The answer is, "No, they don't. People do not wonder about this any more."
I am reaching the end of a twenty-year excursion into the Bible, where I sought nuggets not unlike "the prayer of Jabez." I looked for verses, and portion of verses, that people typically skip over without thinking about it.
It is obvious to me that God hates immorality. He gave us rules for life, as the way to control our selfish appetites. When the misbehavior of Tiger Woods became public about a decade ago, I heard a caller into a radio talk show say, "We used to have a solution for people that wanted to do stuff like that - it was called marriage!"
Our society is so over-sexed and obsessed with it, that we cannot even stop to see that this is true. The Lord hates immorality. Define immorality in the most prudish, frigid, conservative, goody-two-shoes way you can, and you will have it. The standard is clear. It is simple to understand. It is even simple to follow. Just do it.
You either value purity, or you don't. The water is fresh, pure, and healthy, or it isn't. The cave is either pitch-black, or it isn't. The water is boiling, or not. God has made it very easy to get.
In the closing chapters of Revelation, immorality is given the most graphic word: whoredom. Pleasure for the sake of pleasure. The pop culture tells us we are owed certain experiences, and we must have them within two hours, (the length of a motion picture). Even wild animals follow some rules. We have none.
A screen player told me recently, that the romance novel is dead. When there were rules, stigmas, and limits, there was such a thing as tension in the genre. Without limits, there is no tension. Without tension, no plot. Who cares about romance? Moral limitlessness killed romance. (Remember "no boundaries" and "no rules"?)
Fallen, fallen, Great Babylon is fallen, . . . the kings of the earth came to her whorehouse, and the businessmen of the earth got rich off her driving lust for pleasure.
Sin is boiled down to this: the ultimate, fleeting, pleasure. It is the insatiable hunger that will not kill us if we do not feed it. Our approach to it defines us either as humans with a noble calling, or as no different than the beasts of the field. It's imagery defines rebellion against God. It's proper use signifies agape love, unity, purity, godliness. It is a perfect gift to us, for the practice of the virtue of self-denial, for the putting off of temporal pleasures, for drawing near to God and relying on Him.
And it is, from Genesis 1:1 to the end of Revelation: the concept that is stressed over, and over again, as the area in our life of sin that we must gain control of! For, the world keeps trying to make it okay to have no rules on it. We want Christ, and rampant satiation of our lusts - but it doesn't work!!
We have to ask: why is this so important to God? What are the public health reasons God would want purity for us? Why is it good for children for their parents to stay together, and to model fidelity to one another? Why is it good for an ancestral chain passing from father and mother to son and daughter, for countless generations, to be clearly defined and managed? Why is it good to develop the virtue of delayed gratification? Why are grandchildren a blessing to the elderly? What positive impacts are on the hearts of young women and men, when they wait? Why do so many people, having lost their virtue before marriage, wish they had not? Why is intimacy better between couples that waited, than between those that did not? Is it, or is it not, true that civilizations that fell always experienced a loosening of morality before their decline, and is there a link?
It is obvious to me that God hates immorality. He gave us rules for life, as the way to control our selfish appetites. When the misbehavior of Tiger Woods became public about a decade ago, I heard a caller into a radio talk show say, "We used to have a solution for people that wanted to do stuff like that - it was called marriage!"
Our society is so over-sexed and obsessed with it, that we cannot even stop to see that this is true. The Lord hates immorality. Define immorality in the most prudish, frigid, conservative, goody-two-shoes way you can, and you will have it. The standard is clear. It is simple to understand. It is even simple to follow. Just do it.
You either value purity, or you don't. The water is fresh, pure, and healthy, or it isn't. The cave is either pitch-black, or it isn't. The water is boiling, or not. God has made it very easy to get.
In the closing chapters of Revelation, immorality is given the most graphic word: whoredom. Pleasure for the sake of pleasure. The pop culture tells us we are owed certain experiences, and we must have them within two hours, (the length of a motion picture). Even wild animals follow some rules. We have none.
A screen player told me recently, that the romance novel is dead. When there were rules, stigmas, and limits, there was such a thing as tension in the genre. Without limits, there is no tension. Without tension, no plot. Who cares about romance? Moral limitlessness killed romance. (Remember "no boundaries" and "no rules"?)
Fallen, fallen, Great Babylon is fallen, . . . the kings of the earth came to her whorehouse, and the businessmen of the earth got rich off her driving lust for pleasure.
Sin is boiled down to this: the ultimate, fleeting, pleasure. It is the insatiable hunger that will not kill us if we do not feed it. Our approach to it defines us either as humans with a noble calling, or as no different than the beasts of the field. It's imagery defines rebellion against God. It's proper use signifies agape love, unity, purity, godliness. It is a perfect gift to us, for the practice of the virtue of self-denial, for the putting off of temporal pleasures, for drawing near to God and relying on Him.
And it is, from Genesis 1:1 to the end of Revelation: the concept that is stressed over, and over again, as the area in our life of sin that we must gain control of! For, the world keeps trying to make it okay to have no rules on it. We want Christ, and rampant satiation of our lusts - but it doesn't work!!
We have to ask: why is this so important to God? What are the public health reasons God would want purity for us? Why is it good for children for their parents to stay together, and to model fidelity to one another? Why is it good for an ancestral chain passing from father and mother to son and daughter, for countless generations, to be clearly defined and managed? Why is it good to develop the virtue of delayed gratification? Why are grandchildren a blessing to the elderly? What positive impacts are on the hearts of young women and men, when they wait? Why do so many people, having lost their virtue before marriage, wish they had not? Why is intimacy better between couples that waited, than between those that did not? Is it, or is it not, true that civilizations that fell always experienced a loosening of morality before their decline, and is there a link?
Within the past month, a lifelong friend confided in me, that she has come to hate intimacy. (She had had ample experience with it throughout her life). How is it that this definition of "love" that even drives our public debate and reform movements, can represent something so detestable to so many? Why are we okay with the monetization of something that's supposed to represent our highest aspirations?
Do we even care? If we don't, why not?
Do we even care? If we don't, why not?
No comments:
Post a Comment