Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Thursday January 18, 2007

On Wednesday morning I woke up at 1:30, and as I couldn't sleep for worrying about oversleeping, I got up and set to work. My work mostly consists of reading the Bible, praying, stay out of the Great Blonde's way and of course writing if you grant that writing is actually work. I will say this about writing, often at the end of a session where nothing comes, but I go ahead and put it on paper anyhow, my brain hurts worse than other parts did when I trained a few horses in younger days.

I browsed an article written by a noted college president on just how awful things are in the world today. He quoted Edward Gibbon and went off on some tirade and hit a few nails on the head, but missed a few of the more important truths in Gibbons statement. The good man even gave credit to Gibbon's famous 'Rise and Fall of The Roman Empire' which Gibbon did not write. I will put a little slack on the good mans account due to the fact that most people living today who have ever heard of Edward Gibbon would also attribute said book to his prodigious pen.

If you accept the premise of Gibbons statement, you have a grand grasp of the 'why' of seemingly religious leaders and why certain who spout about being 'born again' contradict the words of Jesus concerning the absolute necessity of being 'born again.' Edward Gibbon, author of "The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire" stated:

"The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful."

The good professor did an excellent job on the first two ideas, but pretty much left the third alone. To state that the remark of Marx might be true, is a path that most leave alone. The "Marxist experiment" in Soviet Russia and Maoist China failed largely because the philosophy of hopelessness produced a hopeless people, thus the incidence of addiction to Vodka in the Russias rendered the work force impotent.

In the 'Free World' formerly called Christendom, the political manipulators are now clinging to the first two rules in Gibbon's definition of various religions within the Roman Empire, all faiths are equally true or false, the choice is up to you. When the Deity is pronounced dead, the poor magistrate may no longer claim to be operating on behalf of the 'higher' power and it gets increasingly tougher to get the public to obey enmass and chaos results. Notice the context of Marx:

"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

When the mass of people adapt to a faith that is equal with all other faiths as long as the faithful are serious, at such a point religion is but an opiate and politicians spouting pious phrases can delude the biblically unlearned into believing, "Well, he loves God or even Allah, and he is serious." The masses then take large hits of falsehood and live in an opium like world of self delusion.

That Jesus Christ insists He is THE Way, THE Truth and THE Life, drives the governing body up the wall, for due to His claim by His Creatorship, by His shed blood, and by His resurrection of His exclusive right to the souls of men, the poor politico is faced with the dilemma of the excluded ones and how to keep the vote of both groups. Hence the current rift between the good Misters McCain and Dobson.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2007 Use with credit

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