There is an amazing story written in the “Times of London” some years back of a Hungarian soldier who was not long ago released from a Russian hospital. Andras Tamas does not speak Russian, so his doctors and fellow patients—who recently learned that the “gibberish” he rarely spoke was actually Hungarian—have been unable to communicate with him. He fought for the Germans during World War II, was captured by the Soviet army, imprisoned, and then shuffled to a psychiatric hospital. That was in 1947. He had been there for 53 years. Giles Whittell of The Times reports:
“The changes in his life since then are scarcely imaginable. For the first time since 1945 he is enjoying conversation, writing, and reading newspapers, experiences that have peeled away a shell of deep introspection, revealing words and phrases from a bygone age…. His most extraordinary discovery has been himself. Throughout his hospital years in the remote city of Kotelnich, he was shaved by an orderly and never saw a mirror. He was given one on his return to Budapest and has been fascinated by it ever since. “He had not seen himself since his early twenties,” Andras Veer, head of the Hungarian National Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology, said. “He stares at himself for hours, like a baby or even a monkey, touching his face and his hair.” It is difficult to fathom such a lonely existence, the stripping away of one’s identity, the abrupt end to conversation, and the inability to read and to witness the world outside, let alone one’s own face. Sadly though, many Christians around the globe [In less fortunate countries] know something of this reality—imprisoned and even persecuted, without the consolation of the Scriptures or fellow believers. How blessed we are, then, to have the mirror of God’s Word before us, revealing the beauty of Christ and the grace of the Father, and how we need to study it.
That was an excerpt from an article in RZIM’s magazine titled ‘Just thinking’ some years back. Oh, how we need to study God’s Word, while we still have can! I believe this story highlights just how precious freedom is.
When we look at current societal debates around homosexuality, same-sex Marriage, abortion, drugs, church and state, we are witnessing an attitude change on morals, values and ethics from a bygone era. Values that our justice system, based on the Westminster system which was entrenched in biblical principles, was founded on. And yet our society of today thinks it can abandon God with its relativistic worldview, and do as it pleases without consequence?
Have we completely forgotten the wisdom that can be found in history? It is said that if we don’t learn from history, we’re doomed to make the same mistakes again. Ironically what we have learned from history, is that we don’t learn from history.
Malcolm Muggeridge said:
“The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact.”
In a world where I, as a young man, increasingly find a pressure to conform my ideals to what society thinks and accepts, I find it truly dumbfounding that we think we can act without consequence.. That we think we can do as we like, ‘as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone..’ I really wonder if my generation (Gen Y) even thinks about the importance of freedom in this country? Do we value the cost of freedom? do we consider what it took from the lives of those before us, so that we can have what we have today?
John Wesley said:
“What one generation tolerates, the next generation will embrace.”
I ask, is this not true of our society today? What is it that our society is embracing? I see moral depravity in government, moral depravity in supposed ‘role models’ and leaders, moral depravity in sociological ethics, moral depravity in the arts and education and moral depravity in the family.
The BBC World Speaks poll, conducted by GlobeScan on behalf of BBC World Service, found that corruption and greed was the most commonly recognised and talked about global problem. 1 in 5 people think its the most serious problem of our society in first and second world countries of today, ahead of climate change, extreme poverty, hunger and unemployment. Sad that the only defence for corruption in our society begins in the family with the teaching and discipline of Godly character and morals. But what do we see in our families of today?
Divorce has never been higher, and is on the rise. Internet websites designed for married men and women to have discreet affairs. Teenage suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, sexually promiscuous lifestyles, rape, criminal activity in minors and young adults. all these things are on the rise, in fact if a person under the age of 16 decides to take their life, it’s titled “misadventure..” Suicide is a growing epidemic that is far more common than we might realise. Why is a young person, who has their whole life ahead of them, seeing no point in living? Maybe they are the smart ones who see that all there is destined for our society and our lives, if we continue in this morally depraved way of living, is destitution and pain and suffering. The reaping of our sowing..
How sad that our society can’t even call things for what they are anymore out of a fear for political correctness and a fear of offending. We are literally putting our blindfolds on and walking out in front of a shooting squad pretending that all is well that ends well. How wrong we are.
This tolerance for the problems we face today because of the abandonment of Gods absolute standard, reveals to us just how much we need God’s freeing truthful description of the human condition, and the remedy to our malady. Yet we are so convinced of ‘our goodness’ that we can’t see the forest for the trees.
Ravi Zacharias said
“People often say, ‘What about all the good things I’ve done? What about all the good people in this world?’ To this I must respond, ‘Jesus did not come into this world to make bad people good; he came into this world to make dead people live.”
And we truly are a dead people. Please consider The person of Christ. Only he has the answers. Only He has the truth that saves and redeems and changes a lost and decrepit soul. Only biblical Christianity has the power of forgiveness that we so desperately need. That we and our society most desperately need. Jesus, the Son of God, came and died 2000 thousand years ago, resurrected proving his divine status as God. We must believe this and put our faith in Jesus Christ the saviour.
Or we reap the consequences of our morally depraved sowing and find only death and eternal punishment. Only Jesus has eternal life, He is, The Way, The Truth, and The Life.
Believe in Him and be truly free.
