Insightful Musings on theScriptures
by
Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67
Hello, folks.
She’s another hot one. I’m kind of sweltering here.
I’m waiting for some shade before I get back on the project of finishing up configuring our kayak hauling trailer since I’ve made a pretty solid commitment to Thano to put the kayaks in at Pacific City tomorrow morning. There’s a lot left to do before that happens.
May your day be blessed.
Love, Dad/Ray.
No—I do not intend to get carried away with the specific evils of adultery. I think there is a more subtle, insidious, and fundamental moral violation to be concerned with than getting high-centered on any one in particular. To clarify what I mean, let me paraphrase that verse: “A person who engages in anything they know is morally wrong before their own conscience (which functions like a dash-board warning light) and before God and the standards of righteousness He prescribes is terribly short on objective judgment—he does not truly believe Biblical authority. Furthermore, when that person deliberately does so, he actually sentences himself to serious damage and punishment.”
At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be much devotional encouragement to be gleaned from Psalm 137. Nevertheless there are principles to be found. It’s a dismal mournful song. “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remember Zion” (137:1). But why in the world were God’s people made to be captives in Babylon to begin with? Simple Bible research answers that question: THEY DISOBEYED GOD’S WORD AND ENGAGED IN HEATHEN PRACTICES ALONG WITH THE HEATHEN! Duh! They did what they knew was wrong before God. Is it not stupid to expect God’s blessings to flow out of rebellion against Him?
Can there be any image more revolting, cruel, evil, and barbaric than to visualize someone taking a small helpless innocent baby, grabbing it by one leg, and forcefully bashing it against a rock so as to end its life?! That was apparently done by the conquering troops from Babylon when God allowed them to invade Israel in 586 B.C. To be sure, they were a heathen culture with no real sense of sanctity given to human life. But, just a minute! Let’s not ignore what is going on right here within our own culture of arrogant sophisticated heathenism! Can there be a culture any more evil and perverse than one which takes helpless innocent unborn babies, rips them apart in an abortion procedure so as to end their lives, all to protect its claim to sexual freedom—then turn around and condemn as evil those who protest such atrocities. I’m sad to say that I see some ominous handwriting on the wall for America.
The bottom line lesson that stands out to me from connecting some of these dots is a stubborn one: