Leaving Reality.

[aiki]

Romans 1:28
28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, ​

In an article I wrote some four years ago now, I pointed out how, when a nation turns from God, it can only turn from Reality and Truth into deception, darkness and delusion. Christian philosophers have described God as the "Ground of All Reality," from whom emanates all that we call true, and rational, and real. Scripture gives good grounds for thinking of God this way:

Colossians 1:13-17
13 For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,
14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.
17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

John 1:1-4
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was in the beginning with God.
3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.

John 14:6
6 Jesus *said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.

It stands to reason, then, that, if one turns from God, one must necessarily turn from the Reality, Truth and Light that He is. But one doesn't just turn from God but to other things - things Paul described in his letter to the believers in Rome.

We don't have to take God's word for it, though. It's possible now to witness, up-close and personal, the truth of Romans 1:18-32 as it plays out in very overt fashion in North American culture. Transgenderism, widespread normalized homosexuality, the corruption of marriage, the dissolution of the nuclear family, post-modernist skepticism and hyper-relativism, Critical Theory, burgeoning neo-Marxism, sky-rocketing crime, State totalitarianism, hyper-violence and sexuality in popular entertainment - these are all the effects of a nation having turned from God.

It's worse, I think, when a nation has known and honored God, and been blessed by Him, and then spurns Him. Such a nation, "suppressing the truth in unrighteousness" and refusing to acknowledge the God that has bestowed such tremendous blessing upon it, as we can see today in North America, descends more rapidly and profoundly into degeneracy and destruction than nations that have never had these benefits.

The Church cannot, though, sit back and point fingers at the lost and condemn those who don't know Christ for acting in a godless manner. Much of the blame for the North American slide into cultural dissolution rests squarely upon a compromised, distracted, and juvenilized Church. As the Church has itself grown distant from God, slowly embracing the relativistic, individual-centered philosophy of the World (and of the devil who stands over it as its "god"), diminishing Christ and elevating Self, embracing humanism and mixing it with Christian doctrine, watering down God's truth in the process, the Church has largely ceased to be "salt" and "light" to North American society. And the as the "salt" and "light"of God has disappeared, rot and darkness have taken hold.

The Church is you and me, however, not some vague organization "over there" to which we can point in accusation and criticism. When I say "the Church," I am speaking, really, of individual believers. Are you among those "Christians" I've just described, drifting far from God, caught up in the philosophies, values and endless distractions of the World? Having known God, are you neglecting to glorify Him in all you do? (Romans 1:18; 1 Corinthians 10:31; Matthew 5:13-16) Is the transforming power of God glaringly evident in your life, the life of the Spirit displayed in a deep, over-riding desire to know and walk with Christ at all costs?

So long as the Church - you and I - fail to shine brightly for Jesus, we will continue to see the societies in which we live descend deeper and deeper into the destruction and death of Romans 1, taking us along for the ride. "What can I do?" you say, "I'm just one person. I can't make anything change." You're quite right: YOU can't. But GOD can. Through you, God can do amazing things - if you'll let Him. But God's vessels must be clean (2 Timothy 2:19-21; 1 John 1:9), fully yielded to Him all the time (Romans 6:13; Romans 12:1), pursuing Him above all else, willing to die to themselves in order that, through them, God may bear much fruit.

John 12:24-25
24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

Matthew 16:24-25
24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

There is, finally, at bottom, only one thing that can properly motivate all of this: Love. But the Church in North America has ceased to truly love God; its love for God has grown cold and as it has, the Church's light has dimmed and darkness has crept over the land the Church was meant to bless and preserve. And by "love" I don't mean the sappy, sentimental, semi-romantic "love" much of the western Church has come to think of as godly love, but DESIRE, a deep, over-riding, life-ordering desire for God, for Christ, for the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 22:36-38
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
38 This is the great and first commandment.

Psalm 63:1
1 O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Psalm 143:6
6 I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah

Psalm 42:1-2
1 As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God?

It is this intense, over-riding desire for God, to know and fellowship with Him, that is supposed to infuse everything that the Church - you and me - does. When this is the case, it pushes back the darkness that would otherwise overtake the nation in which the Church exists. Is this what is happening in North America? Is the Church pushing back the darkness? Are we the "salt" and "light" we ought to be to our culture? It doesn't look like it, does it?

So, what're you going to do about it? Is your "house in order" spiritually? Is Christ shining brightly through you everywhere you are? I hope and pray so. The future of your nation, I believe, depends upon it.

2 Corinthians 4:3-7
3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them who are lost:
4 In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them who believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
5 For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.
6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.