How Far Have We Fallen?
Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin
Loosely translated, “weighed, measured, found lacking, and divided.”
I believe all Christians should have this written in their Bibles or on a bookmark in their Bible. (Keep this in mind as I proceed through this teaching.)
Having spoken before large crowds many times, I have learned to anticipate questions that may arise, especially if the speaker is putting forth questions.
If you ask a crowd/congregation, “How far have we fallen?”, it would immediately bring some confusion and after a short time to think, some may wonder or ask things such as “From when?”, “Me, the Church, or society as a whole?”, “Since I’ve been saved?”, or “What is the standard for comparison?”
The truth is all of these questions must be considered, but allow me to address the question of the Standard—the standard is the Word of God! As Christians, this is the standard to which we must measure everything.
Before I get into the examination of ourselves, we’ll take a look at society as a whole. Of course, age will partly determine how far we understand the depth of society’s fall (we can only understand what we have seen and experienced). For those of us who have lived through many decades, we see a very large fall, while those who are young see far less.
Experience is key here. Since I have been alive, I have seen prayer removed from schools. I have observed morals cease to be taught in schools and in many homes. I have seen parents no longer be held accountable for the actions and behavior of their children.
I have seen television go from married couples sleeping in separate beds and no cursing at all in programs to, in many, what can only be called the edge of pornography and the most heinous of curse words become commonplace in movies on the so-called premium channels. In my 63 years, I have seen such a great decline in the education system it is difficult to comprehend how far it has fallen.
When I was in school, we were taught life skills and took aptitude tests to assess our advancement or lack thereof. If someone fell far short they were placed in a class that taught the basics in an attempt to bring them up to expected grade level. Not today! They keep lowering requirements to the lowest common denominator so that Government funding is maintained for the school.
A hundred years ago, Latin and Greek were taught in high school-level classes. Today, remedial reading is taught in institutes of higher learning. I heard a professor state that many students entering college today cannot read at what was considered 4th grade level in the 1970s.
When I was a child and young man, single parent homes were rarely seen. If you did see one, it was often due to an illness or tragic accident. Today however, single parent homes are so commonplace that they seem the norm, and the two-parent family unit is a rarity.
Beginning in the late 1960s, Satan beguiled many weak-minded preachers and Christians with the notion of the Charismatic movement, promising to fill churches, and it did! It also helped greatly to fill Hell, too! The Charismatic movement gave a view of God as if looking at the edge of a popsicle stick from the end. The norm became to preach love and exclude the rest, and church became an emotional experience instead of a Spiritual experience.
No longer was the entirety of the Word taught. No more preaching of the consequence of sin, but only the love of God. “God is Love” was the mantra of the new churchgoer. Today there is a resurgence of the same. They don’t call it the charismatic movement, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it really doesn’t matter what name you put on it.
Again, Satan is filling those churches and hell will be filled even more because of it! They teach a single-faceted God, but God is not single-faceted! God is all encompassing! He is the God of Love, the God of Wrath, the Jealous God, the God of War, the Great “I Am”! God is our Father in Heaven and we who belong to Him will be chastised and disciplined when we misbehave and fail. Just like any good father, He will correct His children.
Remember, we will be weighed and measured against the entirety of the Word, not just a portion of it! Being lukewarm is as bad as being lost! God wants all or nothing! This was taught when the man said he wanted to follow Jesus and when Jesus said then take up your cross and follow me.
The man said he needed to go home and bury his father who had just died. Jesus said to that man, “Let the dead bury the dead”. All or nothing. And at times, it is now or never!
The irony struck profoundly in that during the midst of this writing, there has been an assassination attempt on former President Trump. In my lifetime, there has been one successful and two attempted presidential assassinations.
One more example of a great failing of the hearts of mankind. Another example is that some of the posted comments from the opposing political side have been nothing less than sickening! This world we find ourselves in presents us with a hate-filled existence.
This is not exclusive to politics, but is a part of everyday life. It is somewhat common to hear or read of violent road rage happenings, random violent assaults, robberies, attacks on elderly citizens just because they are vulnerable, parents killing and abusing children. Does this seem like a society of Love? Love finds no place in a hate-filled heart.
The greatest commandments are to “Love the Lord thy God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength,” and to “Love thy neighbor as thyself!” I could go on and on listing examples of how far man has fallen away from God, but quite frankly, the little I have listed already has sickened my heart! I can’t even get started on the happenings within our churches, but they are as ugly as anywhere else in the world and point only to hate-filled selfish hearts.
It seems either churchgoers have never heard or have never been taught that God hated Esau. In Malachi 1, we learn that God loved Jacob but hated Esau. I recently wrote on this in a piece titled The Question. The answer is simple—it had to do with what God saw in Jacob’s heart and found lacking in Esau’s heart.
I’ll ask you to pose this question to yourself - if an Angel appeared to you and told you God was about to search your heart, what would God find? Do you think this is an unfair question? This question is very often on the forefront of my mind concerning myself. I often remind myself that God searches our hearts and that my heart must measure up to God’s standard; that mankind’s standard is of no concern.
Jeremiah 17: 10 I, the Lord, search the heart; I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
Knowing that God searches our hearts, is it not prudent for us to search our hearts always so that we might correct our shortcomings?
This is enough for now. I pray this gives the reader pause for thought and causes a searching of the heart.
May the Lord bless you and keep you.
“It takes the whole Bible to make a whole Christian.”
Kenneth Kellar
A Man Called by God to Teach and Disciple