When asked by His disciples why He spoke to the people in parables, Jesus’ response, as translated by JB Phillips New Testament has impressed me of late. This is why I speak to them in parables; because they go through life with their eyes open, but they see nothing, and with their ears open, but understand nothing of what they hear. They are the living fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy…… Matthew 13:10-15; cf. Isaiah 6:9-10; John 12:40; Acts 28:25-27. I witnessed the living fulfillment again the other day when listening to a friend speak of her numerous doctor visits that week. “They don’t know why it’s (ligament) not healing,” she said.
My reply, “If you chose to believe and let us pray for you, God would heal you.” Her reply, “But I don’t believe.” I left it at that; she already knows I know her, “I don’t” means “I won’t.” So hard is her heart towards God, she will chose surgery if she has to, before choosing Him. However, although my friend is hard-hearted towards God, she is good-hearted towards people and our prayer is that one day she will come to see that this attribute of her character is God-given, not self-given. In many ways I praise God for good-hearted but godless people in our society while we still have them, for the day fast approaches when most of them will be overrun and overruled by hard-hearted and godless people.
Take a nation’s national anthem for example. When its people vote to discard it because its lyrics contain references to God, you know it’s the hard-hearted and godless that have the greatest influence over that nation. “Outside of the church it’s really out of place,” says one about his nation’s anthem. Another says, “Officially the anthem is a psalm, a prayer, but of course we have an open society, religiously neutral. We have atheists, no single god, so this anthem is a difficulty.” Blog comments are similar regarding national anthems of other nations. “Let’s keep God out of it,” is the catch-cry of many. Spiritual darkness blinds all to the reality that the only reason nations ever prospered in the first place was due to God and the honor given Him by the people.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord Psalm 33:12. Once upon a time when the nation’s key people of influence lived and operated under the fear of God, (yes, I know that sounds like a fairy-tale to the hard-hearted and godless!) that nation prospered economically as well as spiritually. Blessings were poured out in abundance upon the just and the unjust Matthew 5:45. Now look at those nations; they’re looking more like third world countries with each passing year. Worse: Enemies of Judeo-Christian values and standards are flooding in from other lands with one purpose in mind – submission to their values and standards. Who was it that said, “Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants.”? God has seen to it; it’s happening.
Just as God blessed Israel in its years of obedience to Him causing her enemies to be defeated before your face Deuteronomy 28:7 so too were the enemies of nations whose values and standards were those of God. On the other hand, just as God cursed Israel for her disobedience, causing her to be defeated by your enemies Deuteronomy 28:25, so too is this now the case for nations whose values and standards are no longer those of God. Take a look at the key people of influence in those nations today – no God, no godly values, no godly standards, no moral compass, weak, afraid, appeasing, people-pleasing, compromising – and – the laughing-stock of their enemies. Cursed shall you be in the city and cursed shall you be in the country Deuteronomy 28:19.
Cursed is the nation that thinks it can slaughter millions of unborn babies, yet believe there’s no God looking on taking note of their every thought, word and act. Even the good-hearted but godless are disturbed by such barbarism. “Why?” some ask. Here’s why. The Lord will strike you with madness, blindness and confusion Deuteronomy 28:28. Only a person struck by God could think a human being in a mother’s womb a mere”fetus.” Only a society struck by God could point the finger at Hitler and Mengele for their atrocities yet condone similar things being carried out by people possessed with the same evil spirit. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind…….. Romans 1:28.
What a frightening reality is that last Scripture – God gave them over to a debased mind. Let’s look at the kind of mind that is: “A vain empty mind, worthless, good for nothing, devoid of all true knowledge and judgment; incapable of approving what is truly good, or of disapproving that which is evil; a mind that has lost all conscience of things, and is disapproved of by God, and all good men.” John Gill. Note again. God gave them over to it, not Satan! Too often we attribute things to Satan that we should attribute to God. When God gives people over to their evils there’s no way back! This explains why those Planned Parenthood people on those You Tube videos can speak the way they do about cutting up unborn babies.
The Bible’s meaning of a debased mind: ‘reprobate’ ‘rejected’ ‘castaway’. Rejected by God; cast away by God. “We should be praying for them,” says the church. The mothers need prayer, and the suffering babies, but I would not waste time on the others unless I knew for absolute sure it was God laying such hard-hearted and godless people on my heart. There are enough people to pray for rather than waste precious prayer time on this lot. Some in the 1930’s-40’s German church spent a lot of time praying for Adolf Hitler and his mind-debased crowd. Others sat alone with God and prayed for only that which He laid on their heart. In the midst of all the horror of those years, only those knowing the mind of God rested in the peace of God.
Cursed are politicians who legislate marriage laws that overrule God’s marriage laws. Too, cursed are judges who jail Christians for taking their stand upon God’s marriage laws. A day of reckoning awaits them. Lawlessness of every kind is of great concern for politicians, lawmakers and judges. Well, by spitting on God’s marriage laws, they’ve really gone and opened lawlessness’s floodgates now. Sexual rights movements of all kinds will make their move soon. On the Internet, a member of the zoophilia movement is making an appeal to “the open-minded for acceptance.” So far there’s not a lot of support for zoophilia, so guess what kind of language the supporters are throwing at the non-supporters? “Bigoted!” “Intolerant!” “Discrimination!”
It’s taken a while for good-hearted but godless people to accept the new “marriage” laws, but they’re doing so due to relentless bludgeoning from the hard-hearted and godless crowd. So when one by one the pornographers, the pedophiles, the bigamists, and the zoophiles and whoever else come storming over the hill towards them with bludgeons in hand screaming, “bigoted” “intolerant”and “discrimination” some will stay and hold ground for a while, but exhaustion will gradually overtake them and they’ll surrender. But too, perhaps the good news for a few out of those experiences will be a spiritual awakening, a realization that being a good-hearted but godless person has been the key factor to holding them back in life.
Most good-hearted but godless people will go to their graves as such. And as the days become increasingly evil, many will go on to become hard-hearted and godless also; that’s how they will go to their graves. But so utterly repulsed will others become by those debauched and perverted sexual practices mentioned above, it will cause them to stop and seriously ask where God is in all of it. They’ll humble themselves, ask Bible-living Christians, pray, read the Bible, books, Christian blogs and view some You Tube videos. Their diligent search will be rewarded. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart Jeremiah 29:12-13.
A major reason why the institutional church holds no attraction for multitudes of good-hearted but godless people is Jesus Christ; they do not see Him in those claiming to be His people. They see lots religion expressed but not a lot of reality. Now I know statements like that ruffle the feathers of Christians, but it’s true. Ask a few why they don’t, “go to church” and among the answers they give you will be that one. Good-hearted and godly people are what they’re looking for and Christians are the only people to deliver the goods. What to do then? Become a delivery boy; become a delivery girl. All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…….. Matthew 28:18-20. For you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you shall be witnesses to Me…….. Acts 1:8.