For this command which I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you. It is not up in the sky, that you should say, ‘Who will go up in the sky to get it for us and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?’ Nor is it across the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea to get it for us and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?’ No, it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out.
“Here, then, I have today set before you life and prosperity, death and doom. If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God, which I enjoin on you today, loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees, you will live and grow numerous, and the LORD, your God, will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.
If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen, but are led astray and adore and serve other gods, I tell you now that you will certainly perish; you will not have a long life on the land which you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy. I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live,
Deuteronomy 30:11-19 Moses final speech to the Children of Israel
Today is the final Sunday before Pentecost and as I look at our nation where the those in charge of enforcing the law are letting violent attackers go while persecuting those who defend the public. Who encourage the mutilation of children for profit and pleasure and who use the power of the government against their political foes and against those who would defend the unborn I’m reminded of the words of John Adams concerning these United States:
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
You see if you have a moral and religious people then the rights of others and the wellbeing of others are taken into account. The preservation of the next generation is taken into account and the cost of hedonism is also taken into account. All of this takes place because those involved realize there might be a reckoning for all that is done.
But when all is utility, when there is no God and the idea is that we become our own God, then all around us, including the people are a plaything to be exploited to the fullest of our desires.
Now that isn’t to say there were not people who did not think like this 20,50,100, 200 or even 247 years ago when the Declaration of Independence was signed. All of us are human and have a fallen human nature, nor does that mean there are not places in this land where the ethic expressed by Mr. Adams is not expressed and acted upon.
What I am saying is that we are seeing the wages of the choices we have made collectively as a nation, both in terms of actions to destroy the next generation for profit and normalizing evil and in inaction for seeing evil in front of us and pretending it is not so.
All of these have costs to a society and now those costs are being paid and the only people that we can blame is ourselves.
That is what is most depressing.
Let me leave you with this closing passage which proclaimed the start of Lent which led to the Easter and the season that closes at the end of this week:
Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment. Perhaps he will again relent and leave behind him a blessing, Offerings and libations for the LORD, your God.
Blow the trumpet in Zion! proclaim a fast, call an assembly; Gather the people, notify the congregation; Assemble the elders, gather the children and the infants at the breast; Let the bridegroom quit his room, and the bride her chamber. Between the porch and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep, And say, “Spare, O LORD, your people, and make not your heritage a reproach, with the nations ruling over them! Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?'” Then the LORD was stirred to concern for his land and took pity on his people.
Joel 2:12-18
And a reminder of a Cardinal who didn’t realize he was prophesying when he said:
“I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.”
Cardinal Francis George 2010
Cardinal George died 8 years ago (2015) Given the action of the FBI lately we’re well on the way to the 2nd part. God willing we’ll get to the rebuilding part eventually, it only remains to see how long we remain in the stages before it.
The answer to that question, as always, is up to us.
