“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.” Voltaire
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams
“…for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” Genesis 8:21
Three sides of the same coin.
Three teenagers in a nearby town stand on an overpass and throw concrete and transmission fluid on vehicles passing underneath.
A man enters this country illegally in September of ’22. In 2023, he is arrested in New York City for endangering the welfare of a child. Recently, in Georgia, law officials searched for him because of a shoplifting charge. Most recently, police officers arrested him in connection with the brutal murder of a nursing student on the University of Georgia campus.
On October 7th, 2023, men cross a border and murder over 1,000 people for no other reason than they were Jews.
Three sides of the same coin. As it is written, “…for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”
It begs the question: How can man save himself from himself?
The answer generally arises from one theory: change a man’s environment, and he will become good. Erase poverty. Educate a man. Give him bucket loads of free stuff.
Three sides of the same coin. Man only needs a hand up.
From there, we humans came up with another path: End hate speech. Become woke. Live in the harmony of diversity, equity, and inclusion. In other words, let’s all embrace a newly discovered morality in which everyone accepts everyone regardless of anyone’s actions. Apparently, the pinnacle of goodness is in accepting everyone for who they are. Do that, and we eradicate evil.
Three sides of the same coin.
Maybe we should follow Voltaire’s advice and invent ‘God.’ However, that’s been done over and over, and, honestly, we still have evil everywhere. From boys throwing missiles from overpasses to dictators slaughtering millions. Inventing ‘god’ after ‘god’ hasn’t helped at all.
John Adams provided a helpful hint. He mentions morals, but he also mentions religion. In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, Adams writes the following: “Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company—I mean hell.”
Adams was pointing towards Christianity. Oh—you mean that God! Well, why not? He goes to the trouble of revealing Himself in sixty-six books, written by forty different men over the course of approximately 1,500 years. In the midst of that, He provides His 10 Commandments.
Suppose all the aforementioned folks emphatically believed in those ten God-given rules for life. Our overpasses would be safe, a nursing student in Georgia would still be alive, and no one would have crossed a border on October 7th to create mass murder.
But even that doesn’t take care of the third side of the coin: “…for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”
The same God who wrote the 10 Commandments also issued this tragic condemnation of mankind. But there’s hope.
God rises to help. He sends His Son, Jesus. Jesus lives perfectly holy in every way. He invites us to embrace His way of living. He knows if one hundred per cent of us do that, one hundred per cent of the time, we will have a perfect world.
Yet, those in power are threatened by Him. They sense they’re losing their power over the underlings they control. Therefore, they orchestrate His crucifixion. A perfect and good Person, teaching perfect and good things, is murdered for no other reason than evil hatred.
“…for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”
End of story? End of hope? Are we relegated to witnessing barbarous acts over and over?
It would be except for one monumental detail. Jesus came back to life. No inventions needed, no book of morals laid out. He simply breathed again.
In His resurrected life, He posed one question: Would you trust me? He made one promise: Trust me, and I will give you an eternal life. In this life, there will be no overpasses to worry about, no October 7ths.
Did He ask for anything in return? Our love and faith. Two sides of the same coin.