Jesus Christ And His Teachings Never Change

Of course I believe that God forgives. But forgiveness and consequences are two totally different things. We may think that the closer we get to forgiveness the further we move from consequences. Not so!

The Old Testament book of 2 Samuel tells of King David’s lust for another man’s wife, Bathsheba. When she became pregnant by him, he then committed a second sin, the murder of her husband, to cover up the first sin of adultery. David requested and received God’s forgiveness, but natural consequences followed even though God had forgiven David. Now, I’m neither a psychiatrist nor a sociologist able to draw a direct connection between what David hand done and the tragedies which followed in his family (rape, murder and intrigue), but the implication of the account as found in 2 Samuel 13:1-18:33 is that it David’s sin introduced conflict, mistrust and dysfunction within his family. God promises to forgive sin, but that does not shield us from the natural consequences of our sin.

It has been estimated that the Lord’s church is losing eighty percent of her youth by the time they reach twenty-one years of age! Four out of every five! Does this shock you? It should. I am inclined to think that the estimate is fairly accurate. In many Christian congregations today, there are relatively few young people in attendance. Why is that? I suspect that a large part of the reason for this is that in many cases virtues and values are no longer a part of family life, having been obfuscated in these latter days by a general and pervasive secularism. There are at least three contributing factors, and all of them are natural consequences of the corrupted and debased cultural environment in which we live.

1. The Destruction of Personal Faith:

From the time our youngsters first start watching television, and then progressively as they matriculate through the secular school system, they are propagandized with a variety of teachings, overt and hidden, that are designed to destroy their faith in God, and their confidence in Christianity. In a hundred subtle ways children are taught that New Testament faith, universal standards of right and wrong based on God’s natural law, and, Christian virtues are untenable. Those children who have been taught New Testament faith, universal standards of right and wrong based on God’s natural law, and, Christian virtues in the home and express these ideas in public are subjected to subtle social punishment, sometimes including ridicule. Add to this fact the sobering reality that many young people today are given almost no moral and ethical instruction either at home, or in school, nor even in the church, to counter the secularism to which they are exposed daily, and the destruction of personal faith among our youth becomes understandable. It is a natural consequence.

2. The Encroachment of the World:

The times they are changing, and, drastically so. Youngsters these days are brutalized with the carnality of the world at increasingly tender years. More and more children are exposed to the use of recreational drugs and alcohol at an earlier and earlier age. Television, with its inundation of lustful explicit sexual activity has broken down the barrier of sexual purity. Many of our young people today are accustomed to ogling nudity in the movies and on TV. And need I mention the internet? Every time I turn on my email, I must pass through the provider’s home page with its prurient teasers inviting the viewer to click on a “news” story that is salacious in content. The kids are exposed to this as well, and no longer just on home computers where there is some reasonable chance of regulating what they are exposed to. Now sexually explicit material is available to them on the cell phones that almost all children seem to carry with them. Once prematurely deprived of their youthful innocence and seduced by hedonism, it becomes nearly impossible to bring them back to godliness. This too is a natural consequence.