Monday, June 8, 2009

GOD HAS NO GRANDCHILDREN

"The Wizard of Oz" is a classic to most of us. Besides being a fun story, it contains moral lessons from Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion as they travel the Yellow Brick Road. The great enemy is the Wicked Witch of the West. One lesson we get from the story is that good eventually overcomes evil.

A new Broadway musical, however, has changed the original story completely. In it, the Wicked Witch is a sympathetic character. Born with green skin, she feels like an outsider, and so we are to empathize with all that she must go through in her sad plight. Major characters, plot lines and other details are all changed so the Wicked Witch comes out as merely a misunderstood person. The end result is evil becomes good and good becomes evil.

But this is nothing new. About 500 years before Christ, Isaiah 5:20 wrote, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil." During his ministry, Isaiah saw a reversal of moral values taking place in Israel. People were pushing to make the evils of murder, idolatry and sexual perversion to be acceptable, even good. Isaiah gave them many stern warnings most of which, sadly, they did not heed.

A wise man once said that to change people's minds, you first make the unthinkable thinkable. Then you make it acceptable, and eventually the acceptable will become preferable.

Sound familiar? Our world today pushes relativism in almost everything, resulting in biblical values being trashed. The best way we Christians can avoid this disturbing trend is by devotion to God's word. Only through reading the Word, hearing the Word and living by the Word can we discern what is really good and evil. And only in knowing the Truth can we teach it to our future generations.

Jesus saw evil made into good in His day, and we see it as well. To combat this we must first open our eyes to see what is happening around us. And then we need to combat evil with the truth. Jesus didn't condemn sinners, but He did condemn their sin. He forgave the repentant, but He warned people to follow the truth. He was especially hard on those who believed they had some special relationship with God based on inheritance rather than faith.

No one is born directly into the Kingdom. There will be no denominations in heaven. We all must come to it by faith in Jesus. Christianity is a living faith that rejects the evil and follows the good. Satan's ways must never become ours. We must stand fast in our Lord, who is the Truth, the Way and the Life, the only way to God the Father.

God has no grandchildren....

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