I never cease to be amazed at how words spoken in olden times, or fairly recently, can be prophetic. Today’s quote comes from a famous figure of 37 years ago. He was a man who suffered greatly under the cruel heal of Communist Russia. He was awakened by Jesus Christ while being tortured in the Gulag. He dazzled the Western World when he was able to come to the United States. Notice what he said in his Commencement address at Harvard in 1978 with this list of woes facing the West.
“The loss of courage and will, the addiction to comfort, the abuse of freedom, the capitulation of intellectuals to fashionable ideas, the attitude of appeasement with evil.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as quoted in God and Government, Charles Colson.
Though it is missed for the most part, Solzhenitsyn’s indictment certainly reaches beyond the political to the spiritual as has become apparent and glaringly so in our day. Jesus Christ and the Apostles plainly taught that in the Christian Life and Warfare there must not be any failure of courage, but that we learn to face rampant evil with the courage of the Lord and have the strength of inner will to stand up against the evil of the day in whatever form it is presented.
That we Christians are to reject the necessity of earthly comfort is demonstrated by John as he faithfully labored under the privation of Patmos. Our abuse of the liberty/freedom we have in Christ is well documented. Our assemblies are riddled with appeasement with many actions our Fathers and the Bible plainly and correctly labeled sin.
So, what’s the positive?
Back to the Bible! That’s the old, the present and future remedy for spiritual problems. The things that Solzhenitsyn mentioned are spiritual. On the deck of the Battleship U.S.S. Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945 General Douglas MacArthur said, “civilization trembled in the balance,” the general made this amazing statement:
“The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence (revival) and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art, literature and all material and cultural development of the past two thousand years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.” (Bolding mine).
The idea “of the spirit” is ridiculed from the pages and screens of media and mocked by our president as we hug our guns and Bibles. And more than a few pulpits spew forth the same regurgitations.
As long as prayer meetings, if we have them at all, are the least attended of all church meetings, we are joining with mockers and vainly attempt to appease the evil of the day. On the spiritual plain the old adage from long ago days in typing class comes to mind, “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.” (Variant Charles E. Weller.
Copyright © 2015 Larry Lilly
Top quality IT work by Oral Deckard
Your comments are welcome and desired!
“The loss of courage and will, the addiction to comfort, the abuse of freedom, the capitulation of intellectuals to fashionable ideas, the attitude of appeasement with evil.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as quoted in God and Government, Charles Colson.
Though it is missed for the most part, Solzhenitsyn’s indictment certainly reaches beyond the political to the spiritual as has become apparent and glaringly so in our day. Jesus Christ and the Apostles plainly taught that in the Christian Life and Warfare there must not be any failure of courage, but that we learn to face rampant evil with the courage of the Lord and have the strength of inner will to stand up against the evil of the day in whatever form it is presented.
That we Christians are to reject the necessity of earthly comfort is demonstrated by John as he faithfully labored under the privation of Patmos. Our abuse of the liberty/freedom we have in Christ is well documented. Our assemblies are riddled with appeasement with many actions our Fathers and the Bible plainly and correctly labeled sin.
So, what’s the positive?
Back to the Bible! That’s the old, the present and future remedy for spiritual problems. The things that Solzhenitsyn mentioned are spiritual. On the deck of the Battleship U.S.S. Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945 General Douglas MacArthur said, “civilization trembled in the balance,” the general made this amazing statement:
“The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence (revival) and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art, literature and all material and cultural development of the past two thousand years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.” (Bolding mine).
The idea “of the spirit” is ridiculed from the pages and screens of media and mocked by our president as we hug our guns and Bibles. And more than a few pulpits spew forth the same regurgitations.
As long as prayer meetings, if we have them at all, are the least attended of all church meetings, we are joining with mockers and vainly attempt to appease the evil of the day. On the spiritual plain the old adage from long ago days in typing class comes to mind, “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.” (Variant Charles E. Weller.
Copyright © 2015 Larry Lilly
Top quality IT work by Oral Deckard
Your comments are welcome and desired!
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