Is The Handwriting On The Wall? Part 1.
Bill Haymin
October 04, 2006
King Belshazzar, predecessor and descendant of King Nebuchadnezzar, was giving a great feast for a thousand of his nobles and drank wine with them. While Belshazzar was drinking, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver cups that his predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar, had taken from the Temple in Jerusalem, so that he and his nobles, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. So they brought these gold cups taken from the Temple of God in Jerusalem, and the King and his nobles, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. They drank toasts from them to honor their idols made of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.
At that very moment they saw the fingers of human hand writing on the plaster wall of the King's palace, near the lamp-stand. The King himself saw the hand as it wrote, and his face turned pale with fear. Such terror gripped him that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way beneath him.
The King shouted for the enchanters, astrologers, and fortune-tellers to be brought before him. He said to these wise men of Babylon, "Whoever can read this writing and tell me what it means will be dressed in purple robes of royal honor and will wear a gold chain around his neck. He will become the third highest ruler in the Kingdom!" But when all the King's men came in, none of them could read the writing or tell him what it meant. So the King grew even more alarmed, and his face turned ashen white. His nobles, too, were shaken.
But when the queen mother heard what was happening, she hurried to the banquet hall. She said to Belshazzar, "Long live the King! Don't be so pale and afraid about this.
There is a man in your Kingdom who has within him the spirit of the holy gods. During Nebuchadnezzar's reign, this man was found to have insight, understanding, and wisdom as though he himself were a god. Your predecessor, King Nebuchadnezzar, made him chief over all the magicians, enchanters, astrologers, and fortune-tellers of Babylon. This man whom King Nebuchadnezzar had named Belteshazzar, has a sharp mind and is filled with divine knowledge and understanding. He can interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve difficult problems. Call for Belteshazzar, and he will tell you what the writing means.
Belteshazzar Explains the writing
So Belteshazzar was brought in before the King. The King asked him, "Are you Belteshazzar, who was exiled from Judah by my predecessor, King Nebuchadnezzar? I have heard that you have the spirit of the gods within you and that you are filled with insight, understanding, and wisdom. My wise men and enchanters have tried to read this writing on the wall, but they cannot. I am told that you can give interpretations and solve difficult problems. If you can read these words and tell me their meaning, you will be clothed in purple robes of royal honor, and you will wear a gold chain around your neck. You will become the third highest ruler in the Kingdom."
Belteshazzar answered the King, : Keep your gifts or give them to someone else, but I will tell you what the writing means. Your Majesty, the Most High God gave sovereignty, majesty, glory, and honor to your predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar. He made him so great that people of all races and nations and languages trembled before him in fear. He killed those he wanted to kill and spared those he wanted to spare. He honored those he wanted to honor and disgraced those he wanted to disgrace, but when his heart and mind were hardened with pride, he was brought down from his royal throne and stripped of his glory. He was driven from human society. He was given the mind of an animal, and he lived among the wild donkeys. He ate grass like a cow, and he was drenched with the dew of heaven, until he learned that the Most High God rules the Kingdoms of the world and appoints anyone he desires to rule over them.
You are his successor, O Belshazzar, and you knew all this, yet you have not humbled yourself. For you have defied the Lord of heaven and have had these cups from his Temple brought before you. You and your nobles and your wives and concubines have been drinking wine from them while praising gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone - gods that neither see nor hear nor know anything at all. But you have not honored the God who gives you the breath of life and controls your destiny! So God has sent this hand to write a message.
"This is the message that was written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN. This is what these words mean:
Mene means ‘numbered' - God has numbered the days of your reign and has brought it to an end.
Tekel means ‘weighed' - you have been weighed on the balances and have failed the test.
Parsin means ‘divided' - your Kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians."
Then at Belshazzar's command, Belteshazzar was dressed in purple robes, a gold chain was hung around his neck, and he was proclaimed the third highest ruler in the Kingdom.
That very night Belshazzar, the Babylonian King, was killed. Darius the Mede took over the Kingdom at the age of sixty-two. (Daniel, Chapter 5 of the Bible in the New Living Translation.)
Archeological findings have established the truth of this story, and these people in history.
The Babylonian name of Belteshazzar was given by Nebuchadnezzar. It was used in place of the Hebrew name Daniel, given by his parents, by this author.
Has atheistic secular humanism taken captive education that was to be holy and sacred by default?
Have they made our culture drink from that "cup" that is God's and made it an abomination?
Does God have ALL the true answers to the moral, economic, social disintegration and more, of our nation, rather than what the government, the courts, the media, the educational establishment are saying and teaching?
If it is impossible for God to lie, (Hebrews. 6:18) and if God is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews. 13: 8), will God answer what has been done to our nation that He has birthed and brought forth?
Are there real warnings, examples and lessons that we can learn from history?
Is our worldview and how we look at all of life important?
LEARNING THE MORAL LESSONS OF HISTORY:
Seeing the bigger picture. That picture is your worldview and how it effects your thoughts and actions. Listen, think and consider if you will, this very prophetic message below.
The Reason For Our Moral Breakdown
The battle forced upon Alabama Judge Roy Moore is but one clash in a culture-wide struggle between Christianity and secular humanism. Late Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer identified the conflict and offered Christians a ringing challenge in his 1982 address at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, adapted below.
"I want to say to you, those of you who are troubled about the direction our society is going in, that we must not concentrate merely on the "bits and pieces" - permissiveness, pornography, the problem of the public schools, the breakdown of the family, abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, and many, many other things.
We must understand that all of these dilemmas come as a consequence of moving from the Judeo-Christian world view - that the final reality is an infinite personal creator God - into this other world view which is that the final reality is only energy or material which has existed forever and which has taken its present shape by pure chance.
Man, The Measure Of All Things
The word humanism should be carefully defined. Humanism means that man is the measure of all things. If material energy shaped by pure chance is the final reality, it gives no meaning to life. It gives no value system. It gives no basis for law. Law becomes arbitrary - merely certain people making decisions as to what is for the good of society at the given moment.
Now this is the real reason for the breakdown in morals in our country. It is the real reason that our Supreme Court now functions so thoroughly upon the fact of arbitrary law. They have no basis for law that is fixed. Like a young person who decides to live hedonistically upon his own chosen arbitrary values, society is now doing the same thing legally.
It should be noticed that this new dominant world view is a view which is exactly opposite from that of the Founding Fathers. They Founded the country on the base that there is a God who is the Creator who gave us inalienable rights.
We must understand something very thoroughly. If the state gives the rights, it can take them away - they're not inalienable. If the state gives the rights, they can change them and
manipulate them. But the Founding Fathers believed there was a Creator and that this Creator gave inalienable rights - this is what has given us the freedoms which we still have.
We are losing those freedoms and we can expect to continue to lose them if this other world view continues to take increased force and power in our country.
Where Have The Christians Been?
I have a question to ask you, and that is: Where have the Bible-believing Christians been in the last 40 years? Where have we been as we have changed to this other consensus and all the horrors and stupidity of the present moment has come down on our culture?
We must recognize that this country is close to being lost. Not, first of all, because of humanism. This country is almost lost because the Bible-believing Christians, in the last 40 years, who have said they know that the final reality is this infinite personal God who is the Creator, have done nothing about it as the consensus has changed. There has been a vast silence.
Two Reasons For Failure
I think the church has failed to meet its obligation in these last 40 years for two specific reasons. The first is this false, truncated view of spirituality that doesn't see true spirituality touching all of life. The other thing is that too many Christians whether they are doctors, lawyers, pastors, evangelists - whatever they are - are afraid to really speak out because they did not want to rock the boat for their own project. I am convinced that these two reasons, both of which are a tragedy and really horrible for the Christian, are an explanation of why we have walked the road we have walked in the last 40 years.
You must understand: It's going to cost you to take a stand on these things. There are doctors who are going to get kicked out of hospitals because they refuse to perform abortions; there are nurses who see a little sign on a crib that says, "Do not feed," and they feed and they are fired. There's a cost, but I'd ask you, what is loyalty to Christ worth to you? How much do you believe that this is true? And then, how much do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you willing to pay the price for loyalty to the Lord Jesus?"
Though the following commentary does not mention public schools per say, and their baneful influence on today's world, can you see Americas parallel to the example below and how it can be applied? Of ancient Rome and the subject of why America has to build jails? To put it simply, it's the expunging of the Christian consensus and it's absolutes throughout our culture, that has gotten America and the rest of the world into the trouble it's in!
"As we try to learn lessons about the primary dilemmas which we now face, by looking at the past and considering its flow... we will begin with the Romans (and with the Greek influence behind them), because Roman civilization is the direct ancestor of the modern Western world. From the first conquests of the Roman Republic down to our day, Roman law and political ideas have had a strong influence on the European scene and the entire Western world. Wherever Western civilization has gone, it has been marked by the Romans.
In many ways Rome was great, but it had no real answers to the basic problems that all humanity faces. Much of Roman thought and culture was shaped by Greek thinking, especially after Greece came under Roman rule in 146 B.C. The Greeks tried first to build their society upon the city-state, that is, the polis. The city-state, both in theory and fact, was comprised of all those who were accepted as citizens. All values had meaning in reference to the polis. Thus, when Socrates (469?-399 B.C.) Had to choose between death and exile from that which gave him meaning, he chose death. But the polis failed since it proved to be an insufficient base upon which to build a society.
The Greeks and later the Romans also tried to build society upon their gods. But these gods were not big enough because they were finite, limited. Even all their gods put together were not infinite. Actually, the gods in Greek and Roman thinking were like men and women lager than life, but basically not different from human men and women. As one example among thousands, we can think of the statue of Hercules, standing inebriated and urinating. Hercules was the patron god of Herculaneum which was destroyed at the same time as Pompeii. The gods were amplified humanity, not divinity. Like the Greeks, the Romans had no infinite god. This being so, they had no sufficient reference point intellectually; that is, they did not have anything big enough or permanent enough to which to relate either their thinking or their living. Consequently, their value system was not strong enough to bear the strains of life, either individual or political. All their gods put together could not give them a sufficient base for life, morals, values, and final decisions. These gods depended on the society which had made them, and when this society collapsed the gods tumbled with it. Thus, the Greek and Roman experiments in social harmony (which rested on an elitist republic) ultimately failed.
In those days of Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.), Rome turned to an authoritarian system centered in Caesar himself. Before the days of Caesar, the senate could not keep order. Armed gangs terrorized the city of Rome and the normal processes of government were disrupted as rivals fought for power. Self-interest became more significant than social interest, however sophisticated the trappings. Thus, in desperation the people accepted authoritarian government. As Plutarch (A.D. 50?-120) put it in the Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, the Roman made Caesar dictator for life "in the hope that the government of a single person would give them time to breathe after so many civil wars and calamities"...
"Overwhelming pressures are being brought to bear on people who have no absolutes, but only have the impoverished values of personal peace and prosperity. The pressures are progressively preparing modern people to accept a manipulative, authoritarian government. Unhappily, many of these pressures are upon us now"...
"Let us hasten to say that freedom of the individual is not magic in the countries with a Reformation background either. As the memory of the Christian base grows ever dimmer, freedom will disintegrate in these countries as well. The system will not simply go on, divorced from its founding roots. And the drift will tend to be the same, no matter what political party is voted in. When the principles are gone, there remains only expediency at any price.
Most of the leaders of the countries which used to have a Christian base are now "modern"
men. Happily there are notable exceptions, but they are exceptions. The attempt to be autonomous - to be independent from God and from what he has taught in the Bible and the revelation of God in Christ - affects the political leaders as well as the university professors and the common people. Most of these leaders , too, think in terms of synthesis: ["A process of reasoning which consists in advancing in a direct manner from principles established or assumed, and propositions already provided, to the conclusion." *I would add that the "reasoning" and "principles established" could mean malevolent ones, not to the benefit of mankind.], instead of fixed standards and absolutes and this shows in political actions both at home and in foreign affairs.
Synthesis has won on both sides of the Iron Curtain: People see no fixed, final right or wrong, but only a mixture in public dealing as well as in private morals, in foreign affairs as well as in internal matters. This is especially so of the intellectuals who have understandingly carried the abandonment of the Christian base toward its logical conclusion. But it is also true of those who have been influenced by this thought without analyzing it. Pragmatism, doing what seems to work without regard for fixed principles of right or wrong, is largely in control. In both international and home affairs, expediency - at any price to maintain personal peace and affluence at the moment - is the accepted procedure. Absolute principles have little or no meaning in the place to which the decline of western thought has come"...
"I wonder if Christians of the future will be thankful that in our day we spoke out and acted against abuses in the areas of race and the non-compassionate use of wealth, yet simultaneously and equally balanced this speaking out and acting also against the special sickness and threat of our age - the rise of authoritarian government? That is, will we resist authoritarian government in all its forms regardless of the label it carries [public schools, collages and universities, destroying the Constitution in the name of fighting terrorism for a few examples] and regardless of its origin? [our own American President and most of Congress]. The danger in regard to the rise of authoritarian government is that Christians will be still as long as their own religious activities, evangelism, and life-styles are not disturbed.
We are not excused from speaking, just because the culture and society no longer rest as much as they once did on Christian thinking. Moreover, Christians do not need to be in the majority in order to influence society.
But we must be realistic. John the Baptist raised his voice, on the basis of the biblical absolutes, against the personification of power in the person of Herod, and it cost him his head. In the Roman Empire the Christians refused to worship Caesar along with Christ, and this was seen by those in power as disrupting the unity of the Empire; for many this was costly. But let us be realistic in another way, too. If we as Christians do not speak out as authoritarian governments grow from within or come from outside, eventually we or our children will be the enemy of society and the state. No truly authoritarian government can tolerate those who have a real absolute by which to judge its arbitrary absolutes and who speak out and act upon that absolute. This was the issue with the early church in regard to the Roman Empire, and though the specific issue will in all probability take a different form than Caesar-worship, the basic issue of having an absolute by which to judge the state and society will be the same.
Here is a sentence to memorize: To make no decision in regard to the growth of authoritarian government is already a decision for it."
Francis A. Schaeffer, "How Should We Then Live?, The Rise And Decline Of Western Thought And Culture." Copyright 1976. Fleming H. Revell Company. All rights reserved
Schaeffer has shown that ideas do have consequences. Our society's current ideas are quickly taking us in the direction of Hitler's Nazi Germany of the 1930's. He put some of his earliest and greatest efforts into Germany's youth: Turning them away from their parents values.
Our society has embraced ideas which allow each individual to chase what they want as right or wrong. This closely parallels the definition of criminal: One who thinks his ways are better. My next article addresses this phenomena from 130-170 years of perspective.
By Bill Haymin, Copyright 2006
At that very moment they saw the fingers of human hand writing on the plaster wall of the King's palace, near the lamp-stand. The King himself saw the hand as it wrote, and his face turned pale with fear. Such terror gripped him that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way beneath him.
The King shouted for the enchanters, astrologers, and fortune-tellers to be brought before him. He said to these wise men of Babylon, "Whoever can read this writing and tell me what it means will be dressed in purple robes of royal honor and will wear a gold chain around his neck. He will become the third highest ruler in the Kingdom!" But when all the King's men came in, none of them could read the writing or tell him what it meant. So the King grew even more alarmed, and his face turned ashen white. His nobles, too, were shaken.
But when the queen mother heard what was happening, she hurried to the banquet hall. She said to Belshazzar, "Long live the King! Don't be so pale and afraid about this.
There is a man in your Kingdom who has within him the spirit of the holy gods. During Nebuchadnezzar's reign, this man was found to have insight, understanding, and wisdom as though he himself were a god. Your predecessor, King Nebuchadnezzar, made him chief over all the magicians, enchanters, astrologers, and fortune-tellers of Babylon. This man whom King Nebuchadnezzar had named Belteshazzar, has a sharp mind and is filled with divine knowledge and understanding. He can interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve difficult problems. Call for Belteshazzar, and he will tell you what the writing means.
Belteshazzar Explains the writing
So Belteshazzar was brought in before the King. The King asked him, "Are you Belteshazzar, who was exiled from Judah by my predecessor, King Nebuchadnezzar? I have heard that you have the spirit of the gods within you and that you are filled with insight, understanding, and wisdom. My wise men and enchanters have tried to read this writing on the wall, but they cannot. I am told that you can give interpretations and solve difficult problems. If you can read these words and tell me their meaning, you will be clothed in purple robes of royal honor, and you will wear a gold chain around your neck. You will become the third highest ruler in the Kingdom."
Belteshazzar answered the King, : Keep your gifts or give them to someone else, but I will tell you what the writing means. Your Majesty, the Most High God gave sovereignty, majesty, glory, and honor to your predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar. He made him so great that people of all races and nations and languages trembled before him in fear. He killed those he wanted to kill and spared those he wanted to spare. He honored those he wanted to honor and disgraced those he wanted to disgrace, but when his heart and mind were hardened with pride, he was brought down from his royal throne and stripped of his glory. He was driven from human society. He was given the mind of an animal, and he lived among the wild donkeys. He ate grass like a cow, and he was drenched with the dew of heaven, until he learned that the Most High God rules the Kingdoms of the world and appoints anyone he desires to rule over them.
You are his successor, O Belshazzar, and you knew all this, yet you have not humbled yourself. For you have defied the Lord of heaven and have had these cups from his Temple brought before you. You and your nobles and your wives and concubines have been drinking wine from them while praising gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone - gods that neither see nor hear nor know anything at all. But you have not honored the God who gives you the breath of life and controls your destiny! So God has sent this hand to write a message.
"This is the message that was written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN. This is what these words mean:
Mene means ‘numbered' - God has numbered the days of your reign and has brought it to an end.
Tekel means ‘weighed' - you have been weighed on the balances and have failed the test.
Parsin means ‘divided' - your Kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians."
Then at Belshazzar's command, Belteshazzar was dressed in purple robes, a gold chain was hung around his neck, and he was proclaimed the third highest ruler in the Kingdom.
That very night Belshazzar, the Babylonian King, was killed. Darius the Mede took over the Kingdom at the age of sixty-two. (Daniel, Chapter 5 of the Bible in the New Living Translation.)
Archeological findings have established the truth of this story, and these people in history.
The Babylonian name of Belteshazzar was given by Nebuchadnezzar. It was used in place of the Hebrew name Daniel, given by his parents, by this author.
Has atheistic secular humanism taken captive education that was to be holy and sacred by default?
Have they made our culture drink from that "cup" that is God's and made it an abomination?
Does God have ALL the true answers to the moral, economic, social disintegration and more, of our nation, rather than what the government, the courts, the media, the educational establishment are saying and teaching?
If it is impossible for God to lie, (Hebrews. 6:18) and if God is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews. 13: 8), will God answer what has been done to our nation that He has birthed and brought forth?
Are there real warnings, examples and lessons that we can learn from history?
Is our worldview and how we look at all of life important?
LEARNING THE MORAL LESSONS OF HISTORY:
Seeing the bigger picture. That picture is your worldview and how it effects your thoughts and actions. Listen, think and consider if you will, this very prophetic message below.
The Reason For Our Moral Breakdown
The battle forced upon Alabama Judge Roy Moore is but one clash in a culture-wide struggle between Christianity and secular humanism. Late Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer identified the conflict and offered Christians a ringing challenge in his 1982 address at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, adapted below.
"I want to say to you, those of you who are troubled about the direction our society is going in, that we must not concentrate merely on the "bits and pieces" - permissiveness, pornography, the problem of the public schools, the breakdown of the family, abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, and many, many other things.
We must understand that all of these dilemmas come as a consequence of moving from the Judeo-Christian world view - that the final reality is an infinite personal creator God - into this other world view which is that the final reality is only energy or material which has existed forever and which has taken its present shape by pure chance.
Man, The Measure Of All Things
The word humanism should be carefully defined. Humanism means that man is the measure of all things. If material energy shaped by pure chance is the final reality, it gives no meaning to life. It gives no value system. It gives no basis for law. Law becomes arbitrary - merely certain people making decisions as to what is for the good of society at the given moment.
Now this is the real reason for the breakdown in morals in our country. It is the real reason that our Supreme Court now functions so thoroughly upon the fact of arbitrary law. They have no basis for law that is fixed. Like a young person who decides to live hedonistically upon his own chosen arbitrary values, society is now doing the same thing legally.
It should be noticed that this new dominant world view is a view which is exactly opposite from that of the Founding Fathers. They Founded the country on the base that there is a God who is the Creator who gave us inalienable rights.
We must understand something very thoroughly. If the state gives the rights, it can take them away - they're not inalienable. If the state gives the rights, they can change them and
manipulate them. But the Founding Fathers believed there was a Creator and that this Creator gave inalienable rights - this is what has given us the freedoms which we still have.
We are losing those freedoms and we can expect to continue to lose them if this other world view continues to take increased force and power in our country.
Where Have The Christians Been?
I have a question to ask you, and that is: Where have the Bible-believing Christians been in the last 40 years? Where have we been as we have changed to this other consensus and all the horrors and stupidity of the present moment has come down on our culture?
We must recognize that this country is close to being lost. Not, first of all, because of humanism. This country is almost lost because the Bible-believing Christians, in the last 40 years, who have said they know that the final reality is this infinite personal God who is the Creator, have done nothing about it as the consensus has changed. There has been a vast silence.
Two Reasons For Failure
I think the church has failed to meet its obligation in these last 40 years for two specific reasons. The first is this false, truncated view of spirituality that doesn't see true spirituality touching all of life. The other thing is that too many Christians whether they are doctors, lawyers, pastors, evangelists - whatever they are - are afraid to really speak out because they did not want to rock the boat for their own project. I am convinced that these two reasons, both of which are a tragedy and really horrible for the Christian, are an explanation of why we have walked the road we have walked in the last 40 years.
You must understand: It's going to cost you to take a stand on these things. There are doctors who are going to get kicked out of hospitals because they refuse to perform abortions; there are nurses who see a little sign on a crib that says, "Do not feed," and they feed and they are fired. There's a cost, but I'd ask you, what is loyalty to Christ worth to you? How much do you believe that this is true? And then, how much do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you willing to pay the price for loyalty to the Lord Jesus?"
Though the following commentary does not mention public schools per say, and their baneful influence on today's world, can you see Americas parallel to the example below and how it can be applied? Of ancient Rome and the subject of why America has to build jails? To put it simply, it's the expunging of the Christian consensus and it's absolutes throughout our culture, that has gotten America and the rest of the world into the trouble it's in!
"As we try to learn lessons about the primary dilemmas which we now face, by looking at the past and considering its flow... we will begin with the Romans (and with the Greek influence behind them), because Roman civilization is the direct ancestor of the modern Western world. From the first conquests of the Roman Republic down to our day, Roman law and political ideas have had a strong influence on the European scene and the entire Western world. Wherever Western civilization has gone, it has been marked by the Romans.
In many ways Rome was great, but it had no real answers to the basic problems that all humanity faces. Much of Roman thought and culture was shaped by Greek thinking, especially after Greece came under Roman rule in 146 B.C. The Greeks tried first to build their society upon the city-state, that is, the polis. The city-state, both in theory and fact, was comprised of all those who were accepted as citizens. All values had meaning in reference to the polis. Thus, when Socrates (469?-399 B.C.) Had to choose between death and exile from that which gave him meaning, he chose death. But the polis failed since it proved to be an insufficient base upon which to build a society.
The Greeks and later the Romans also tried to build society upon their gods. But these gods were not big enough because they were finite, limited. Even all their gods put together were not infinite. Actually, the gods in Greek and Roman thinking were like men and women lager than life, but basically not different from human men and women. As one example among thousands, we can think of the statue of Hercules, standing inebriated and urinating. Hercules was the patron god of Herculaneum which was destroyed at the same time as Pompeii. The gods were amplified humanity, not divinity. Like the Greeks, the Romans had no infinite god. This being so, they had no sufficient reference point intellectually; that is, they did not have anything big enough or permanent enough to which to relate either their thinking or their living. Consequently, their value system was not strong enough to bear the strains of life, either individual or political. All their gods put together could not give them a sufficient base for life, morals, values, and final decisions. These gods depended on the society which had made them, and when this society collapsed the gods tumbled with it. Thus, the Greek and Roman experiments in social harmony (which rested on an elitist republic) ultimately failed.
In those days of Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.), Rome turned to an authoritarian system centered in Caesar himself. Before the days of Caesar, the senate could not keep order. Armed gangs terrorized the city of Rome and the normal processes of government were disrupted as rivals fought for power. Self-interest became more significant than social interest, however sophisticated the trappings. Thus, in desperation the people accepted authoritarian government. As Plutarch (A.D. 50?-120) put it in the Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, the Roman made Caesar dictator for life "in the hope that the government of a single person would give them time to breathe after so many civil wars and calamities"...
"Overwhelming pressures are being brought to bear on people who have no absolutes, but only have the impoverished values of personal peace and prosperity. The pressures are progressively preparing modern people to accept a manipulative, authoritarian government. Unhappily, many of these pressures are upon us now"...
"Let us hasten to say that freedom of the individual is not magic in the countries with a Reformation background either. As the memory of the Christian base grows ever dimmer, freedom will disintegrate in these countries as well. The system will not simply go on, divorced from its founding roots. And the drift will tend to be the same, no matter what political party is voted in. When the principles are gone, there remains only expediency at any price.
Most of the leaders of the countries which used to have a Christian base are now "modern"
men. Happily there are notable exceptions, but they are exceptions. The attempt to be autonomous - to be independent from God and from what he has taught in the Bible and the revelation of God in Christ - affects the political leaders as well as the university professors and the common people. Most of these leaders , too, think in terms of synthesis: ["A process of reasoning which consists in advancing in a direct manner from principles established or assumed, and propositions already provided, to the conclusion." *I would add that the "reasoning" and "principles established" could mean malevolent ones, not to the benefit of mankind.], instead of fixed standards and absolutes and this shows in political actions both at home and in foreign affairs.
Synthesis has won on both sides of the Iron Curtain: People see no fixed, final right or wrong, but only a mixture in public dealing as well as in private morals, in foreign affairs as well as in internal matters. This is especially so of the intellectuals who have understandingly carried the abandonment of the Christian base toward its logical conclusion. But it is also true of those who have been influenced by this thought without analyzing it. Pragmatism, doing what seems to work without regard for fixed principles of right or wrong, is largely in control. In both international and home affairs, expediency - at any price to maintain personal peace and affluence at the moment - is the accepted procedure. Absolute principles have little or no meaning in the place to which the decline of western thought has come"...
"I wonder if Christians of the future will be thankful that in our day we spoke out and acted against abuses in the areas of race and the non-compassionate use of wealth, yet simultaneously and equally balanced this speaking out and acting also against the special sickness and threat of our age - the rise of authoritarian government? That is, will we resist authoritarian government in all its forms regardless of the label it carries [public schools, collages and universities, destroying the Constitution in the name of fighting terrorism for a few examples] and regardless of its origin? [our own American President and most of Congress]. The danger in regard to the rise of authoritarian government is that Christians will be still as long as their own religious activities, evangelism, and life-styles are not disturbed.
We are not excused from speaking, just because the culture and society no longer rest as much as they once did on Christian thinking. Moreover, Christians do not need to be in the majority in order to influence society.
But we must be realistic. John the Baptist raised his voice, on the basis of the biblical absolutes, against the personification of power in the person of Herod, and it cost him his head. In the Roman Empire the Christians refused to worship Caesar along with Christ, and this was seen by those in power as disrupting the unity of the Empire; for many this was costly. But let us be realistic in another way, too. If we as Christians do not speak out as authoritarian governments grow from within or come from outside, eventually we or our children will be the enemy of society and the state. No truly authoritarian government can tolerate those who have a real absolute by which to judge its arbitrary absolutes and who speak out and act upon that absolute. This was the issue with the early church in regard to the Roman Empire, and though the specific issue will in all probability take a different form than Caesar-worship, the basic issue of having an absolute by which to judge the state and society will be the same.
Here is a sentence to memorize: To make no decision in regard to the growth of authoritarian government is already a decision for it."
Francis A. Schaeffer, "How Should We Then Live?, The Rise And Decline Of Western Thought And Culture." Copyright 1976. Fleming H. Revell Company. All rights reserved
Schaeffer has shown that ideas do have consequences. Our society's current ideas are quickly taking us in the direction of Hitler's Nazi Germany of the 1930's. He put some of his earliest and greatest efforts into Germany's youth: Turning them away from their parents values.
Our society has embraced ideas which allow each individual to chase what they want as right or wrong. This closely parallels the definition of criminal: One who thinks his ways are better. My next article addresses this phenomena from 130-170 years of perspective.
By Bill Haymin, Copyright 2006
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