What is it?

Started March of 2007...

Every so often, as we walk around the streets of a medium to large city, or we exit some big venue, we hear the strains of a voice saying “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for your salvation is at hand.” That or something like it rings familiar in our minds – or at least in mine. How frequently do we hear the scoffers, the opposition – shush and shut-uppers? The people who groan in response to the call, “Do you not know, have you not heard? There is a way for you to be forgiven and have eternal life!” “Turn away from your life of sin – of immorality and know Christ, God's Son who died for you.” <> 

I have a huge problem with this. And so do most of the people that hear it. From the few times that I’ve seen it happen in these recent years (say the last 15 or so, since that's all that I can readily remember) not much comes of it. You might get some one here and there – usually someone who might have originally been brought up in the church, sometimes a catholic or from some other rather liturgical denomination. Other than the one or two mostly all you hear are rebuttals. Not that this is different, mind you. The radicals who preached the fiery corner sermons in the mid to late 1800’s and early 1900’s got much of the same – but it was a different reason. <> 

Here's what I think it is. We now live in a different time. Catherine, William, Evangeline and other pioneers of the Salvation Army, D.L. Moody and any other number of passionate, spiritually articulate apostles of the Faith spoke to a people who knew their sin. The people of that time knew what sin was. They had a keen understanding of it – they recognized it in themselves, much like the Pharisees did when they tore their robes at the sight of the curtain separating the Most Holy Place being shredded in two from top to bottom. They were acutely aware that what they were doing was wrong, but did not desire to stop doing it. They didn't want to stop it for the plain fact that they either felt they couldn't or just didn't want to. <> 

The question still remains, however, why did so many of them turn? Because when confronted with it and provided with understanding about the Truth of the fact that they could indeed stop, and could indeed find something more fulfilling, they found answer to the questions burning inside them. Did all stop? No. One even threw a brick at the head of Samuel Logan Brengle to get him to stop – but praise God for that brick and the little book that came of it. (By the way, that's pretty much what Samuel Logan Brengle said.) <> 

So, what is so different about today? People are still slumming, slutting, drinking, debauching, and in short sinning all around. Nothing's changed – except the attitudes. We have changed from a culture (and this is world wide mind you) that had a moral center to one where morals (deciding whether what Hitler did was right or wrong) are now will-o-the-wisp. Whichever way the wind blows, however you feel today. That is what determines right and wrong for that day. In short, people don’t know what sin is.

Now, I realize I'm not the first person to say this. I’ve probably read it nearly a dozen times myself. But one more voice saying that can't hurt. They don’t honestly know. And quite frankly, they don’t want to know either. “How dare you tell me what is right and wrong? What right do you have?” From every direction we hear this. And from every direction we will continue to hear these same retorts. They cannot, for the life of them, figure it out. Morality, that dreaded thing, has been bred out of them over the last 3 generations. Now, as a historian I will tell you that it started much further back than just 3 generations, and in some sense it is part of a cycle that has been ongoing for the last 6,000 years or so. Sometimes the cycle moves a bit faster than other times (look at the book of Judges – and if you're really a history nut you might even try to find some of the extra biblical sources that do collaborate the stories told in that book) right now, we're in, I believe, the strongest part of the cycle.

<><>It can only start to get better though. It might take a little while to do so, but it can only get better. People are coming close to their “rock bottom” and will, at some point in time, realize their blatant emptiness. Once they realize their emptiness where will they turn – to someone who once told them “I told you so?” No, they'll turn to someone who showed them acceptance of who they were, but let them know that they didn't agree. Someone who hasn't been perfect all their life and knows what it means to struggle with something – who knows the emptiness which was been felt by others. 

When they find someone they can connect with then they begin to open up, and start to share where they're at in their life. The person they've connected with can relate to that, and share how they found the way out. That is what Christ did. He came to our world, put on our clothes, spoke our language, lived our life, and showed us the way to something better. He spoke the truth, which hurt sometimes, but He always showed love – there were just times when the love wasn't returned.

<>Will you show the same love, and put your imperfect self out there, and reach out to those that need to be filled?