NO. 884 PLEASE DON'T BLAME UNBELIEVERS!
No. 884
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Jim Davidson -- NEWSPAPER COLUMN
PLEASE DON’T BLAME UNBELIEVERS!
According to the dictionary, the word “hypothesis” means, “An unproved theory, proposition, supposition, etc.” Now please keep this definition in mind, because I would like to offer an hypothesis that I believe will explain why we have such a crisis of leadership in our nation, not just in government but in every area of society.
When I was growing up in the late 1940s and early 1950s, we had regular revivals in most of the churches in our part of the country. They may have had them in yours as well. Back in those days, the preachers were so bold to say that if a person did not accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior they were going to hell and would spend eternity in a burning lake of fire.
However, somewhere along the line because of “political correctness,” most pastors began to refine the word “hell” out of their vocabulary because it was not a popular topic on which to preach. In American churches today you seldom, if ever, hear the word “hell” mentioned in a sermon. I have never heard Pastor Joel Osteen talk about or preach about “hell,” have you?
Noe let’s be honest. No one likes to think about spending eternity in torment, and the vast majority of people today do not think that a loving God would ever do that to them. As a result, we have lost an important element that keeps many people from doing things that are bad, this being the element of “fear,” which is one of the greatest deterrents to sin and doing bad things.
Again, what I am saying is just a hypothesis or theory, and you don’t have to agree with me. Regardless of the reasons, we do know that more than 54 million innocent babies have been aborted in the womb since the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision. Thousands of our citizens are trying to change the traditional definition of marriage from one man to one woman and make it legal to have marriage between same-sex couples. Our media outlets daily report graft, greed and corruption that have become the practice of the day, and millions of our citizens are addicted to harmful substances they take into their bodies, along with gambling and pornography which can destroy the opportunity and ability to live a productive life. And we also have murder, rape, lying, cheating and stealing – all things the Bible talks about.
At this point allow me to pause and make a very clear distinction. It is a well-established view to say that “believers” are those who have accepted and have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and “unbelievers” do not have a personal relationship with Him. At least this is the way it was when I was growing up. Today, millions of people do believe in God but lack a Biblical understanding of what it says about sin and separation from God, and what it means to be sentenced to hell when they die. Hear these words of Jesus in Luke 12:5 -- “But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear: Fear Him, which after He hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, fear Him.”
Here is the point of this column and why I have shared this today -- we have smart people at every turn trying to find solutions to our massive social and economic problems. But I have never heard any of them mention what I have talked about as even a possibility. Wouldn’t it be great if we could stop the senseless murders taking place on the streets of major cities, and elsewhere? The people doing this have no fear of eternal consequences and do not understand what the Bible says about going to hell. Who really dropped the ball here? Please don’t blame unbelievers!
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(EDITOR'S NOTE: Jim Davidson is a public speaker and syndicated columnist. You may contact him at 2 Bentley Drive, Conway, AR 72034. To begin a bookcase literacy project visit www.bookcaseforeverychild.com. You won’t go wrong helping a needy child.)
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