08 July 2020

Our Three Mortal Enemies

A personal note. When I was in school 60-65 years ago, we all had guns available. We settled our problems with our fists. No one ever thought of bringing a gun to school.

From Catholic Stand

By Maurice Williams

We were all shocked when a teenager burst into a school classroom in Highlands Ranch, Colorado last year, weapon firing, shooting many school-aged children totally innocent of any crime. Why would an American youth do such a wicked thing? This is not the first occurrence of such brutal murders by youths that should have known better. Random violence like this was almost unheard of seventy years ago.
Seventy years ago, our culture knew that “the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking those whom he can devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Today, the media in our culture blames this type of violence on the availability of guns. Such a misunderstanding of the root cause of this evil will not solve the problem of gun violence. If we disarm ourselves, and the rest of the wicked world remains armed, we ourselves are likely to become victims of random violence.

The root cause of evil impulses

The root cause of this incident is how this teenager got the inspiration to shoot the children in the first place. Decades ago in America, when the faith was stronger, that inspiration would have been recognized as a temptation. Today, there is no public recognition anymore of devils tempting us or even of the existence of God who commands us not to kill. Our culture has substituted science for religion. Our youth are taught evolution from an agnostic viewpoint rather than respect for the God who created all of us. Our liberal culture thinks this is progress, but if God really did create the world, this mentality is not progress.
If we teach our youth that they are highly evolved animals, they are likely to believe it and live like animals with no moral constraints on their behavior.  By time the rest of us realize what is happening, it will be too late to correct it. We will have generations of Americans who are not convinced that God will judge them for their evil deeds. These young un-evangelized people think that, when they die, they will simply disappear into the nothingness we let them think they arose from. No! It is a big mistake to teach our youth falsehoods. We should teach them recognition of the God who created all of us.
Murders are not the only crimes on the increase; we also see a rise in robberies, sexual misconduct, bullying, extortion, identity theft, and the list goes on. Because of the reluctance by our culture to teach our youth that God does exist and that God places constraints on human conduct, our youth might presume that they are free to do anything they want. That attitude will bring chaos into our country. You have only to watch the news to see that this is not a theoretical possibility any more. If young people presume that God does not exist, they might conclude that the devil does not exist either. Actually, the secular teaching mandated by our government is very ambiguous on whether God or the devil exists.

Our culture makes it worse

Outright murder is totally wrong and not everybody gives in to that temptation, but the less serious wrong of sexual misconduct when God commands us to be chaste is a sin many people do not have a strong instinct to avoid. We have had a sexual revolution for several generations in our culture, starting in the 1920’s with Freudian concerns about frustrated sex, then through the Playboy era that encouraged freedom of sex coupled with rock and roll music – some of that music intentionally sexually stimulating – and fashions that expose too much of a woman’s body.
Add to that the recently liberated porn industry where movies are available everywhere showing every kind of sexual perversion. Today, we see the results of this: American culture is hyper-sexualized. There is today an attempt to expose and punish the men who have failed to resist the urge toward sexual misconduct. This is now a monumental task. It would have been much better not to expose our people to so much sexual stimuli in our culture in the first place.

The devil

God has always existed. He created both the physical world of animals and plants as well as the spiritual world of angels, and He created humans, who have a share in both worlds. Some of the angels rebelled against God and became devils. They want to take over the world, and they tempt us into their rebellion so they can control us. God is never going to relinquish His sovereignty over His creation. As a result of that, He allows us to be tempted, which is one way He brings us into His victory over evil spirits.
Now we have the problem of choosing good or evil as we decide what to do. To make the struggle worthy of the reward for choosing good, God allows humans to start off with a fallen human nature that can easily be induced to rebellion against God’s laws. This tendency toward sin is called concupiscence. All of us have it, and concupiscence assures that each one of us will always have to struggle to fully obey God under all circumstances.

The flesh

Some Americans have problems controlling anger or disciplining themselves not to steal, not to lie, not to bully others; some struggle to avoid sexual pleasure outside of marriage, etc. We all know how difficult it is to live morally sound lives, and, if we do not exercise self-discipline, it is relatively easy to stumble into grave sins at times.
There is an upside to this, however. If we learn to draw good conduct out of our flawed nature, God will grant us victory over the devils, who, when their natures were perfect, brought evil of their own free choice into the world. Those humans who are victorious over their flawed flesh will, at the end of the world, enter into the Beatific Vision, the perfection of heaven, wedded to Christ eternally. The blessed will rule with Christ over heaven and earth forever because they triumphed over the sinful inclinations of the flesh.
It is perilous enough that we have to deal with temptation from the devil; we also have to deal with our undisciplined flesh with regard not only to sexual pleasure but also to the pleasure of triumphing over others unfairly, the satisfaction of putting down others through bullying, gossip, false witness and other moral maladies.

The world

The war against the flesh and the devil is challenging enough, but the third phase, the war against the world, is very difficult. So much of the world, our culture, runs contrary to what God desires. God does not want any of us to steal, but the entertainment industry, for example, holds up sophisticated thieves as adventurous men to be admired for their boldness and bravery. For example, Hollywood makes movies and video games about pirates. It’s a free country. I suppose anyone can sell what they want, but don’t those who produce movies and games realize that pirates were marauding thieves that boarded ships to rob the crew and passengers?
Our culture would argue that these portrayals are just entertainment, but I often wonder what our children pick up from what the pirates really did. In modern terms, everyone now has to deal with computer hacking and identity theft. Many unsuspecting people are victimized by phony telemarketers and conmen trying to rope them into purchasing overpriced goods and services. Why are people, particularly the youth, so open to doing the dishonest things like this?
Much of the blame can be laid at the feet of Hollywood, which glorifies adventures and scenarios where people do things we all know are wrong. The plots of many movies portray the perpetrators as smart and organized and make their daring crimes seem attractive and adventuresome.

What about the consequences?

When someone commits a mass murder, it seems that the perpetrator was looking for recognition, looking to make a name for himself. After the deed is done and the killer has time to think, however, his self-esteem is much worse. Unfortunately, the media seldom follows through on the effects such sins have on the perpetrators themselves.
It is natural that humans feel remorse over the evil they have done. It is a mistake not to portray remorse in literature and movies about evil people who commit crimes. If our youth try to commit similar crimes in order to make a name for themselves, they might, in the real world, wind up with very serious problems of guilt and remorse.

The internet

There is abundant evidence that the behaviors of young people are influenced by what they see on the internet, sometimes in drastic ways. A few years ago two gullible young girls were encouraged through an occult internet movement to commit murder. The girls conspired for months to murder a friend, without realizing how morally wrong this would be. They finally found the opportunity, stabbed their friend nineteen times, and left her to die. The victim survived, and the two conspirators are now in a mental hospital.
Those who commit these crimes thought they were smart enough to get away with it, and some of them do. We have thieves who steal packages delivered to our doorsteps, drive stolen cars into shops so they can plunder merchandise. Where do they get these ideas, and why don’t they realize that these sins offend God?
In the end God will make them pay for their defiance of His commandments: “Thou shall not kill” and “Thou shall not steal.” Those who do these things defy law enforcement and do not believe that God exists or that He will punish them for their crimes.

The biggest challenge of all

Not only are we saddled with these three challenges – the world, the flesh and the devil – we have another, much more serious, problem to deal with. The fourth challenge, like a monster lurking deep within us, is our pride. It is like a devil trying to gain influence over us. In fact, pride is the devil’s primary sin. The influence of pride can make us become very arrogant against any show of submission even toward God if we are not careful.
We cannot correct the problem of evil in the world by ourselves. That problem is too big for any individual. Only God can fully correct it, but God does give each one of us a personal problem He expects us to do battle with and conquer: our pride, our excessive self-importance, our insistence that things must be done our way, our personal weaknesses and sins. We all have this excessive pride. To subdue pride, we have to choose to subordinate our own will to be submissive to God’s will.
This is the biggest challenge each one of us has to deal with in this life. We must try to subdue this arrogant pride within ourselves so that, at the end of our lives, when we display our compliance with God’s commands, He will not see any hesitation in our desire to fully love and fully obey Him. If He sees that desire in us, He will do the rest.

Conclusion

A dangerous disregard for the God who created us has taken over our culture for many decades. Our culture now rejects the moral character that God commands all of us to display. God’s expectations are not being taught through public education or being displayed in art, literature and movies. Much of what our Founding Fathers cherished as the Christian backbone of our country is now being criticized and avoided.
Our culture has to be careful how we portray life in our music, literature and movies because these elements of culture or a sort of virtual reality. But those who are influenced by these things live in the real world. If culture portrays an unreal world, life will eventually catch up with our culture, and all of us will have to bear the consequences of it.
We are all saddled with three mortal enemies which threaten our salvation, the world, the flesh, and the devil. Only God can save us from them.

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