While we watch great multitudes of
people chase one utopian dream after another, we might reasonably ask, what is
so wrong that our current condition in life cannot satisfy? Or, to put it
another way, what is so wrong with widespread estrangement from God?
One of the early results of
estrangement from God is the ignoring of His commandments. A brief review of
the history of the 20th century will readily reveal what happens when people
and nations abandon the commandments. There was already war enough in earlier
times when people still held to the commandments, at least nominally. The wars,
tyrannies, and oppressions of the 20th century demonstrate what mankind is
capable of when the commandments are not considered to be in force at all. Of
course, all that continues to this day.
The commandments are meant to be a
restraint. Note that they do not express principles or theses; they are
injunctions: “Do this… Do not do that…” They are not just good advice. In a
sense, they are like guardrails, in that they can prevent one from going over
the moral precipice. They contain scant explanation, let alone, justification
for their content, for their content rests on the authority of God. The great
philosophical and religious systems of morals and ethics, which pretend to
comprehend the commandments and their intent for the good order of society, are
in fact derived from the commandments, rather than the other way around, and
are therefore less certain. But those who are estranged from God cannot access
the commandments’ foundation, and so they discard the commandments as
irrelevant, antiquated, cumbersome, or meaningless.
Those who are estranged from God and
discard the commandments still worship: they worship other gods. Important among
these is the prosperity god, materially indistinguishable from the weather gods
or fertility gods or war gods of our distant ancestors—gods that must be
appeased with sacrifices or certain behaviors, so that the god will grant
favorable outcomes. Even today, many practice the rituals of worship to appease
a god whose only purpose is to answer prayers.
The gods that people sacrifice to, in
this supposedly secular age, are too numerous to list, but they include the
social approval god, the safety gods, the political gods, the health god, and
the worst of all, the self-god. In fact, whatever one believes will save—from
neighborhood watch to national defense, from superstition to the most elevated
science, from chocolate to spiritual happiness—is a god in this sense, for it demands
attention, respect, and sacrifice. These pagan gods will serve only to increase
the one’s estrangement to the One True God, no matter how much they demand and
disappoint.
Thus, if one may freely worship the
god of one’s choosing, which Western society has elevated into a cherished
freedom, then why should the other commandments retain any force? In the
collective thought of Western culture, the other commandments have declined to
good advice, or ancient wisdom, or murky social mores, or babble. The result is
that Western society has lost its moral compass.
When we look at society through the
eyes of the world, we see chaos and rivalry and are tempted to believe we must
therefore attach ourselves and our energies to a party or cause that seems righteous, so that we do
not entirely lose our own moral compass. But when we look upon society with the
eyes of faith, we see God’s children lost to Him through estrangement. We see
that any life, even the most morally upright, most successful and prosperous,
lived in estrangement from God, leads inevitably to destruction. We cannot
prevent this in our own strength, but God wants us to convey His message to
everyone we know or encounter, so that some may be saved.
