor. 5:21) was that perfect and unblemished sacrifice (Heb. 7:26-27) needed and required to take away the sins of the world, which He did when He offered Himself up unto death upon the cross on which He was crucified and upon which His blood was shed and by the shedding of His blood was the demanded penalty for sin satisfied and redemption on our behalf purchased and after having paid the demanded penalty by His death, Christ rose again from the dead so that we, by faith, would be justified in Him (Rom. 4:25) so that any calling upon His name for the forgiveness of sins, (Rom. 10:13) believing in their heart that God raised Him from the dead (Rom. 10:9) would be saved from what would otherwise be a fearful and terrifying and unrelenting torment in a place of eternal damnation called Hell which is the fate and destination of all sin, and all evil, and all those who take pleasure therein.
 
But for they who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus in sincere faith and repentance will be liberated from everlasting condemnation and will be given everlasting life, peace, happiness, and joy before the Lord God Almighty.
 
And with repentance comes not only salvation in Christ, but with salvation comes also a reconciling unto God (2 Cor. 5:18) from whom our sins had once estranged us, and a new nature that is different and opposite of our old sinful nature (2 Cor. 5:17) that causes us to no longer desire to follow after selfish and worldly pursuits but after those things that pertain to the Kingdom of Heaven,
to no longer take pleasure in those things that are evil and displeasing in the sight of the Lord, but in that which is good, right, and pleasing in His sight,
to no longer desire to walk in the lies of this present world, but only in the truth that comes from Christ Almighty, no longer placing our hopes in the things of this present world, but looking forward to that new and better world to come, (Rev. 21-22)
to no longer rely on worldly resources, men, or even our own power, abilities, skills, and wisdom for our needs and provision but upon God who is able to meet all of our needs, recognizing that the resources of this world and even the people He brings into our lives are but instruments and vessels through which God meets our needs and that the skills, power, knowledge, and wisdom by which we might acquire our provision are provided and instilled in us by God,
to no longer fear what men can do to us, but rather fearing the God before whom we will have to one day give an account for how we lived our lives, (Mt. 10:28)
to no longer look to corruptible institutions within our society for direction and order in our lives but to God who, by His written Word has given us laws and precepts to be applied to our lives and which serve to produce and maintain an ordered life, and who, by His Holy Spirit which comes to dwell within us upon repentance, establishes in our lives a course and direction in our lives to pursue for His glory,
to no longer seek our own glory but the glory of God,
to no longer rally behind corruptible men, but instead behind the incorruptible God in Heaven bearing in mind that those men and women God raises up for our edification are but instruments and servants of His for that respective purpose to which He has called them,
to no longer seek to align ourselves with the things of darkness but only with the things of the light,
to no longer trust in the wisdom of the world but only on the wisdom and knowledge that comes from above, nor depend on corruptible earthly authorities to swiftly administer justice, but only in the power of God to deliver us from evil.
 
And just as we are transformed inwardly by the blood and power of Jesus Christ upon repentance and cleansed from the sin that would otherwise lead us into everlasting damnation, so also we shall be liberated from bodily death when our present forms which were born into corruption and into sin are also transformed into forms in which there is no sin and no inherent corruption (1 Cor. 15:51-55, 1 Thess. 4:13-18) for where there is no sin, there is no death.  And finally, we look forward to the day when even all of creation itself shall be liberated from the curse placed on it because of sin when this present world passes away and a new and better world is made and established in its place; a world in which there is no more sin, death, decay, nor any curse and in which no evil dwells, where there is no darkness, and no more pain, suffering, misery, grief, sorrow, or hardship, but only light, life, peace, contentment, happiness, and joy before Almighty God.
 
If you have not done so already and want to be at peace about where you will be spending eternity, then I urge you reader today to call upon the name of the Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins.  It is but a simple and sincere prayer of repentance away:
 
 
 
"Lord Jesus I need you.
 
 
I realize that I am a sinner
who has fallen short of the glory of God
and that my goodness falls short
of your standard of Moral perfection.
 
Please forgive me of all of my sins.
Come into my heart and into my life
to be the Savior and Lord of my life.
Make me into the servant and follower
that you want me to be.
In your name Lord Jesus, I pray.
 
 
Amen."
 
 
Know that God is not concerned with the words that you use to call upon Him forgiveness, but with the attitude of your heart and if you have, with all sincerity, have asked Christ to forgive you of your sins, placing your trust in Him only for your salvation and in nothing else, then your sins are forgiven and your place in Heaven is certain.
 
 
 
End notes:
 
 
 
1.  Adan Salazar, “Watch: Putin Slams West’s Corruption of Traditional Values, Gender Norms as ‘Perverted Religion, Outright Satanism,’” Info Wars, September 30, 2022
https://www.infowars.com/posts/watch-putin-slams-wests-corruption-of-traditional-values-gender-norms-as-perverted-religion-outright-satanism/
 
2. Madison Clinton Peters, “Empty Pews & Selections from Other Sermons on Timely Topics,” pg. 35, Philadelphia A. T. Zeising & Co. , Printers And Publishers,
December, 1886
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Empty_Pews_Selections_from_Other_Sermons/f54PAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
 
 
 
Scripture references:
 
 
 
1.  Proverbs 1:7
 
2.  Psalms 111:10
 
3.  Genesis 1:26
 
4.  Genesis 2:7-25
 
5.  Acts 17:26
 
6.  Genesis 2:16-17
 
7.  Genesis 3:3
 
8.  Genesis 3:19
 
9.  Romans 5:12
 
10.  Romans 6:23
 
11.  Romans 8:19-22
 
12.  Romans 3:23
 
13.  2 Corinthians 5:21
 
14.  Hebrews 7:26-27
 
15.  Romans 4:25
 
16.  Romans 10:13
 
17.  Romans 10:9
 
18.  2 Corinthians 5:18
 
19.  2 Corinthians 5:17
 
20.  Revelation 21-22
 
21.  Matthew 10:28
 
22.  1 Corinthians 15:51-55
 
23.  1 Thessalonians 4:13-18