A Spiritual Immunity to the Moral Breakdown
OUR physical organism is besieged by millions of microbes clamoring to get inside of us and conquer us. Fortunately, we have waiting within us millions of defenders poised to pounce on them and defeat them first. Their response to the invaders is automatic; we need give them no thought. There is, however, another kind of invasion that we must give much thought to if we are to survive. It too is life-threatening, and there are forces behind it that are even more invisible than disease-causing microorganisms!
These forces attack the mind and the heart, the thinking and the feelings. Their visible manifestations cater to the flesh and starve the needs and joys of the spirit. In subtle and in flagrant ways, the masses of humanity are hustled along in the ever-expanding moral breakdown that plagues this generation. As there is a physical immune system to ward off the invasion of our bodies by microbes and viruses, is there a means of immunity to rescue our spirituality from its destroyers? Yes, there is!
What can provide the spiritual antibodies powerful enough to provide spiritual immunity to the moral breakdown? Obviously, neither the rash of pop psychology best-sellers nor the weightier tomes of psychiatrists can do it.
One syndicated columnist reaches to a higher source for help: “It is impossible to have a moral community or nation without faith in God, because everything rapidly comes down to ‘me,’ and ‘me’ alone is meaningless.” When the Russian dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was asked to identify the problem of the 20th century, he said: “Men have forgotten God. . . . The entire twentieth century is being sucked into the vortex of atheism and self-destruction.”
One of the pioneers of modern psychiatry, Dr. C. G. Jung, expressed the essential ingredient for successfully resisting moral decay: “The individual who is not anchored in God can offer no resistance on his own resources to the physical and moral blandishments of the world. For this he needs the evidence of inner, transcendent experience which alone can protect him from the otherwise inevitable submersion in the mass. Merely intellectual or even moral insight . . . lacks the driving force of religious conviction, since it is merely rational.”—The Undiscovered Self, page 34.
Only the Bible, when it is applied in our daily conduct, provides the spiritual antibodies powerful enough to protect mind and heart from the diseased antigens surrounding us and spewed out by the froglike croakings of “unclean inspired expressions” that would lead us into conflict with God.—Revelation 16:13, 14; 1 John 4:1.
Spiritual Antibodies to Protect Spirituality
◼ God’s Word has the power to change lives:
“Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men kept for unnatural purposes, nor men who lie with men, nor thieves, nor greedy persons, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit God’s kingdom. And yet that is what some of you were. But you have been washed clean, but you have been sanctified, but you have been declared righteous in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and with the spirit of our God.”—1 Corinthians 6:9-11.
“The time that has passed by is sufficient for you to have worked out the will of the nations when you proceeded in deeds of loose conduct, lusts, excesses with wine, revelries, drinking matches, and illegal idolatries. Because you do not continue running with them in this course to the same low sink of debauchery, they are puzzled and go on speaking abusively of you.”—1 Peter 4:3, 4.
“Strip off the old personality with its practices, and clothe yourselves with the new personality, which through accurate knowledge is being made new according to the image of the One who created it.”—Colossians 3:9, 10.
◼ When applied, the Scriptures protect against materialism:
“Keep your eyes open and guard against every sort of covetousness, because even when a person has an abundance his life does not result from the things he possesses.”—Luke 12:15.
“Those who are determined to be rich fall into temptation and a snare . . . For the love of money is a root of all sorts of injurious things.”—1 Timothy 6:9, 10.
“Just as one has come forth from his mother’s belly, naked will one go away again, just as one came; and nothing at all can one carry away for his hard work.”—Ecclesiastes 5:15.
◼ Care for the earth, do not pollute it, physically or spiritually:
“Jehovah God proceeded to take the man and settle him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to take care of it.”—Genesis 2:15.
God “formed it even to be inhabited.”—Isaiah 45:18.
“The earth he has given to the sons of men.”—Psalm 115:16.
“The very land has been polluted under its inhabitants . . . and those inhabiting it are held guilty.”—Isaiah 24:5, 6.
God will “bring to ruin those ruining the earth.”—Revelation 11:18.
◼ Shun me-ism, the worship of self:
“Deaden, therefore, your body members that are upon the earth as respects fornication, uncleanness, sexual appetite, hurtful desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”—Colossians 3:5.
◼ Avoid unclean associations:
“Do not be misled. Bad associations spoil useful habits.”—1 Corinthians 15:33.
“He that is walking with wise persons will become wise, but he that is having dealings with the stupid ones will fare badly.”—Proverbs 13:20.
◼ Be on guard against Satan and his world:
“The god of this system of things has blinded the minds of the unbelievers.”—2 Corinthians 4:4.
“We know we originate with God, but the whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.”—1 John 5:19.
“If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him; because everything in the world—the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the showy display of one’s means of life—does not originate with the Father, but originates with the world. Furthermore, the world is passing away and so is its desire, but he that does the will of God remains forever.”—1 John 2:15-17.
◼ Arm yourself against invisible demonic forces:
“Put on the complete suit of armor from God that you may be able to stand firm against the machinations of the Devil; because we have a wrestling, not against blood and flesh, but against . . . the wicked spirit forces in the heavenly places.”—Ephesians 6:11, 12.
“Oppose the Devil, and he will flee from you. Draw close to God, and he will draw close to you.”—James 4:7, 8.
◼ Follow safe guidelines and the perfect role model:
“Your word is a lamp to my foot, and a light to my roadway.”—Psalm 119:105.
“All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.”—2 Timothy 3:16, 17.
“Christ suffered for you, leaving you a model for you to follow his steps closely.”—1 Peter 2:21.
◼ The thinking that makes over the mind:
“Quit being fashioned after this system of things, but be transformed by making your mind over, that you may prove to yourselves the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”—Romans 12:2.
“Whatever things are true, whatever things are of serious concern, whatever things are righteous, whatever things are chaste, whatever things are lovable, whatever things are well spoken of, whatever virtue there is and whatever praiseworthy thing there is, continue considering these things.”—Philippians 4:8.
◼ The child training that heads off delinquency:
“From infancy you have known the holy writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through the faith in connection with Christ Jesus.”—2 Timothy 3:15.
“Train up a boy according to the way for him; even when he grows old he will not turn aside from it.”—Proverbs 22:6.
“The one holding back his rod is hating his son, but the one loving him is he that does look for him with discipline.”—Proverbs 13:24.
“For what son is he that a father does not discipline? True, no discipline seems for the present to be joyous, but grievous; yet afterward to those who have been trained by it it yields peaceable fruit, namely, righteousness.”—Hebrews 12:7, 11.
“These words that I am commanding you today must prove to be on your heart; and you must inculcate them in your son and speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road and when you lie down and when you get up.”—Deuteronomy 6:6, 7.
“Children, be obedient to your parents in union with the Lord, for this is righteous. And you, fathers, do not be irritating your children, but go on bringing them up in the discipline and mental-regulating of Jehovah.”—Ephesians 6:1, 4.
◼ Avoid divorces that lead to single-parent families, delinquency, drugs, sexual immorality:
“‘With the wife of your youth may no one deal treacherously. For he has hated a divorcing,’ Jehovah the God of Israel has said.”—Malachi 2:15, 16.
“I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication, and marries another commits adultery.”—Matthew 19:9.
◼ The love that will eliminate all violence, crime, racism, drugs, drunkenness, hatred, abuse of others:
“You must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind and with your whole strength.” And, “You must love your neighbor as yourself.”—Mark 12:30, 31.
“All things, therefore, that you want men to do to you, you also must likewise do to them; this, in fact, is what the Law and the Prophets mean.”—Matthew 7:12.
“This is what the love of God means, that we observe his commandments.”—1 John 5:3.
This Old World on Its Way Out, This New One on Its Way In
Many modern psychologists and psychiatrists discount the practicality of these Scriptural restrictions on conduct. Some accept sexual immorality and homosexuality as just different life-styles. The distinctions between right and wrong become very fuzzy as a “new morality” is embraced. It is a modern-day example of Isaiah 5:20: “Woe to those who are saying that good is bad and bad is good, those who are putting darkness for light and light for darkness, those who are putting bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” As the Bible says of such ones: “All of you are physicians of no value.” (Job 13:4) They give the green light to spiritual disease antigens; they write no prescriptions for spiritual antibodies to fight them.
Conditions prove that this old world is in its “last days,” to be replaced by a new world of righteousness. “The heavens and the earth that are now are stored up for fire and are being reserved to the day of judgment and of destruction of the ungodly men. But there are new heavens and a new earth that we are awaiting according to his promise, and in these righteousness is to dwell.”—2 Timothy 3:1-5; 2 Peter 3:7, 13.
The new world will see the end of sorrow, sickness, and death and open the way to everlasting life on a paradise earth: “No resident will say: ‘I am sick.’” (Isaiah 33:24) God “will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore.” (Revelation 21:3, 4) And the prescription for gaining that world is given at John 17:3: “This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ.”