How To Turn the World Upside Down

Let me share with you three real life incidents:
A man in a car waiting to approach a gas pump is edged out by another car.  Offended by this, he follows the man home and shoots him to death in his driveway.
A woman is injured in an auto accident that demolishes her car.  As she lies there in pain someone approaches her car.  He steals the woman’s purse and strips her of her rings and other valuables before fleeing the scene.
A family of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto is taken from their home at gunpoint and beaten in public.  Then they are forcibly put on a crowded cattle car to be taken to a prison camp where they are murdered and burned in large gas ovens.
What do these three incidents have in common?  Answer: an outrageously low view of the value of human life.  Perhaps you feel offended by the inclusion of the third incident as not being in the same class as the first two.  Let’s be honest.  The only difference is a matter of degree.  And that is what worries us so.  We used to ask how a civilized society could ever have produced the mass prison camp murders.  One need only read the front page of the daily newspapers to see the same spirit at work on a smaller scale.  Nothing has changed.  Once humans cut themselves loose from the tether of the Spirit they inevitably begin to wade in the most dismal of spiritual swamps.  The only answer is not a social nor even a moral renewal, but a spiritual renewal.  It is the Creator who has informed us about the value of life.  It is He who commanded us to “love one another.”  It is He who demands of His children reconciliation amidst broken relationships.  We who know the Lord can’t just wring our hands and hope for the best.  Nor is it enough to amass a group of like-minded people and march on Washington.  The Lord has shown us the antidote to this infectious problem: we must be actively living out a life of love, respect, concern and sacrifice for others.  The Christian way will continually be mocked by our secular world as just another idealistic religion of wishful thinking until they actually witness it being lived out by those who profess it.  Your fellow members and friends will be in attendance this Sunday to learn more about how we can live out this life of sacrificial love.  Will you be among them.”