“More than half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.
Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Templeton Address
Do you want to know why this nation is considering legalizing Sodomy? Why we have fallen prey to the chimera that is Statist Death care? Why are we even discussing the seizing of our guns?
The answer is simple. Men have forgotten God. When men forget God then a vacuum is created that is filled by godless man. Godless man, by definition, is a demon and he will seek to destroy all social order that is related to the social order of the true God.
Men have forgotten God and in doing so have become beasts. Man can not forget God without losing his own humanity, and yet fallen man would rather embrace living in the ugly environs of the beasts, where nature is red in tooth and claw, then remember God and His Christ.
Men have forgotten God and so they enter into the war of all against all as each individual man seeks to exercise his godhood as over against the godhood of his neighbor. When men forget God it becomes me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world and all of us against the infidel. When men forget God, all men seek to be god and so all men seek to destroy one another. Gods cannot abide competition.
Men have forgotten God and so they shred all God ordained design and distinction in favor of a world where all colors bleed into one. In forgetting God, man seeks to integrate himself downward into the void since integrating upwards into God’s design is no longer an option since men have forgotten God.
Men have forgotten God and so they lose even the idea of the author in literature. The idea of an author who must be considered in understanding a given piece of literature must be rejected since such an understanding hints to much at the idea that there is an Author whose intent must be considered when it comes to life. When men forget God, there is not only no God and no God intent, there are no authors and no authorial intent. The disappearance of God requires the disappearance of the Author.
When men forget God all is chaos and we return to old chaos and dark night. When men forget God they turn to chaos to find order. Order can no more be birthed from chaos then beauty can be birthed out of Cultural Marxism.
When men forget God, life has no value, sex has no intimacy, death has no solution, thought has no meaning, joy has no reference point, and meaning is illusory.
When men forget God, sexually transmitted diseases become as common as abortion, integrity becomes as rare as a virgin on her wedding night, and the bodies start piling up.
When men forget God.
Sometimes it takes a bit of composte to prepare the soil for the new growth of tender shoots. God’s been allowing the dung to pile up quite high for awhile now, so I’m hoping that He’ll decide it is time to start growing the Church up through to see the light of day again, soon.
Forget is a good word as it speaks to the church. It addresses, as does Romans 1, those that know God but cease to honor Him or give thanks; who exchange [trade] the truth of God for a lie; who refuse to acknowledge him any longer; and so, like Adam replace God with themselves. The serve the creature rather than creator. And it is at this point that God turns men over to a reprobate mind to do that which is unnatural. Cultural Marxism, abortion, homosexuality are all evidence of a people not in danger of judgment, but a people under judgment and it is a judgment unto destruction. For even though they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do these things, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. It is a divinely imposed, self destructive, suicidal insanity. It is the promised curse brought down on the covenant breaker.
Mark and Joshua,
I like to use the analogy that C. S. Lewis gave us in “The Last Battle.” In that novel, it was the case that when the Talking Narnians turned away from Aslan to serve Tash they became dumb animals once again. When one forgets God, one loses one’s humanity and while he still may make noises that come out of his mouth it is sound and fury meaning nothing.
The same thing happens to Rabadash in “The Horse and His Boy,” when Aslan turns him into a donkey. A Nebuchadnezzar moment of sorts. Indeed,in his flight from God, the apostate and unregenerate will stop at nothing, even unto the forsaking of the rational mind that sets him apart from the rest of creation.
Oh they don’t forsake the rational mind. They are stripped of it.
Is it not one and the same thing, Mark?
Romans 9:18 “Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will [have mercy], and whom he will he hardeneth.”
Romans 1:28 “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting”
Why did they ‘not like to retain God in their knowledge’?
As in all things God is ultimately sovereign but this not deny secondary causation.
God hardens Pharaoh, Pharaoh hardens himself. God decrees, man acts. Two sides of the same coin, with all the power flowing from God, establishing the will of man to act according to its strongest inclination. God strips reason away, and man abandons it willingly.
My point is that being implies doing. Fallen, unregenerated men do ‘not like to retain God in their knowledge’ (and I would say that they can not) and so are incapable of thinking rational thoughts. God gives them over to their irrational thoughts necessarily even as those whom He regenerates are equipped with renewed minds to think thoughts after Him. Even as God ordained the fall, so too He made some vessels unto dishonor and who can resist His will?
Misty,
I think everyone here would agree with your statement.
Is it not one and the same thing, Mark?
If taken within the full context of Romans 1 so as not to miss the point that such behavior is the act of man under judgment then yes.
Fallen, unregenerated men do ‘not like to retain God in their knowledge’ (and I would say that they can not) and so are incapable of thinking rational thoughts.
Romans 1 is not addressing fallen unregenerated men in general which was my point in speaking to the word ‘forget’ in the first place.
“Romans 1 is not addressing fallen unregenerated men in general which was my point in speaking to the word ‘forget’ in the first place.”
Good point, Mark, and one that is often passed over to quickly in discussions of Romans 1. Those who are ignorant of God are guilty in Adam, but not as guilty as those who know better as Adam did.
I’m not sure I recall correctly, but you accept the idea of a sensus divinitatis without thinking that Paul is employing the idea directly in Romans 1, is that right?
Is Paul addressing Israelites and not other nations here? If so, are we then speaking of those who were given the oracles of God, but did not like to retain the knowledge that they had been given?
Actually, Mark and I disagree on this one.
I am remembering past conversations about this very thing…;)
Notes from Sunday morning and night sermons.
When men forget God they try to erase the likeness between God and man, and the distinctions between man and woman. When he forgets God he must find a new God. One of the most popular “God” that takes God’s place, is man himself. Chaos will start, turning into revolution. When man forgets God, life becomes meaningless.