Christian Living

---

Larry Lilly's Letter Thursday July 19, 2007

For the bulk of my time as a Christian, most of it spent in what I call, "Bare Knuckle Fringe" I have heard and used a truth that I thought we, the Nut Cases For Jesus, owned the rights to. So much for my country boy ignorance. The other day while re-browsing a book, which is really a library wrapped in one cover I read again a statement by a man who is anything but a card carrying member of the Bare Knuckled Fraternity. He was at the other pole, genteel, socialist, hyper educated, our groups settles for knowing someone who can spell, and was one of a few truly gifted writers of the Twentieth Century.

In the Story of Civilization, consisting of eleven volumes, and two million words, in Vol 3, Will and Ariel Durant wrote a reasonably historically accurate account of the confrontation between Caesar and Christ, in which Durant acknowledged the victory of Christ. Concerning the fall of Rome and other great civilizations Durant stated:

"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within. The essential causes of Rome's decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars."

The Story of Civilization (Vol 3 Caesar And Christ. Epilogue - Why Rome fell)

I wonder if you have the courage to compare this summation with todays news?

I wonder if we should have the courage to compare Durant's statement to our perosnal life?

Rome's problem was not the Vandals or the Visigoth's, but first of all the people of the Empire. Secondly, in order of importance the MORAL decay of the people.

In our time the professing church has long passed any legitimate claim to the preserving salt mentioned by Jesus and the savor is gone and we as a people are approaching the precipice of no return, to gleefully throw ourselves headlong to destruction, all the while refusing to come to grips with the glaring reality of our time.

I visited the well appointed office of a pastor friend and he showed a promotional flyer of a young, beautiful Christian artist to me. I must state female artist for it is getting harder to tell at a glance. The promotional piece was designed to sell her album of Christian music. I found myself babbling out, "Why, it looks to me that her pose would be well served if it was captioned, 'Hey, big boy, why don't you come up and see me sometime?"' I referred to the phrase made famous by the Saint of Brassy Broads of the last century, Mae West. Now get me right, I seldom mention clothing worn by the fairer sex, mostly due to the fact that there is not enough material to cover a sermon.

I use the above as but one illustration of the dangerous drift of the church at large in the area of moral decay. And to think that an agnostic, socialist admits that moral decay plays a large role in the decline and fall of great civilizations, while our churches use the evidence of said decay to draw a crowd is beyond appalling.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2007 Use with credit

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE