\n
My local paper expresses the same intrigue that seems to possess the nation:\u00a0 Mass murders and apocalyptic Mayan speculations. \u00a0Page 4 of the [Wilmington News<\/em>] Journal<\/em> on the eve of destruction (20 December) features an AP article, \u201cNewtown demands we change,\u201d which, as one might expect, calls for a crack-down on access to weapons.\u00a0 Another article on the same page is written by sociology professor Neil Snarr who belittles prognostications on the end of the world.\u00a0 Such prophesying belongs not to religious gurus, he assures us, but to modern science.<\/p>\n \u00a0Modern massacres and Mayan prophesies bring together two themes: \u00a0human corruption and the final Judgment.\u00a0 The first is a matter which ought to be clear but is sometimes clouded (or corrupted) by the notion that man\u2019s apparent sinfulness does not proceed from within but is the result of \u00a0\u201cenvironment.\u201d\u00a0 It is his environment or the way he is \u201cnurtured\u201d that affects him so that he does \u201cevil.\u201d\u00a0 If, to reference a glaring example of our penal system, we can just put those offending citizens in \u201ccorrectional institutions\u201d we can limit the \u201cinfractions\u201d that so evidently beset the nation.\u00a0 \u201cOffenders,\u201d corrupted by their environment can be fixed by the right therapy. \u00a0There is no internal sin that besets the human spirit.\u00a0 Indeed \u201csinner\u201d is a synonym too offensive for the modern ear. \u00a0Away with that old-time religion with its reprehensible twin doctrines of sin and judgment!<\/p>\n And yet, there is that nagging sense of doom which readily comes to the minds of those living in a world in which real evil is readily apparent – \u00a0real holocausts, real atrocity visited by humans upon other humans: \u201cman\u2019s inhumanity to man.\u201d \u00a0Indeed, the accurate evaluation is simple – Man is a sinner.<\/p>\n Repulsive as the doctrine is to the modernist, evidence for the principle is apparent to all but the hard-core humanist who cannot brook such a pessimistic view of his race \u2013 or of himself. \u00a0And the therapy of repentance from evil and submission to the living Lord and Savior is the answer for both personal and cultural wellness.\u00a0 When personal morality is engendered by the Spirit as He applies His therapy to the soul of the sinner and when the Law of God is upheld as the standard for society, a cultural transformation can ensue.\u00a0 And when God\u2019s high view of Human life, above all other animal life, even \u201ccreated in His image\u201d is embraced, the old Christian ethic \u2013 the foundation of true humanism and charity \u2013 will be restored.<\/p>\n The Mayans, along with the Zoroastrians, the Jews, and the Christians have expected that \u201cthis world,\u201d commensurate with divine judgment, will come to an end. \u00a0\u00a0Knowledge of the time of the end is beyond the ken of the scientist who deals only in the realm of that which he can feel, see, taste, and smell.\u00a0 It is, rather, the same Spirit who created the world ex nihilo<\/em> who will also accomplish its conclusion.\u00a0 It is that Spirit who will act upon the world in judgment.\u00a0\u00a0 The scientist cannot probe into the Spirit with his tools.\u00a0 Rather, he is in need of revelation.\u00a0 And the revelation he can trust is the one attested to by the very One who rose from the dead. \u00a0\u00a0The Scriptures are accredited by a reliable authority, indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My local paper expresses the same intrigue that seems to possess the nation:\u00a0 Mass murders and apocalyptic Mayan speculations. \u00a0Page 4 of the [Wilmington News] Journal on the eve of destruction (20 December) features an AP article, \u201cNewtown demands we change,\u201d which, as one might expect, calls for a crack-down on access to weapons.\u00a0 Another 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