Rebellion, Witchcraft, And Degeneracy
All Christians are concerned about the growth of the so-called drug culture among young people. But the emphasis is too often misplaced. Drugs are pinpointed as the villain, and it is assumed that more intensive education as to the nature of drugs and stricter law enforcement can solve the problem. Actually any intelligent adult can tell a child all he needs to know about drugs in ten minutes. Today's twelve-year-old knows more about dangerous drugs than yesterday's college professor. But drug use continues to spiral. Law enforcement is certainly important in the protection of the innocent. But the policeman cannot reverse moral degeneracy.
The sober fact is that our materialistic society has attempted to raise a generation without God and is now reaping the bitter fruit. Realizing no obligation to their Creator, these young people have rebelled against all His constituted authority. For most of them there is no hope. Society must protect itself against them so far as possible and resolve not to repeat its mistake. The law of ancient Israel recognized this principle. The penalty for a "stubborn and rebellious son" was death by stoning. (Deut. 21:18-21). This was not a cruel and barbaric law as some would have us believe. The purpose was to: "Put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear." We have no such civil law today, but God's natural law continues to operate. Whenever nations or individuals reach a certain point of degradation they begin to self-destruct. Many potential murderers and anarchists are being eliminated by fatal drug overdose and by drug-induced insanity. Those rebels who boast of being the leaders of tomorrow are rendering themselves unfit for any positions of leadership. This is tragic for them, but fortunate for the rest of us. This certainly does not justify the sale of drugs.
But God has often used evil forces for his own purposes.
"Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft." (I Sam. 15:23). Witchcraft is essentially Devil worship, the practice of evil for its own sake. Witness the irrational crimes of the modern witches — crimes such as the senseless butchery of women by the Manson cult, not motivated by the common lust for money or personal revenge. These Devil worshippers not only blaspheme God and religion, but feel moved to desecrate all that He has ordained as holy in the moral realm. Marriage is set at nought, homemaking is ridiculed, abortion is encouraged, sexual distinction in dress and hair style is obliterated, and finally the natural functions of the body are perverted. There is nothing modern or original about this pattern. Paul described it in detail nearly two thousand years ago. (See Romans 1:21 -32); He showed it to be the natural and inevitable result of total separation from God.
So let us consider the whole picture. Drugs are only one symptom of a deeper and far more dangerous malady. We are faced with a typical culture of degeneracy. It should be as abominable to Christians as it is to God. There must be no toleration and no compromise. The ministers of Satan are manifest: The long haired effeminate men, the "liberated" masculine women, the college radicals, the black militants, the acid heads and dope fiends, the filthy mouthed Beetle-type rock singers, the Communist inspired street demonstrators with their obscene signs and hypocritical "peace" symbols, the able bodied men who live on welfare, the fertile whores with their illegitimate child racket, the mealy mouthed modernist preachers with their feigned sympathy for the downtrodden and their utter contempt for God's Word, and the brainwashed school teachers who make childhood heroes out of reprobates like Martin Luther King. As Christians, as parents, as citizens, let us stand up and be counted in this war against evil. Let us give no quarter to the enemy. At least we may save our own children from destruction.
Rt. 1, Bonham, Texas