"Fear the Lord . . . seek the Lord . . . whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days . . . turn from evil and do good . . . ." Ps. 34:9-14
". . . all who hate me love death." Prov. 8:36
Only 77 pages separate those two Scriptures but they are the widest possible distance apart. To be true to context the Proverbs passage is a personification of wisdom but, since all true wisdom is from the Living God Himself, the passage ultimately speaks of Him. Lately I have thought almost daily that this Proverbs passage, more than any other, describes where America has come in the last half century. One of the best phrases from the writings of the late Francis Schaeffer was "the death wish of modern humanism". We are beholding the love of death, and hatred of God, to a degree unknown in the history of the United States.
By the grace of God I, my wife Susan and our family are living the Psalm 34 passage. We are loving life and seeing good days in the midst of a culture that is loving death and seeing worse and worse days. To love life has meant for me to experience the life that is truly life in Christ and as a gigantic bonus to have had a life also full of rich sensory experiences. From childhood I was privileged to hear the Word of God from many anointed messengers; to hear both great sacred music and the great classics; to be surrounded by loving and God-fearing people; of having now a place of service and fellowship in a loving church; and . . . I could go on and on. All that would have been more than anyone could ask but a merciful Heavenly Father poured on top of all that the rich sensory experiences of the woods and fields; of hunting trips; of fall beauty and winter's white splendor; of the joy of maple sugar making in many springs; of the delightful foods from the kitchens of my mother, grandmothers, mother-in-law, and wife; the pleasures of owning rare and classic firearms; of loading ammunition and target shooting; and . . . once again I could go on indefinitely.
In contrast to all this is the spectacle of millions of Americans hating the life that is truly life and, somehow, loving death. Consider the love of death in the physical realm. Since at least the late sixties popular culture has, like the ancient Roman Empire, had an increasing obsession with death as a perverse form of entertainment. This is true in both music and cinema. Loving death is a mark of the dietary habits of millions. They have all the science that tells them what a life extending diet consists of but they choose a diet of death. Thus, obesity is at epidemic proportions as are diabetes, cancer and coronary problems. (We are not speaking here of people with hereditary conditions totally beyond their control.) Many continue to text and drive and kill themselves and their neighbors. Many prefer sitting and riding over walking and exercising. These are areas where many professed believers in Christ are also loving death. This love of physical death tends to enlarge itself and spread in surprising ways. With fewer and fewer trying to maintain their health, and more and more of them believing that "health care should be paid for by taxing 'the rich' ", how will the collapse of the health care system be avoided?
Consider also the rampant dishonoring of the human body. From pornography to immodesty; from disfigurement to non-Christian funeral and burial practices; from slovenly dress to bizarre fashions; all of these speak of the death of the dignity of people who no longer believe they are created in the Image of God. You will often hear the phrase "quality of life" but that is a misleading phrase that covers a multitude of lies; notably the lie that all pain is bad and should be avoided at all costs.
Now go beyond the purely physical to other realms of life and witness the love of death. Behold in disbelief the forms of death that are now loved: there is no final, absolute standard of judging what is right or wrong; right and wrong are determined by majority vote; all forms of sexual pleasures are alright "between consenting adults"; marriage can be defined in "any way we choose"; the "fetus" is not a human being; if someone "feels like" they are the opposite sex then they really are the opposite sex and the rest of us should be forced by law to recognize it; the government can borrow and spend trillions without the most dire consequences; all religions are equal; and (this one takes the prize) this generation is more moral than past generations. Did you notice how the love of death is the love of the totally irrational?
This love of the irrational has not remained within college class rooms. The death flowing from these ideas is very real. There is the death of marriages; the death of family life; the death of safety in schools, homes and streets; the death of childhood and innocence; the death of decency and wholesomeness; the death of respect and civil language; the death of political and economic stability; the death of commitment to one's spouse, children, church, and to God Himself.
We will hear more and more the question "can Christians work and pray enough to save this country?" A good question indeed but it is not the basic question. "Can we work and pray enough to see millions turn from death to the Lord Jesus who is THE LIFE?" The issue before us is essentially the same as when a young Billy Graham held his first large evangelistic crusade in 1949 in Los Angeles. America still had a Christian consensus and most of the forms of death that I have outlined here were nonexistent. But there were still millions of Americans who desperately needed to be made right with God through the finished work of Christ. They also needed the moral certainty of knowing that God had not been silent. They needed the Word. People are the same and the need is the same. Escape from death in ALL its forms is a consequence of turning to Christ and living under His Lordship. We will never have the fruit until we have the root.
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