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The old saying goes, if you want to cook a live frog, place the frog in a pot of cold water and gradually raise the temperature. The frog will not notice the gradual increase in temperature and will cook. However, if you place him in hot water, he will jump out right away.
Our society has been gradually taken down a road that would shock anyone from a few centuries ago. Pick a subject, and you can find it.
I mentioned before about my car, and fortunately nothing else happened to it, but there was a time (still is in some places) where you could walk away from a car with the keys in it and not be concerned. My parents talk of times where they would wheel the stroller up to a super market, leave it outside, go in and do the shopping and not worry that the child would be there when they got back! Places like that may have been rare, but today they are non-existent.
Gradually the family has been eroded to where it accepts all kinds of things it was never intended to accept. If you go back even 50 or so years, it was odd to have divorce, single moms, and especially outed gay couples– let alone gay marriage. And yet, bit by bit the family has been redefined as not to offend or not to judge.
First it was magazines, TV, then VCR, then DVD and the Internet. Things that once started out as great inventions to bring us together and communicate found their way to pervert our soul. When it was magazines, you had to go and get it and people could see that– or order it– but there was something physical present. Then it morphed to VCRs, where you could rent them. You could still be seen, but special rooms and business were built to accommodate this. Hotels started offering porno on TV and you didn’t even have to have it on your bill! And then we got to the Internet. The ultimate in “guiltless” sin. You can look all you want at tons of free stuff and delete all trace you did. No one needs to know.
The list goes on. We continue not to notice what’s going on around us, and then wonder why things are so bad now. When will we see the fight around us, realize we’re in a battle, and fight to win for Christ?
I agree with you completely. We have taken God out of our schools, media, morals and in some cases, our churches. We turn a blind eye to things that we choose not to face, in which we turn into the blind leading the blind. We will turn and fight when the enemy is closer, the time is much shorter, and when all of us finally realize this isn’t a game. When we see that christianity isn’t some bubble gum religion, some opiate for the masses. The Body of Christ tends to forget that God commanded us to stand up and fight as well as loving our neighbors as ourselves. Christ’s will shall be done- despite everything that can and will go wrong. In this i find much peace, and i pray that you find peace in Him as well.
This is so good…I think back to the first classic novels that shocked America…Lorna Doone and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlett Letter. Both touched on indecent things that society didn’t talk about. I wonder how seriously God intended His admonition to “not speak of things done in secret” or Phil. 4:8 “think on these things” (good, praiseworthy, admirable things).
My favorite “frog” illustration (I hadn’t heard yours, it’s a good one!) is about the two frogs drowning in a bucket of cream. One of them gave up all hope immediately, the other optimistically kept kicking. He told the more pessimistic one, “Just keep kicking and this cream will turn into butter!”
That said, we should never give up standing for what’s right in this society. The power of one is a mighty thing.
I promise…I didn’t read this post before I wrote mine on ‘Do What’s Right’! Great article and I loved the two stories about frogs. :biggrin:
Ok, I’ll take you at your word, but you didn’t even link to my blog when you mentioned my post! :cwy:
Please don’t take it personally…but I’m having a hard time doing the links and any fancy stuff. I know, for you guys this is probably pretty simple…but I’m struggling! But thanks for the link to mine! 😉
Actually it is harder to delete all traces from your computer than you might think! Not impossible maybe, but easy to trip up.
There have clearly been times when society has been much safer than it is now, but there have also been times when it was much more dangerous. I also believe that part of the problem with crime now is perception. On nearly every occasion, it would indeed be safe to leave a child asleep outside a shop, even now. (Although if you tried, someone whopuld probably report you for abandonment!) Chidlren did get snatched in previous times – we were just less aware of it because of poorer communications.
That being said, there does seem to be a slippery slope in attitudes – moving away from a shared morality towards something relativistic and “post modern”.
Things just don’t shock us anymore! That’s what I find disturbing. It’s bad when you think one sin can prevent another…such as aborting as many newborns in Africa as you can to prevent them from being raped by men dying from AIDS. It’s the worst of perversions. Sometimes I can’t imagine that we’re very far off from being raptured.
Stephen, on the relaxed parenting scene…many states here in the US are making laws now about not leaving children under the age of 11 in the vehicle for any length of time without an adult. Even if you’re parked in your own driveway getting all the kids out the door for…whatever. In one way, I agree with the reasons behind it, to keep parents from leaving newborns and toddlers unsupervised in a possibly dangerous climate…but eleven year olds?