The Writing on the Wall 2- The Wrong Prescription

As a medical person. I can tell you that incorrectly diagnosing a disease or condition very often results in bigger issues that you started with!

 

We talked last week about how the writing is in the wall for our nation if we do not change, and how we as the people of God have failed to make the stand we should have against evils we see around us!  We talked about how we as Christians have been lulled into submission, like fallow ground we have hardened our hearts to what God calls sin.

 

Hosea 10:12 (ESV Strong's)

Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love;

break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord,

that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.

 

In this series I want to resensitise what has for many years become desensitised.  We are so desensitised that we often do not even recognise sin, let alone stand against it. I believe that it is time we break up the crusty, hard shell of our lives, recognise sin for what it is and see again through God’s eyes.

 

In this message I’m going to attack the whole political correctness movement, because I believe that our society has lost the plot when it comes to what you can and cannot say. If you are a fan of PC, I apologise in advance for offending you, but I for one am over it! I fully expect to face some sort of attack, but somebody has to stand and speak out!  Let me ask the question…

 

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO SIN?

 

Part of the problem our society faces is that we don’t call sin “sin” these days, because sin gives rise to guilt, and our culture has declared war in guilt! What used to be called homosexuality is now called an alternative lifestyle. What used to be called fornication is now called a meaningful relationship, What used to be called adultery is now called having an affair, What used to be called a tomboy is now called a transgender, What used to be called abortion is now called family planning……. David wrote,

 

Psalms 38:17-18 (ESV Strong's)

For I am ready to fall, and my pain is ever before me.

I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin.

 

The Hebrew word for iniquity is AWVONE which means sin, perversity or guilt. But our society has endeavoured to remove guilt as an emotion from the dictionary. Psychologist Dr Dwayne Dyer describes guilt as “the most useless of all behaviours,” and “nothing but a neurosis.” In our modern world, apparently no one is supposed to feel guilty. Guilt is not conducive to dignity and healthy self-esteem.   

 

So while our society encourages sin, it will not tolerate the guilt sin produces! Guilt, they tell us, takes all the fun out of life, and columnist Ann Landers even said, “The most painful, self-mutilating, time- and energy-consuming exercises in the human experience is guilt.”

 

THE WRONG PRESCRIPTION

 

If you stand back and look at society, you will recognise certain tactics that the enemy has employed to remove feelings of guilt for what we do and the way we behave. We’re told that if we take away guilt, everyone’s self esteem will improve and we will all be better.  Trouble is, it’s the wrong prescription, and what society prescribes is actually making the moral problems more entrenched. What society is doing is not healing people, and it’s not solving the problem! We have sinners who feel no guilt but feel good about themselves, they have replaced self examination with self esteem.

 

So what exactly are the  experts prescribing for our society’s ills?

 

1.      LEGALISATION

 

Psalms 94:20 (ESV Strong's)

Can wicked rulers be allied with you, those who frame injustice by statute?

 

A classic way of removing guilt is simply to legalise something. This is what we saw last year, with changes to the definition of marriage, and for many western government, it is a common tool to remove feelings of guilt from the populace.

 

Take marijuana for example. It is now a legal drug in many states of the US, and sadly states like Oregon and Colorado have found that hen legal younger and younger children are smoking dope, and that it damages young brains more and is affecting their psyche drastically.

 

Prostitution is now legal here, and the main argument is the health of sex workers. The real argument is the increased tax revenue, but that’s another story. Hard core porn is now legal and readily available. Heroin is not legal, but the government provides needles and safe places to shoot up. The thing is, if you legalises or legitimise these destructive behaviours, more people do them more often because they are more available!

 

You cannot legislate heart changes. I appreciate the fact that we have a Christian Prime Minister, but he cannot legislate life changing commitments or changes of lifestyle, addictions or behaviour. Only Jesus can transform your life, and only the Holy Spirit can empower you to live the life you want!

 

 

2.      TERMINOLOGY

 

Isaiah 5:20 (ESV Strong's)

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

 

We are skilled at renaming things so as to remove guilt.  A few decades ago if I said I was gay you’d think I was happy… not so today! Living together when you are not married is now officially called a common law marriage. I noticed that instead of calling gay marriage what it is, they used the inoffensive term “marriage equality,” because after all, who doesn’t want equality in our society?

 

No greater example exists of using terminology to counteract the guilt produced by sin than in the abortion industry. It should be called abortion, or better still baby murdering, but it is sanitised by using terms like termination, pro choice and family planning. We do not call the victim of abortion a baby, we use the term foetus, and what terms like this do is desensitise the incredible guilt of taking a life.

 

 

3.      VICTIMISATION

 

Probably the greatest tool to remove guilt from our society is by making sinners into victims.  Psychologists are inventing new diagnoses every day and handing out labels like lollies, but the underlying message of this is this… “It’s not your fault, it’s a disease or psychological syndrome.”

 

Now I am not saying that diseases or mental illness doesn’t exist, I’m just suggesting that many who get such labels aren’t actually diseased but they use the diagnosis as a way to justify their actions and excuse the guilt they feel over their sin.

 

If I can blame a disease, my parents, my upbringing, my friends, my school, my job, my partner or anyone or anything else, then I am personally absolved of blame or guilt. It’s not my fault you see… it’s always someone else’s!

 

Listen, God hasn’t called us to be victims, He’s called us to be Victors!

 

Romans 8:37 (ESV Strong's)

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

 

Conquerors don’t shift blame, or put their head in the sand, they face their opposition and they win!

 

 

4.      REDUCING CONSEQUENCES

 

This inevitably happens when every sin is described in terms of a disease, and treated as such. We don’t blame cancer patients for their disease, and using the same logic we absolve sinners from the guilt associated with their sin.  So thieves have kleptomania, gamblers have an addiction, adulterers are sex addicts and rebelling teenagers have Oppositional Defiance Disorder!

 

Since everybody is a victim, not a sinner, from children to adults, it seems logical that we reduce or even do away with any punishment… here’s some real life examples...

 

A man who was shot and paralyzed while committing a burglary in New York recovered damages from the store owner who shot him, the jury being told he was a victim of society,  driven to crime by economic disadvantages. Because of the storeowner’s callous disregard of the thief’s plight as a victim, the poor criminal will be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. A large settlement was paid, and several months later, the same man, still in his wheelchair, was arrested while committing another armed robbery.

 

Bernard McCummings mugged and brutally beat an elderly New York man in the subway, McCummings was shot while fleeing the scene. Permanently paralysed, he sued and won $4.8 million in compensation from the New York Transit Authority. The man he mugged, a cancer patient, is still paying doctor bills, while McCummings, the mugger—whom the courts deemed the greater victim—is now a multimillionaire.

 

Look at the kinds of sentences dished out by our courts and many would agree that the consequences for crime have definitely been reduced in many areas.  However, God says the wages of sin is death, and

 

Galatians 6:7-8 (ESV Strong's)

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.

 

THE DEATH OF COMMON SENSE

 

Somewhere in the middle of all this political correctness common sense has died!

 

Romans 1:22 (ESV Strong's)

Claiming to be wise, they became fools,

 

Listen to this poem I found by Anna Russell…

 

I went to my psychiatrist to be psychoanalyzed

to find out why I killed the cat and blacked my husband’s eyes.

He laid me on a downy couch to see what he could find;

so this is what he dredged up from my subconscious mind.

When I was one, my mommy hid my dolly in a trunk;

and so it follows naturally that I am always drunk.

When I was two, I saw my father kiss the maid one day,

and that is why I suffer now from klep-to-men-I-A”.

At three I had the feeling of ambivalence towards my brothers,

and so it follows naturally I poisoned all my lovers.

But I am happy; now I’ve learned the lesson this has taught;

THAT EVERYTHING I DO THAT’S WRONG – IS SOMEONE ELSE’S FAULT.

 

Our society is pervaded by the victim mentality, which has overcome our common sense! We are told by the media and the government that if you feel a certain inclination, no need to control it, you have the right to express it, however you feel, whenever you like.  You are the victim of your genes (even though science can not confirm this), or your upbringing, or your diagnosed condition. So if you have the genes of a homosexual you are free to express it. If you have the genes of a woman, even though you are clearly a man, feel free to express it. If you have the genes of a serial killer… better not express that!

 

These days everything wrong with humanity is likely to be explained as an illness. What we used to call sin is more easily diagnosed as a whole array of psychological disabilities, and we dare not call it sin, because then it might make you feel guilty!

 

Now I know this is not very PC correct, but I was talking with Fiona, a trained psychotherapist about this recently. While there certainly are genuine mental disorders, at what point does ADD, ADHD and ODD become bad parenting, or at what point does IED, Intermittent explosive disorder become a badly behaved jerk with a  bad temper?

 

Proverbs 28:13 (ESV Strong's)

Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.

 

The therapy industry diagnoses sin as sickness, telling people they are desperately sick and therefore not really responsible for their wrong behaviour. This has led to the so called wise in our society believing foolishness, and us foolish Christians seeing the truth, but being afraid to say it!

 

IS OUR SOCIETY WEARING NEW CLOTHES?

 

Hans Christian Anderson wrote  of two swindlers who promise an emperor a new suit of clothes that they say is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent – while in reality, they made no clothes at all.  They made everyone believe the emperor’s  clothes were wonderful, just invisible to them.

 

When the emperor parades before his subjects in his new "clothes", no one dares to point out that they do not see any suit of clothes on him for fear that they will be seen as unfit or stupid. Finally, a child cries out, "But he isn't wearing anything at all!"

 

This is exactly what is happening right here in our society today! We are told to be open minded, but we are so open minded our brains fall out. We are told to be politically correct, but the things we have to agree to as correct make no sense.

 

Last week on 60 Minutes they reported on a transgender AFL player. Starting as a man and playing for the Australian men’s handball team, he/she wants to now play women’s AFL. This athlete stands 6 foot 3, and weighs 100 kg or nearly 16 stone. Bigger, stronger, faster than most women This is the obvious result of the current attitude towards PC!

 

Isn’t it time someone stood up and said, “But you’re not wearing any clothes!” Isn’t it time someone broke ranks and said, “You can add bits or remove bits, you can wear a dress or a pair of stubbies, you can change your name From Steve to Eve, but according to science you are still XX or XY, right?

 

And this applies to so many areas of modern life, not just gender or sexuality. It applies to the victim mentality, promoted by professionals and swallowed by everybody else, and no one is courageous enough to say, “But this doesn’t make sense!”  Behaviour unacceptable by society for centuries is now tolerated or even promoted, even things we all agree are wrong, like stealing, embezzlement, murder, slander, and so on, are downgraded or explained away because apparently no one is guilty any more!

 

VICTIMS BECOME A SELF FULFILLING PROPHECY

 

The Disease-model therapy doesn’t cure these victim conditions, it compounds them, and no one has the courage to point out how ridiculous this is, for fear of being attacked and called stupid or narrow minded.   By removing any sense of guilt, and making people feel they are the victims, they become helplessly bound for life to their affliction, and their diagnosis often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy?  And we are the narrow minded fools!

 

Charles J Sykes said, “This is a formula for social gridlock: the irresistible search for someone or something to blame colliding with the unmovable unwillingness to accept responsibility.”

 

Once upon a time, when society affirmed the concept of personal responsibility, citizens were expected to contribute to society. They were encouraged to ask not what their country could do for them but what they could do for their country.

 

Now that everyone is a victim, however, people think they have every right to demand society’s benevolence without giving anything in return. I don’t want to ever work, but I demand that you give me income, rent help, free medical and so on!

 

Psalms 32:5 (ESV Strong's)

I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity;

I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.

 

Here’s the thing… while ever you are trying to shift the responsibility for your sin you will always be a victim! You cannot receive forgiveness for, something you don’t even recognise!

 

Our nation needs honesty and integrity, not more and more victims dependent on drugs and therapy with recently made up diagnoses! I believe that we, followers of Jesus, can bring a voice of integrity and courage to the twisted, politically correct but morally bereft landscape, but we must do this in love, not as self righteous, legalistic Pharisees!

HOW CAN WE START TO BRING CHANGE IN OUR SOCIETY?

 

I said right at the beginning, you cannot change people’s hearts by passing legislation. Equating their sin with a disease will also not solve the problem, just entrench the issue in their lives!

 

So how can we start to see change in our nation, and how can we dislodge the victim mentality?

 

1.      RECOGNISE IT STARTS WITH US

 

Like it or not, we have to lead the way here. If we swallow the whole disease diagnosis, if we constantly shift the blame and see ourselves as victims, we will be part of the problem, and we cannot lead our nation towards the solution… which is Jesus Christ!

 

1 Peter 4:17 (ESV Strong's)

For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

 

2.      EXAMINE YOURSELF

 

One of the greatest impedances you face to growing in Christ is failing to carefully and properly examine yourself. That’s why David wrote,

 

Psalms 139:23-24 (ESV Strong's)

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!

And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

 

Until we stop glossing over or dressing up our sin, we will never be forgiven.  The first step to any truly effective remedy for all mental and emotional afflictions is an honest assessment of one’s own sin and the acceptance of complete responsibility for one’s own moral failings.

 

3.      ACKNOWLEDGE GUILT AND STOP SHIFTING THE BLAME

 

We as the people of God need to shine our light throughout our society, and if we are to shine we need to stop shifting the blame, and not be afraid of guilt..

 

John MacArthur said, “Guilt functions in the spiritual realm like pain in the material realm. Pain tells us there is a physical problem that must be dealt with or the body will suffer harm. Guilt is a spiritual pain in the soul that tells us something is evil and needs to be confronted and cleansed.”

 

I understand, guilt is not fun and it does hurt and it does produce grief, but for the believer it goes on to produce repentance and salvation and leaves no regret

 

2 Corinthians 7:10 (ESV Strong's)

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

 

So don’t be afraid to look at yourself properly and actually acknowledge that you’ve sinned.

 

4.      CONFESS YOUR SIN

 

Proverbs 28:13 (ESV Strong's)

Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.

 

Let me say it again, until you recognise sin as sin, as that which separates you from God, you cannot be forgiven. Don’t cover up your sin… confess it, and let the blood of Jesus cover it over! You and I sin, it’s a fact, and until we see that as an affront to a holy God, it will bring us death.

 

1 John 1:8-9 (ESV Strong's)

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

 

So we, the people of God, need to lead the way for our nation and our people.  Let’s not deceive ourselves and put our actions and thoughts down to upbringing, down to some kind of mental illness or some kind or cultural influence. I’m calling the church to lead the way and just call sin sin!

 

Now please understand, I am not saying that mental illness doesn’t exist! It certainly does exist, and our counsellors and psychologists care for those people well. There are some people I know who have a mental illness for sure, and I believe that Jesus can heal mental illness just like He can heal physical illness! We need to pray for those with genuine mental illness and believe for healing.

 

But today I want us as a Church to pray for forgiveness of our sins, great and small. I’m asking you to commit yourself to honest, open, even painful examination of your life, and heartfelt confession of your sin. You may or may not have some kind of diagnosis, but I’m asking you to examine yourself.

 

It’s time we as the people of God to call sin what it is… it’s sin! As Christians, we cannot be salt and light in the world if we cherish our own sin, so today I want to challenge all of us to repent of our sin, whatever it is, and get right with God.