By Douglas V. Gibbs
Christmas approaches, and during this time of year some of us are reminded that we must keep our eyes on Jesus Christ. None of us are perfect, but we seek to be more like Christ, and we recognize that in our world human beings have become so desensitized against God’s Word that even killers are being celebrated by massive crowds.
Desensitization is a slow and steady game. I usually call it “creeping incrementalism.” It’s like the camel’s nose in the tent. It begins small and innocently enough on the surface, and it is only once the entire body is in the tent that one realizes the goal all along was to take over and fill the space of our world and lives – slowly, and incrementally.
Thomas Jefferson once provided, “In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”
For me, principles, and moral standards, mean a lot. Our System of Liberty depends upon them.
As I walked through Walmart with my wife I noticed a sign of a young woman jumping into the air with one of her hands pointing skyward and the words “No Boundaries” draped across the image. Spectrum Internet’s campaign claims that life should have “No Limits.” PlayStation 5 says that “Play Has No Limits.” I find it to be very coincidental that we are being bombarded with these kinds of messages during a time that we are being told that “Love is Love” and it has no limits, boys can be girls and girls can be boys and that there are no boundaries for that kind of behavior even when parents and other concerned individuals show any opposition, and that violent riots in places like Portland and Seattle are actually peaceful demonstrations no matter what your eyes or common sense might have told you – to say otherwise is racist. No limits. No boundaries. Accept the new desensitized world, or be cancelled.
As a child I was taught the importance of boundaries. In college even psychology teaches how important it is to practice boundaries and limits. Lessons of the past teach us that without limits and boundaries society would descend into chaos. We have moral standards, laws, and expected behavioral norms in our society because if we don’t have limits and boundaries our human nature will chase whatever psychedelic butterflies it wants and not give a care about who or what it hurts in the meantime.
Without morality the concepts of good and evil or right and wrong become a moot point.
In modern American Society the source of our morality has been biblical. The Western worldview is a Christian worldview based on the idea that God exists and he has communicated to us through biblical text.
Man was created in God’s spiritual image, which makes us moral beings, or at least beings who are capable of differentiating between right and wrong. That recognition is based upon the fact that we know God’s law, be it the Ten Commandments, or our own personal revelations and conscience. Following God’s commandments makes us shine as an individual with moral character. We know if we are operating in a good way or not a good way because God wrote His law on our hearts (Romans 2:15) which means that the truth of what is right and wrong is self-evident (Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence).
Today, and throughout history, it gets all confused by our flesh which battles with our spirit constantly. We know God’s law, but our fleshly desires and constant internal battles seek to distort God’s law, therefore, sometimes we seek to justify sin and do things our way rather than God’s way. While our conscience may whisper to us that what we are doing is off the beaten path of what God desires from us, we justify it and even seek a social consensus. If everyone else says it is okay, we reason with ourselves, then it must be. At that point, general social consensus becomes our moral compass, which in the long run is a recipe for collapse and chaos.
I have a saying: “If we abandon the rule of law, and embrace the rule of man, it doesn’t take very long before we begin dancing around a golden calf.”
In the Bible we are given direct lessons regarding the danger of seeking the rule of man, rather than the rule of law as established by God’s law. The most well known story regarding such behavior (to give a nod to my golden calf comment) is revealed in the story about Moses and the Great Exodus. Later, after Israel finally lands in the Promised Land, we read in Judges 17:6 that in Israel “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” They justified their sins, did whatever they wanted, and within a couple generations Israel was operating in a manner that was evil in the sight of God. False gods led to false worship and what was right and socially acceptable was measured in the eyes of the people rather than God’s law. The dysfunctions of the leaders, in this case the judges, trickled down to influence the entire nation; leading to idolatry, armed robbery, sexual assault, murder, genocide, and human trafficking. The lesson? Do what is right in your own eyes, or the eyes of the world, and you will face destruction. Take up the cross and follow God’s law and you will gain your soul, gain the world, and prosper.
If biblical truth is not our source for morality, then one would need to ask, “What should be?”
The Book of Jeremiah tells us not to trust our heart, our heart (emotions, fleshly desires and our rebellious human nature) can lead us to wickedness. God gave us our conscience. Our human conscience can operate like an alarm system, warning us when we are transgressing our moral standard. Remember, the law has been written on our heart so when the human nature part of our hearts seeks to chase after sin (the part of our heart that the Book of Jeremiah tells us not to trust), the conscience, logic, ability to reason, and our desire to seek out God will inevitably inform us that we are treading on dangerous ground. Therefore, even those who do not have Christ, but are playing with immorality and working to ignite their place in the social consensus, know deep down the godly foundation of right and wrong and when they buck against God’s standard of morality they are operating in open defiance and rebellion against God.
Social consensus is not always the enemy of godliness, however. It is possible to shape and change the culture around us. A generation ago the family unit was seen as a building block of society, and homosexuality, divorce and adultery were still not largely accepted. Today, homosexuality and divorce are seen as just another normal part of life in America, and while adultery has not been normalized as sexual deviation and divorce has been, it is not stigmatized as it once was.
America’s social consensus has become as it was in Israel shortly after conquering the Promised Land. Everyone does what is right in their own eyes.
Living on the Edge, a popular rock song by a group called Aerosmith, kind of nails it, when you think about it.
There’s something wrong with the world today
I don’t know what it is
Something’s wrong with our eyes
We’re seeing things in a different way
And God knows it ain’t his
It sure ain’t no surprise
…
Something right with the world today
And everybody knows it’s wrong
But we can tell ‘em no or we could let it go
But I would rather be a hanging on
We have been neglecting God, and his enemies who seek defiance and rebellion have been working diligently to worsen the situation, and everybody knows it. It’s like we have become the proverbial frog in the pot, not knowing we are slowly cooking to death…yet, we do. The change is gradual, and most people don’t even notice it, but deep down they know it is happening. In the movies, music, the news, education, and through the messages from overall social norms we have been desensitized. Cultural Marxism, some people might call it. We can call it the road to Babylon, or Sodom and Gomorra. Whatever it is, we are headed in the wrong direction.
As God’s influence disappears, and as churches retreat to the four wall of their church buildings and pastors refuse to stand in the public square and be cultural leaders, the country’s moral decline has been on the march. God has been pushed out of the government, the public schools, and out of the public square. The social consensus has become hostile to His laws, and as Paul wrote in Romans 3:18, “there is no fear of God before their eyes.” As a result we are seeing escalating violence, escalating business and political corruption, unfaithfulness among each other including with our family and friends, children no longer honor their parents (Micah 7:6 “for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house”), and society as a whole is giving in to its own lusts and desires. In the end, the only remedy is either full repentance, or God will give us up. Roman’s 1:21-31, For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God and give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that were contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error; because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
Sounds much like today, doesn’t it?
History reveals the truth. As it was many times with Israel in the Old Testament, so it is becoming with the United States, and unfortunately, the entire world. Society is becoming so debased that it would not be a surprise if God’s dam of mercy were to burst.
As a result of all of it we have become desensitized. We have become more willing to accept the unacceptable, and in some cases act in ways that should be considered above and beyond wrong. The most heinous actions then, somehow, find an audience somewhere in the world cheering them on. We have reached a level of such spiritual stupor that we have been gradually desensitized to true and moral values. Lawlessness abounds, and the love of many in the church are growing cold (Matthew 24:12). We have become perverse in a way that we are acting in ways without natural affection (II Timothy 3:3). We seek to be accepted by the worldly crowd, and our culture has been given over to a carnal view of things, seeking continuous sensation-seeking stimulation. The lust of the flesh, the lust of our eyes and the pride of life are virtually running wild. No limits. No boundaries.
In the King James Version of the Bible in Romans 1:29 it is called a “reprobate mind.” It means irrational stimulation resulting in monstrous behavior. We walk around in a stupor, apathetic and indifferent to the highest priorities of life, abandoning God’s rule of law and embracing the rule of man. We no longer defend lawlessness like we once did, and as a result we are losing God-given love and we are heading toward times that Paul forewarned us about.
The world once ended in the Flood because of God’s judgment on the wickedness of humanity. A similar judgment is on the horizon, and we are at a time where we will either delay those days, or hasten them. We must embrace God’s righteousness, despite our fears that the carnality of men may scoff against us instead of appreciating what we are supporting. The cultures, cities and even our liberty-based political system will grow dissolve without repentance and be destroyed. We cannot get our political house in order if we don’t get our holy-house in order. We cannot turn America around if we don’t get right with God.
Cultural Marxism has been trying to teach us to hate God, hate liberty, and hate success. Inheritance is demonized, the free market is being attacked, and large corporations and their personnel are being vilified. As a constitutionalist I have no problem with large corporate entities, wealth, success, or massive profit. My problem is when those entities use their wealth and power to collude with government in some kind of corrupt orgy of mercantilism. But, the opposition of liberty, and the opposition of God, has convinced us that only extremes are acceptable. If you don’t approve of a particular lifestyle, than you are characterized as being a hater of people who engage in that lifestyle. If you don’t agree with all of the demands of the feminist agenda, you are a sexist and misogynist. And, either you must hate large corporations and anyone associated with them or anyone who profits from their activities, or you are a part of the big-corporation problem.
Such was the attitude during the French Revolution, and those people who had grown to hate anyone who was “religious” as a result of the sins of the established church, and hate any and all nobility because of the sins of the king and queen and certain personages were the same people cheering the beheading of royalty and prominent people in late 18th-century France. The hatred for the powerful, and the desensitization of the culture to violence and giving the hated ones the punishment they deserved led to a condition that would be like rooting for the lions in the Roman Coliseum.
We have been so desensitized, and have been so taught to hate large corporations and private entities of Big Pharma and Big Health, that when the CEO of United Health was walking down the street, Luigi Mangione not only didn’t think twice about killing Mr. Brian Thompson, he planned carefully his agenda to kill and shoot the innocent man, a husband (though separated at the time), a father of two, a son, and a brother. When the Saturday Night Live Weekend Update skit mentioned CEO killer Luigi Mangione, the crowd applauded and cheered the cold-blooded murderer.
Meanwhile, we’ve got the outgoing President of the United States, Joe Biden, granting clemency for almost all of the inmates on federal death row, and granting pardons to other monsters, child killers, rapists, criminals and foreign spies without even a blink of an eye. Meanwhile, Daniel Penny who should have been viewed as a hero for taking down a dangerous and violent homeless man was targeted and prosecuted for daring to take action in order to satisfy a narrative that seeks to divide us and convince us that all white people are racist. Hatred of anyone who stands against their political deviance has become so desensitized in our rule-of-man culture that a student in Tennessee saw nothing wrong with falsely creating racist Pro-Trump messages on his campus in the hopes of turning people away from the newly elected President of the United States. An illegal alien in New York had become so desensitized to violence and the importance of the lives of others that he burned a woman alive on the Subway and sat there to watch it. The political establishment and many of their supporters and those who believe the narrative in the public square were willing to wrongly go after, and ruin the lives of, people who were in Washington D.C. on December 6, 2021 to exercise their First Amendment enumerated rights, lying and cheating to arrest and jail those people so that they could protect their anti-Trump narrative at any cost. The Biden Administration, with support from their allies in the Democratic Party and anti-parent/anti-God supporters in the general public, bankrolled a program that paid kids to skip class without their parent’s knowledge so that they could attend lessons on LGBTQ activism. Never mind the fact that we live in a society so desensitized to rebelling against the godly uniqueness and differences between boys and girls that the idea of the two sexes is not only being rejected, but people are being encouraged to act out such debauchery and even butcher children’s genitals to rebel against God’s Creation of men and women as separate sexes. The media has been so desensitized to lying that they provide us with false narratives and false reporting on a constant basis. They actively and purposefully seek to fool the public and support false policies and political lies. Recently, such media and political collusion to lie to us to protect their narratives was exposed by Sharyl Attkisson, in which she revealed that the Obama administration and the media worked together to rig fake scenes of “fabricated” situations to convince the public of the impacts of the Government Shutdown after they could find no such real scenes to support their narrative. Political elites have become so desensitized to corrupt behavior that while the rest of the country struggled, Nancy and Paul Pelosi were perfectly fine with profiting on that misery from COVID Bailouts through carefully placed investments and business interests. And hatred for Israel, God’s chosen people (whether they are obedient or disobedient we are instructed to support Israel and stand by the Jewish People, supported by Psalm 122:6, Deuteronomy 7:6-8, Genesis 12:2-3, Genesis 27:29, Numbers 24:9) has become so prominent and desensitized and has risen to fearful levels in the United States and around the world that we saw one such example recently with the arrest of a George Mason University college student for allegedly planning to orchestrate a mass casualty terror attack against the Israeli consulate in New York. We saw a terror attack against a Christmas Market in Germany shortly before that. Every Christmas season and throughout the year we are seeing a continued rise of the placement of Satanic statues and displays in the public square, a tactic by Satanists to desensitize their presence in our culture. Defamation of political opponents by the mainstream media has become more of a norm than ever before, though fortunately sometimes we see them caught in the act and paying consequences (such as the recent $15 million financial settlement by George Stephanopoulos who made false claims ten times on the air that President Trump was “found liable for rape”).
The desensitization has been at full power for a long time, and now we may have a temporary reprieve with the new Trump presidency coming after his win in the presidential election of 2024. To stop the bleeding, however, the election of the right people is not enough. We must admit our wrong turn, drop to our knees in prayer, put some legs on those prayers, and repent from our transgressions.
2 Chronicles 7:14: If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
