There is something far deeper and more sinister than what we see on the surface in our culture.
The devil knows exactly how to distract a culture from God and replace prayer, Bible reading and dedication to righteousness, with superficial meaningless activity.
All he has to do is make life easier for everyone.
"Religion tends to be strongest when life is hard, and the same may be said of morality and law. A person whose main difficulty is not crop failure but video breakdown has less need of the consolations and promises of religion." Robert Bork
I would replace the word "religion" with "Christianity." Religion is a system of rules but Christianity is a relationship with Jesus Christ. We do not run on our own power but the power of the Holy Spirit when we are born again. Following rules does not gain us heaven but a relationship with Christ does.
The point here is that when God is removed from our culture and individualism becomes the goal, we no longer have a moral compass.
When "religion" rules a nation we have a lot of good rules but no changed hearts. The rules can change as the hearts grow weary and lazy. When Christ rules in a heart through born again experiences the heart is changed so that what we do is based on our love for Christ not our love for self glorification or personal ease.
In removing all the hardships from the lives of people we have managed to remove the elements of growth also. One cannot grow to become a better person without the trials that teach and train.
James 1:2-8
2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,
3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
4 And let endurance have its perfect [d]result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
6 But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, 8 being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways."
2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,
3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
4 And let endurance have its perfect [d]result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
6 But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, 8 being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways."
We are a culture that is unstable in all its ways.
Robert Bork had another very good point when he said this:
"A culture obsessed with technology will come to value personal convenience above almost all else, and ours does."
"A culture obsessed with technology will come to value personal convenience above almost all else, and ours does."
He also said: "Among those consequences however, is impatience with anything that interferes with personal convenience."
We have seen this with divorce, abortion and all other ills in our culture today. All these answers to life's problems are nothing more than impatient people doing the convenient thing. Few people in our culture are willing to walk through the difficulties of life with the resolve to finish it to grow into a better person as well as being helpful to others.
Our culture helps others in meaningless and even dangerous ways merely to feel superior and special. The help isn't help for a lifetime of accomplishment, its superficial without substance, producing lazy and entitled people without purpose.
Isaiah 5:20
"20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"
"20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"
