Evil is restrained either through man’s fear of God or man’s fear of man. Where there is fear neither of God nor of man, chaos and anarchy prevail.
Where good behavior stems from the fear of man, as in a totalitarian or strongly authoritarian state, this “goodness” is achieved at the price of personal freedom and is a form of slavery.
God has provided for mankind the norms for right living, and to those who put their trust in him he gives the power to live accordingly. Herein lie the basis and stamina of Christian character.
Character itself is an evidence of some restraining, energizing, and directing influence on a man’s life; and Christian character is a demonstration of the presence and power of the living Christ. It is a combination of faith in the revelation God has given of himself through his Son, and obedience to that revelation in daily living.
Christian character has been described as doing what is right when no one is looking and when one knows that his actions can never be tracked to their source. But it is far more than that. Christian character involves testing of thoughts and actions by God-given guidelines and then proceeding according to his revealed will and by the power of his indwelling Spirit, regardless of difficulties.
A nation is great when its citizens possess Christian character; when that character starts to erode, the nation’s fall has begun.
The evidences of such erosion are to be seen on every hand in our country. Dishonesty is flagrantly admitted. In fact, the entire business world seems in danger of coming apart at the seams through dishonest practices. The social life of the nation is also being eroded by the so-called new morality, which is nothing more or less than the old immorality dressed up in a tuxedo.
Political life seems given over to expediency rather than to the national interest to such an extent that one wonders who can be trusted to view issues and policies from the standpoint of right or wrong.
The Church’s influence for righteousness has also suffered the erosion of compromise and worldliness; church spokesmen often substitute man-made standards and philosophies for the clear “Thus saith the Lord” of the Bible.
But nowhere is the wearing down of Christian principles and ideals more evident than in the so-called sex revolution. The general attitude of permissiveness, together with ready availability of the pill, and other contraceptives, and courses in sex education that are confined to pathological and biological aspects and leave out God’s teachings about sex—all these, as well as the hell-inspired teaching that there are no absolutes, have combined to soften and erode away many of the spiritual directives and restraints that do so much to distinguish man from the lower animals.
As the basic concepts of Christian character are downgraded in present-day America, we are seeing good spoken of as evil and evil promoted as good. We see sins of every kind not only accepted but even glorified. We see young people following evil ways because their elders have failed to show them the God-ordained norms by which man should live.
We have come to the day when Christianity, the source of Christian character, is often exchanged for a “religion” lacking in spiritual perception and power because it no longer teaches Christ’s life, death on the Cross, and resurrection as revealed in the Scriptures.
A young minister who was a graduate of one of America’s oldest and most “prestigious” theological seminaries recently returned to his alma mater for a series of lectures. To his dismay, he found that many of the students regularly drank alcoholic beverages, were profane in their conversation, and were immoral in their way of life.
While this situation may possibly be the exception rather than the rule, it gives a sobering picture of the erosion that has gotten into the Church itself as a result of its tendency to drift with the tide of contemporary life rather than to stand firm and lift up an ensign for the holiness of God and his body, the Church.
The prophets of old denounced sin out of holy conviction. Speaking under the inspiration of the Spirit, they faithfully warned of impending judgment because of sin. For this they were denounced, and many of them sealed their testimony with their life’s blood. And the judgment they had announced inexorably came.
Today the denunciation of sins against a holy God is regarded in many quarters as “quaint,” “Victorian,” “fundamentalistic,” “a perversion of the Gospel of God’s love.” Such preaching is unpopular, and, where possible, ecclesiastical pressures, restrictions, and even persecution are vented on those who persist.
This erosion in individual character and in the corporate life of the nation goes on apace, and all must suffer. While men may consider the changes trivial, God is not mocked, and sin’s wages come nearer and nearer.
Basic to the problem is man’s substitution of error for revealed truth. For the average American the Bible is a closed book. Young people in school—from kindergarten to college and university—are ignorant of God’s standards for belief and conduct. They are pagans in a “Christian” land because God and his Word have been increasingly neglected. Little wonder that we have a generation of spiritual illiterates! Little wonder that on every hand we see moral and spiritual erosion!
The supreme question is whether Christian character can be restored in America. Can the disintegrating influences that have an ever accelerating effect on our way of life be overcome and a new and effective emphasis on lost values be established?
There is one way—and only one. It is a way few choose to take, but it is the one that is divinely ordained. The route back is clearly marked in Second Chronicles 7:14:
Humility (“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves”), prayer and seeking God (“and pray and seek my face”), repentance and conversion (“and turn from their wicked ways”); when these are present, God will grant forgiveness and healing (“then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land”).
The route of humility, prayer, repentance, conversion, and healing ends at the Cross. There is much talk at present about “corporate sins,” but corporate sins are but the elongated shadows of personal sins, and revival and restoration is a very personal matter.
We need humbled minds and wills before the One who offers not only forgiveness and cleansing but the instilling in us of his own nature. Through his indwelling nature Christian character becomes a reality for us as individuals and also a positive force against the evils in our nation.
