Plenty of folks today have a GPS. This has made the job of getting from one place to another much easier. Of course they are not always foolproof, but generally they are a great help in keeping us on course and getting us to our desired destinations.
Without a GPS, or other navigational tools, or good reliable maps, we will forever be getting lost. So such devices are a real must in modern society. But another navigation tool is also a must – yet it is one which most people are without. I refer to a moral map, or a spiritual GPS.
Without reliable and trustworthy moral road maps we are likely to end up all over the place. Without a moral compass to help us find the ethical and spiritual due north, we will end up lost, confused and far away from home. One description of a compass reads as follows: “A compass is a navigational instrument that shows directions in a frame of reference that is stationary relative to the surface of the earth.”
Now that is exactly what we need morally and spiritually speaking: a frame of reference that is stationary relative to ourselves, that can give us reliable directions. We are in desperate need of such fixed and accurate guidance. And this guidance is not something we can come up with ourselves.
It must come from without, and of course the Christian faith posits such a compass. The perfect, unchanging and righteous God of the universe is our moral and spiritual compass, and he has given us clear directions in his revealed word.
In it we find an objective, transcendent frame of reference by which we can plot our journey through life. Yet most people today prefer to rely on their own internal guidance system, no matter how dodgy and unreliable. They have rejected a spiritual GPS for their own failed, finite and fallen internal navigation systems.
In my recent Scripture reading I came upon a sad yet accurate commentary on all this. In Amos 8:11 we find these disconcerting words: “‘The days are coming,’ declares the Sovereign LORD, ‘when I will send a famine through the land – not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD’.”
When a people continue to reject God, his law, and his revelation, then God will often abandon them to their worst fate: themselves. People without God and his revelation end up stumbling around in the dark, moving from one disaster to another.
We see this tragically being played out in so much of the West today. We have abandoned God, our only sure compass, and are now left wandering, groping, lost, fumbling about with no clear direction and no sure map. We are in a spiritual and moral free fall in other words.
Thus evil, depravity and death cults flourish, and we aren’t even aware of how far out of tune we are morally speaking. Life becomes cheap and the weakest are most at risk. Examples of this are legion. One caught my eye recently and certainly indicates how much we desperately need a moral compass.
The story goes this way: A “video has emerged showing George Mason University students signing a petition to legalize abortion after birth. According to the petition, which was signed on Wednesday demanded that lawmakers legalize ‘fourth trimester’ abortions. In other words, they want to fully legalize the murder of a child that has been born.”
“The petition, which was circulated on GMU’s flagship campus in Fairfax, VA., just outside Washington D.C., by Media Research Center reporter Dan Joseph said it was aimed at sending ‘a message to our lawmakers that women have the right to choose what to do with their bodies and babies’ even ‘after their pregnancies.’
“‘If you don’t know what fourth trimester is, it’s after the baby is already born,’ Joseph said. ‘Currently fourth trimester abortions are illegal in all 50 states,’ he told students. Most responses should horrify anyone with a conscience as they declared anything from ‘okay’ to ‘cool.’
“One concerned student asked if the procedure would ‘cause harm to the child.’ ‘Well the child wouldn’t be there anymore,’ responded Joseph. ‘It’s abortion.’ The student then happily signed the petition.”
Now that is a perfect example of a famine of God’s revelation, resulting in an utter lack of a moral compass. As I say, the weak are especially at risk in such a morally numb universe. Joni Eareckson Tada, who has been a quadriplegic for 45 years now knows all about this. She writes:
“The weak have never fared well in cultures that view life as dispensable. Roughly seventy years ago in Nazi Germany the first ones to be carted away in the dark from institutions down long hallways in the middle of the night were the weakest of the disabled. Not just any disabled people.
“No, Nazi medical teams singled out disabled people who had no visitors, no family, no advocates, no friends. No one to dare contend for their lives. No Christians were there to say, ‘Stop! She bears the image of God, and we will be her spiritual community. We will keep her connected to reality. We will not let her suffer alone.”
She continues, “With no moral compass, society does not know what to do with affliction, pain, and suffering. No biblical gyroscope exists to give balance to someone [with great suffering], who is struggling with what it means to be human and to live with severe suffering. Disability in a society that has lost its moral center is viewed as an intrusion to one’s comfort and convenience.
“Now society has downright contempt for suffering. People do everything to eradicate it, to exorcise it surgically, institutionalize it, give it ibuprofen, divorce it – everything but live with it. And it is only a short philosophical hop, skip, and jump to the point where society also has contempt for people who suffer.”
No wonder we see such fervent and frequent pushes for abortion, euthanasia and even infanticide. It comes naturally in a culture which has closed its ears from hearing God, and is therefore reduced to a culture with no moral centre. Such a society is very ugly indeed, with the weak, vulnerable and suffering the first to go.
Millions of GPSs are being sold all around the globe. We cannot buy a spiritual and moral GPS, but we do know where to get one if we want it. Tragically most people do not want it however. As a result, our culture will become more and more lost, disorientated, deadened. Such a future does not bode well.
16 Replies to “The Culture of Death and Our Missing Moral Compass”
Well said Bill. My friends brother has a disability and has had a lifetime of being rejected, people talking about him, feeling isolated, lonely and hopeless. My friend asked his brother who is now 45 years old, “Do you wish you were aborted?” His brother replied “Of course not, then I wouldn’t have my life.” Life is so precious and no one has the right to value another’s life.
Loretta Coffey
Absolutely horrific.
A mindset without God is a mindset without a mind and a conscience!
To quote from one internet item.
“GMU students Bill Stern and Moonflower Abraham said they were thrilled to sign the petition and hoped it would ‘save the whales’ or something like that.”
Paul Copeland
Well said Loretta.
Life has absolute value and cannot be snuffed out because of inconvenience or nuisance value or because the person’s life does not live up to certain secular values of worth.
I have a friend who is in a wheelchair. He has hands that are so severely fisted that he cannot hold anything. He doesn’t have any carers looking after him, but cares for his elderly mother with help from his brother. In one sense he has every right to be unhappy and miserable. But he is one of the most postive people I know. He takes himself into the city by train. He has a great sense of humour and I have never heard him speak one negative word.
It really is not a question of what problems we have, but how we can overcome those problems.
Paul Copeland
It’s disgusting. Someone in my class was saying how she believed that it is wrong for a doctor to refuse abortion because it is denying women a “right”. A group of people were going on about how the Church was being hypocritical by saying “don’t judge others”, but teaching people that such things should not be legalised as it amounted to “dictatorship”. These are all foolish, illogical arguments – so foolish there is no point in arguing with them. One may as well let such people suffer the consequences so that they learn a lesson.
These views are held by majority of Australians – Australia has a sick culture. Absolutely sick, decadent, disgusting.
Janice Tooh
We have found a new, human god, the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus who promoted seeking a pleasant tranquil life, good and evil measured by amount of pleasure and pain – if you like it, it’s good, if you don’t like it, it’s evil, regardless of details; death is the end of the body and not to be feared.
In the end, details have to be mined and excavated in order to achieve justice and truth. A life of spiritual emptiness, disdainful of the mystical element and awareness of God is an impoverished life devoid of meaning.
Rachel Smith, UK
The human moral compass has been irreparably damaged by sin. It always manages to point to ‘magnetic North’ which is somewhere between 3 and 10 degrees off on a real life compass. If one looking for True North uses magnetic North instead, that one will soon find himself a few degrees and many miles from where he wanted to be.
It is not enough to merely ‘believe in God’. Islam believes in ‘god’. The murderous Allah, whom we know as Satan is their true God. Other religions believe in ‘gods’ as well.
The one True and Living God who sent Jesus Christ must in this day and age be lifted up and exalted above all the other so-called gods that men might see Him. It is written:
And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. (John 12:32)
Can any of the other so-called gods in this world save you from your sins? Of course not! So therefore when you hear someone say they ‘believe in god’, the proper question to ask is “Which one.” Make them confess with their mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, and if they refuse or hem and haw, have nothing to do with them. Their compass is off.
DO NOT BOW. DO NOT BEND. DO NOT BREAK. It is Jesus or death.
Ed Sumner
After their failure to trust that they could claim the promised land by His power, God sent the Israelites back into the desert for 40 years, so they could learn to trust Him and teach their children, properly, how to live; before He allowed them anywhere near the Canaanite culture with its sacrifice of living babies. They had to get free of 400 yrs. of Egyptian influence. None of those who’d lived in Egypt made it through did they? —- not too sure on that one—-
Do we defend our youth against the pagan culture of today by truly teaching them as Moses exhorted the Israelites to do?
Anna Cook
The main proselytizer of death and moral decline is the Left of politics.
They brainwash society through their dominance of the mainstream media and education system. Even the likes of the Human Rights Commission is dominated by the Left pushing it’s twisted leftist bigotry and prejudice.
Harold van de Wiel
Goodness knows how many childless couples who virtually are ready to go to the ends of the earth if necessary to fulfill their dream of having a child. How these desperate child seeking people must grieve intensely at the wanton murder of unborn babies. It saddens me to live in a so called enlightened society where life in its most precious form is regarded as nothing more than disposable.
Michael Mercier
It certainly seems that the lack of a moral compass is accompanied by a corresponding lack of the ability to think as demonstrated by the tragic response of the “concerned student” who, after being told a lie signed the petition without further argument. It reminds me of a story surrounding the Copenhagen climate summit, which was far less harmful. But I heard that some people signed a petition to get rid of “dihydrogen oxide” which, was claimed to be a very dangerous greenhouse gas. That was funny, but this story is scary, but based on the same misguided concern coupled with ignorance Fourth trimester abortion indeed, I wonder who came up with that loaded gun.
On another note, I wonder where this NDIs is leading us. It is kindling the hope of disabled people to now finally being able to fund their dreams, not just have their physical needs met. There is certainly a vacuum, but I am not sure that state funding is the answer.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
Most of these students are atheists with no moral absolutes. If we are animals then it doesn’t really matter does it? survival of the fittest? Ray Comfort recently questioned university students and the professors and he ends up stripping them bare to the point where they have no argument and then presents the hard hitting Gospel of Jesus Christ. They have no defenses once he has finished. In my opinion that is the only type of evangelism for this hardened Western country not what so many people here do “friendship evangelism”. You end up going down the tubes with them.
Liz Gee
Hello Bill
Someone once told me that disabled people have beautiful souls… and having worked with some I agree. When I read your article above I just don’t think America has anything morally good to offer the world right now. True it’s birth and history was guided by men who truly believed in God but with everything that’s been going on… what a waste of a once great nation. Australia side Christians and anyone with common sense should all be on alert for moronic demonic things that threaten to become ‘conversation starters/excuses to kill’ innocents and nip it in the bud. Or is it too late?
God bless bill
Pita Lino
Hi Liz, that’s right. Most university students are atheist or agnostic, but do not even understand the real meanings of these terms. They are morally blind.
Janice Tooh
Bill, I am not sure that disabled people automatically have beautiful souls, but they certainly have an added reason to look beyond the temporal to the eternal and that is a blessing.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
Missing and lost moral compass!! Our directions and our guidelines come from Gods teachings in his HOLY Word, the Bible. Where are people stopping to read the directions for daily living? Redefining Gods Word has serious consequences,Our laws are based on the Word of God. Our political systems is Bible based. Take away the foundation and the building crumbles. Look at the mess that the world is in today? Lack of making and taking time to read Gods Holy Word.
Well said Bill. My friends brother has a disability and has had a lifetime of being rejected, people talking about him, feeling isolated, lonely and hopeless. My friend asked his brother who is now 45 years old, “Do you wish you were aborted?” His brother replied “Of course not, then I wouldn’t have my life.” Life is so precious and no one has the right to value another’s life.
Loretta Coffey
Absolutely horrific.
A mindset without God is a mindset without a mind and a conscience!
To quote from one internet item.
“GMU students Bill Stern and Moonflower Abraham said they were thrilled to sign the petition and hoped it would ‘save the whales’ or something like that.”
Paul Copeland
Well said Loretta.
Life has absolute value and cannot be snuffed out because of inconvenience or nuisance value or because the person’s life does not live up to certain secular values of worth.
I have a friend who is in a wheelchair. He has hands that are so severely fisted that he cannot hold anything. He doesn’t have any carers looking after him, but cares for his elderly mother with help from his brother. In one sense he has every right to be unhappy and miserable. But he is one of the most postive people I know. He takes himself into the city by train. He has a great sense of humour and I have never heard him speak one negative word.
It really is not a question of what problems we have, but how we can overcome those problems.
Paul Copeland
It’s disgusting. Someone in my class was saying how she believed that it is wrong for a doctor to refuse abortion because it is denying women a “right”. A group of people were going on about how the Church was being hypocritical by saying “don’t judge others”, but teaching people that such things should not be legalised as it amounted to “dictatorship”. These are all foolish, illogical arguments – so foolish there is no point in arguing with them. One may as well let such people suffer the consequences so that they learn a lesson.
These views are held by majority of Australians – Australia has a sick culture. Absolutely sick, decadent, disgusting.
Janice Tooh
We have found a new, human god, the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus who promoted seeking a pleasant tranquil life, good and evil measured by amount of pleasure and pain – if you like it, it’s good, if you don’t like it, it’s evil, regardless of details; death is the end of the body and not to be feared.
In the end, details have to be mined and excavated in order to achieve justice and truth. A life of spiritual emptiness, disdainful of the mystical element and awareness of God is an impoverished life devoid of meaning.
Rachel Smith, UK
The human moral compass has been irreparably damaged by sin. It always manages to point to ‘magnetic North’ which is somewhere between 3 and 10 degrees off on a real life compass. If one looking for True North uses magnetic North instead, that one will soon find himself a few degrees and many miles from where he wanted to be.
It is not enough to merely ‘believe in God’. Islam believes in ‘god’. The murderous Allah, whom we know as Satan is their true God. Other religions believe in ‘gods’ as well.
The one True and Living God who sent Jesus Christ must in this day and age be lifted up and exalted above all the other so-called gods that men might see Him. It is written:
And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. (John 12:32)
Can any of the other so-called gods in this world save you from your sins? Of course not! So therefore when you hear someone say they ‘believe in god’, the proper question to ask is “Which one.” Make them confess with their mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, and if they refuse or hem and haw, have nothing to do with them. Their compass is off.
DO NOT BOW. DO NOT BEND. DO NOT BREAK. It is Jesus or death.
Ed Sumner
After their failure to trust that they could claim the promised land by His power, God sent the Israelites back into the desert for 40 years, so they could learn to trust Him and teach their children, properly, how to live; before He allowed them anywhere near the Canaanite culture with its sacrifice of living babies. They had to get free of 400 yrs. of Egyptian influence. None of those who’d lived in Egypt made it through did they? —- not too sure on that one—-
Do we defend our youth against the pagan culture of today by truly teaching them as Moses exhorted the Israelites to do?
Anna Cook
The main proselytizer of death and moral decline is the Left of politics.
They brainwash society through their dominance of the mainstream media and education system. Even the likes of the Human Rights Commission is dominated by the Left pushing it’s twisted leftist bigotry and prejudice.
Harold van de Wiel
Goodness knows how many childless couples who virtually are ready to go to the ends of the earth if necessary to fulfill their dream of having a child. How these desperate child seeking people must grieve intensely at the wanton murder of unborn babies. It saddens me to live in a so called enlightened society where life in its most precious form is regarded as nothing more than disposable.
Michael Mercier
It certainly seems that the lack of a moral compass is accompanied by a corresponding lack of the ability to think as demonstrated by the tragic response of the “concerned student” who, after being told a lie signed the petition without further argument. It reminds me of a story surrounding the Copenhagen climate summit, which was far less harmful. But I heard that some people signed a petition to get rid of “dihydrogen oxide” which, was claimed to be a very dangerous greenhouse gas. That was funny, but this story is scary, but based on the same misguided concern coupled with ignorance Fourth trimester abortion indeed, I wonder who came up with that loaded gun.
On another note, I wonder where this NDIs is leading us. It is kindling the hope of disabled people to now finally being able to fund their dreams, not just have their physical needs met. There is certainly a vacuum, but I am not sure that state funding is the answer.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
Most of these students are atheists with no moral absolutes. If we are animals then it doesn’t really matter does it? survival of the fittest? Ray Comfort recently questioned university students and the professors and he ends up stripping them bare to the point where they have no argument and then presents the hard hitting Gospel of Jesus Christ. They have no defenses once he has finished. In my opinion that is the only type of evangelism for this hardened Western country not what so many people here do “friendship evangelism”. You end up going down the tubes with them.
Liz Gee
Hello Bill
Someone once told me that disabled people have beautiful souls… and having worked with some I agree. When I read your article above I just don’t think America has anything morally good to offer the world right now. True it’s birth and history was guided by men who truly believed in God but with everything that’s been going on… what a waste of a once great nation. Australia side Christians and anyone with common sense should all be on alert for moronic demonic things that threaten to become ‘conversation starters/excuses to kill’ innocents and nip it in the bud. Or is it too late?
God bless bill
Pita Lino
Hi Liz, that’s right. Most university students are atheist or agnostic, but do not even understand the real meanings of these terms. They are morally blind.
Janice Tooh
Bill, I am not sure that disabled people automatically have beautiful souls, but they certainly have an added reason to look beyond the temporal to the eternal and that is a blessing.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
Just read this review and saw the preview of a chilling documentary about ten years of legal euthanasia in Belgium, a touchstone for radically different approaches to suffering. See more at: http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/belgium_where_death_becomes_the_norm_living_the_exception
Jo Deller
Missing and lost moral compass!! Our directions and our guidelines come from Gods teachings in his HOLY Word, the Bible. Where are people stopping to read the directions for daily living? Redefining Gods Word has serious consequences,Our laws are based on the Word of God. Our political systems is Bible based. Take away the foundation and the building crumbles. Look at the mess that the world is in today? Lack of making and taking time to read Gods Holy Word.