Our Spiritual and Moral Decline
“By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted: but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked”. (Prov. 11:11).
Our Israel nations today are in a time of severe spiritual deterioration. We have not learned from our past what can happen to a nation when that nation forgets it’s God. Winston Churchill said, “The one thing we have learned from history is that we don’t learn from history”. We are therefore destined to repeat the errors of our past if we do not turn back to our God. All of our economic, social and political problems stem from our spiritual decline. History has shown the stages of a nation’s rise and fall. They most often fall from within and the decline of the family plays a huge part in this fall.
In his book, “Our Dance Has Turned To Death”, by Carl Wilson, Mr. Wilson discusses this. His conclusion is that there is a common pattern that leads to the decline of a nation, such as what happened in Greece and Rome. There appear to be seven stages that lead to this fall. In stage 1 Men abandoned their role in leading the family in worship. Moral and spiritual development began to take a secondary role. In stage 2 as material values began to dominate man’s thoughts he began to think more as an individual. He became more selfish and neglected his wife and children for material wealth and power. In stage 3 there was a change in the sexual values of men. They became so involved with business and ware that their families were neglected or abandoned. Men became involved in homosexuality and with other lower class women. Morality therefore developed a double standard. In stage 4 women’s role in the home and caring for the children lost it’s status and value. Consequently as women were neglected and their roles devalued they rebelled. They wanted part of the material wealth and sexual freedom that the men had. They began to view sex as more than to conceive children and sex for pleasure became popular. Subsequently divorce became easier. In stage 5 the complete breakdown of the family started as wives and husbands competed against each other. The children suffered as a result and many were abandoned, molested, aborted and undisciplined. In stage 6 the nation became weakened by this selfish individual attitude. As the older population grew, due to a decline in the birthrate, the nation was less able to defend itself. In stage 7 the decline of the nation was complete. The fibre of the nation was destroyed as belief in God was abandoned. The government and the economy also became affected by this attitude.
We must learn from the past experiences of Rome and Greece. I have found many articles on the internet that quote scholar J.D. Unwin. After studying 86 different societies he discovered that there is a direct correlation between monogamy and the “expansive energy of civilization. A society is at it’s height when there is sexual fidelity.” This surprised even Unwin as he was not a religious man and made no moral judgment on his research. He did conclude though that once a society has one complete new generation that does not believe in complete monogamy it will not retain it’s energy.
I believe that this is where we are today! The family is at the centre of a society and when it falls the nation falls. Today our families are broken. Children have little respect for parental authority and we have abandoned them by giving them little or no spiritual leadership. Sexual promiscuity is out of control. Sex for anyone is viewed as a right and no more than a biological act. God meant for sex to be a gift between a man and a woman in a marriage relationship. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (Gen. 2:24). This gave protection to the family as the woman felt secure in knowing that she and her children would be provided for. The children would also feel secure in their environment with a mother and father watching over them. This is the foundation of a society. Our society is broken and our children are paying for it. If we continue on the path we are currently taking our nations are doomed. We must cry out to our God in repentance to bring our nations back to Him.
“Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? And God saw their works that they turned from their evil way: and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.” (Jonah 3: 9&10).
