This world passeth away, and the lusts thereof.
It can be difficult to persuade of a corrupt and self-centered world going away and a newly recreated world taking its place. I would say the biggest obstacle to convincing others is that they look around with perverted eyesight and everything doesn’t seem so bad that it needs replacing.
Connected with this obstacle is that they are able to put their trust in this world which they can see and touch and know that it is real, but they can’t see the coming kingdom of God. And humanly speaking, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” They trust their senses—and why shouldn’t they? Isn’t that why God created the senses?
Yes, God created the senses for survival and for regular maintenance of our normal every day existence. But those senses are to serve the intellect; they are to feed the intelligence. They are not an end in themselves. They cannot make the final judgment calls. The brain is to take all the inputs it receives; and it receives more than just what the senses give it.
For example, the eyes are designed to receive light reflected from objects and turn that data into electric signals for the use by the brain. But in doing this, they invert those images up-side-down. The brain, however, is programmed to take that confusing data and turn the images from the eyes right-side-up again. The brain also takes the slightest differences in angle of the object due to parallax, and interpolate a distance to the object.
The ears might detect a noise, but the brain must measure the volume entering each eardrum, and then localize the sound source to be coming from in front, from behind, or off the right or left. Then the brain can classify the sound to its source. Is it danger? Is it of interest?
The tongue can taste a liquid, but the brain begins the classification process of that liquid long before the taste buds ever contact the substance to confirm the brain’s classification. One time I was getting a drink of what I thought was milk, but was really from a container of good orange juice. My brain had already classified the liquid as milk and sent my tongue the message to anticipate something sweet and fatty. When my tongue tasted something sweet and sour. Before I could consciously make a decision, I quickly spit out the fresh orange juice, my brain automatically concluding for me that it must be sour milk and a poison if swallowed. But this only illustrates how intricately connected the senses are to the brain in interpreting the outside world.
Likewise, the tongue alone doesn’t know whether a substance is food or poison. The tongue has no power to discriminate between cyanide-laced Kool-Aid and plain Kool-Aid. It takes the brain to distinguish the reality of that liquid.
Many do not want to hear of a coming Judgment and an end of sin because it doesn’t seem real to them. They can’t get beyond the here and now; they can’t get past all the sensory input that daily bombards their brains. Their ability to judge properly has been sold to the enslavement of self-indulgence. Self taints the discernment of the mind and biases its analysis of the total input from the world around it.
Another obstacle to excepting the prospects of a coming kingdom of God is “herd mentality.” Everybody else believes one way; I listen to them, I see them, and I get caught up in them all going in this direction. How can so many intelligent people be wrong?
The western indigenous Americans had a technique for killing their food. They would construct two fences of stones and logs that slowly converged from a large open area to a smaller area that ended at a cliff. Then they would scare a herd of beasts into a stampede, guiding them toward the fences which led the animals over the cliff to their death. Pretty clever of the Indians—good for the natives; bad for the buffaloes. The first of the herd led the way to the cliff, and the others simply followed. How could the leaders be wrong?
Yet, what made the leading bison any different from the following group of bison? What qualified them to lead? Were they any smarter than the rest? Even if they were more intelligent, every single animal was overcome with fear. It wasn’t intelligence that was driving them, it was terror.
So following the crowd has always been a bad idea. Every person in the end of life will answer for himself alone and everybody else will be miles away. On the death bed, no one can say, I’m not guilty of wrong doing because I was only following the example of Joe Shmoe.” Neither can anyone take responsibility for my life’s decisions and stand in my place when it comes time for me to pass on. God has made sure of that.
In the final Judgment Day, everyone will stand alone for his own life, and every Joe Shmoe will be standing for his life alone. If he were a friend, a brother, or even a religious leader, he could not tell God to excuse anyone for following his bad ideas.
We need to think for ourselves and always keep on our thinking caps. If we really want to be wise, there is only one place to go for wisdom. We find pure wisdom in unselfishness and righteousness and love. Let the world send people in a thousand different other directions—curiosity, amazement, deep philosophical reasoning, amusement, the mysterious, etc.. But the real wisdom is found in love, and in its myriad aspects of self-sacrifice.
When the mind is trained on self-sacrificing love and service to God and to others, it will develop quickly and healthfully. And it will also gain a foresight that looks beyond the choicest items and places this world has to offer. It will see vanity for the curse it really is, and the need for it to be vanquished. The self-sacrificing mind will see that there must be something better than this old world. It will see that world events are leading it to its own demise, but faith that comes out of this wisdom takes assurance that whoever made this amazing planet must be merciful enough to start it over again, this time a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.
Only the Spirit of God can give the true reality, the eternal reality. All who are following self-sacrificing love will stumble upon the true reality, “and find the knowledge of God.” (Prov. 2:5).
“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it.” (Matt. 16:25).
Connected with this obstacle is that they are able to put their trust in this world which they can see and touch and know that it is real, but they can’t see the coming kingdom of God. And humanly speaking, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” They trust their senses—and why shouldn’t they? Isn’t that why God created the senses?
Yes, God created the senses for survival and for regular maintenance of our normal every day existence. But those senses are to serve the intellect; they are to feed the intelligence. They are not an end in themselves. They cannot make the final judgment calls. The brain is to take all the inputs it receives; and it receives more than just what the senses give it.
For example, the eyes are designed to receive light reflected from objects and turn that data into electric signals for the use by the brain. But in doing this, they invert those images up-side-down. The brain, however, is programmed to take that confusing data and turn the images from the eyes right-side-up again. The brain also takes the slightest differences in angle of the object due to parallax, and interpolate a distance to the object.
The ears might detect a noise, but the brain must measure the volume entering each eardrum, and then localize the sound source to be coming from in front, from behind, or off the right or left. Then the brain can classify the sound to its source. Is it danger? Is it of interest?
The tongue can taste a liquid, but the brain begins the classification process of that liquid long before the taste buds ever contact the substance to confirm the brain’s classification. One time I was getting a drink of what I thought was milk, but was really from a container of good orange juice. My brain had already classified the liquid as milk and sent my tongue the message to anticipate something sweet and fatty. When my tongue tasted something sweet and sour. Before I could consciously make a decision, I quickly spit out the fresh orange juice, my brain automatically concluding for me that it must be sour milk and a poison if swallowed. But this only illustrates how intricately connected the senses are to the brain in interpreting the outside world.
Likewise, the tongue alone doesn’t know whether a substance is food or poison. The tongue has no power to discriminate between cyanide-laced Kool-Aid and plain Kool-Aid. It takes the brain to distinguish the reality of that liquid.
Many do not want to hear of a coming Judgment and an end of sin because it doesn’t seem real to them. They can’t get beyond the here and now; they can’t get past all the sensory input that daily bombards their brains. Their ability to judge properly has been sold to the enslavement of self-indulgence. Self taints the discernment of the mind and biases its analysis of the total input from the world around it.
Another obstacle to excepting the prospects of a coming kingdom of God is “herd mentality.” Everybody else believes one way; I listen to them, I see them, and I get caught up in them all going in this direction. How can so many intelligent people be wrong?
The western indigenous Americans had a technique for killing their food. They would construct two fences of stones and logs that slowly converged from a large open area to a smaller area that ended at a cliff. Then they would scare a herd of beasts into a stampede, guiding them toward the fences which led the animals over the cliff to their death. Pretty clever of the Indians—good for the natives; bad for the buffaloes. The first of the herd led the way to the cliff, and the others simply followed. How could the leaders be wrong?
Yet, what made the leading bison any different from the following group of bison? What qualified them to lead? Were they any smarter than the rest? Even if they were more intelligent, every single animal was overcome with fear. It wasn’t intelligence that was driving them, it was terror.
So following the crowd has always been a bad idea. Every person in the end of life will answer for himself alone and everybody else will be miles away. On the death bed, no one can say, I’m not guilty of wrong doing because I was only following the example of Joe Shmoe.” Neither can anyone take responsibility for my life’s decisions and stand in my place when it comes time for me to pass on. God has made sure of that.
In the final Judgment Day, everyone will stand alone for his own life, and every Joe Shmoe will be standing for his life alone. If he were a friend, a brother, or even a religious leader, he could not tell God to excuse anyone for following his bad ideas.
We need to think for ourselves and always keep on our thinking caps. If we really want to be wise, there is only one place to go for wisdom. We find pure wisdom in unselfishness and righteousness and love. Let the world send people in a thousand different other directions—curiosity, amazement, deep philosophical reasoning, amusement, the mysterious, etc.. But the real wisdom is found in love, and in its myriad aspects of self-sacrifice.
When the mind is trained on self-sacrificing love and service to God and to others, it will develop quickly and healthfully. And it will also gain a foresight that looks beyond the choicest items and places this world has to offer. It will see vanity for the curse it really is, and the need for it to be vanquished. The self-sacrificing mind will see that there must be something better than this old world. It will see that world events are leading it to its own demise, but faith that comes out of this wisdom takes assurance that whoever made this amazing planet must be merciful enough to start it over again, this time a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.
Only the Spirit of God can give the true reality, the eternal reality. All who are following self-sacrificing love will stumble upon the true reality, “and find the knowledge of God.” (Prov. 2:5).
“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it.” (Matt. 16:25).
posted by David | 12:09 PM
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