CULTURAL OBFUSCATION

I Was Just Thinking About - - - 

What is it to obfuscate? Is there any application in the immediate for the rapidity of civil and secular actions? Are we experiencing cultural cleansing or purging within the contemporary affairs of state? How does this impact the Church and its message, mission and adherence to secular laws that conflict with Biblical mandates? To obfuscate means: “to confuse, bewilder, or stupefy; to make obscure or unclear; to darken” (dictionary.com). Some synonyms given are: “to muddle, perplex, cloud.”

I heard a comment on some program that was on in the background in which a person made the statement: “I want to leave the darkness for the light but I can’t escape the darkness.” Even though that is a line from a fictional drama, there is a Biblical connotation to it. In The Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:22-23 (NASB),  Jesus made this statement: “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” It is similar to what the Lord had the prophet declare in Isaiah 5:20, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” One commentator suggests that Jesus had in mind: “a person who enjoyed this heavenly treasure permitted his simplicity of intention to deviate from heavenly to earthly good; and his purity of affection to be contaminated by worldly ambition, secular profits, and animal gratifications; then, the light which was in him becomes darkness,  his spiritual discernment departs, and his union with God is destroyed and, like a man who has totally lost his sight, he walks without direction, certainty, or comfort. This state is most forcibly intimated in our Lord's exclamation, How great a darkness! Who can adequately describe the misery and wretchedness of that soul which has lost its union with the fountain of all good, and, in losing this, has lost the possibility of happiness till the simple eye be once more given, and the straight line once more drawn” (Clarke’s Commentary).

What will Cultural Obfuscation, if allowed to persist, lead to within the nation?  A friend who lives in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia forwarded the following: “Koalas Rescued From Animal Brothel.” The article states: “ Federal agents have arrested more than 40 people from a privately owned petting zoo yesterday, over allegations of bestiality and animal cruelty. According to authorities the private petting zoo was being monitored for last few weeks; suspected for running a underground animal brothel, where customers/clients pay for sexual services with animals. The 67-year old farm owner was arrested with two of his sons and some 40 guests who were present for an all-night party. The Federal police caught all the party goers in full action; the raid engaged more than 16 agents in what local officials believe to be the biggest crack down on an animal cruelty in Australia’s history. The poor animals were forced into sexual acts with clients, before being rescued. Local authorities fear a recrudescence in sexual deviant behavior with animals in the region since this is the third animal brothel to be closed down in recent months in the area.” The “fear of recrudescence” implies: “the breaking out afresh or into renewed activity; revival or reappearance in active existence.”

Paul shares with Timothy what can be expected in the last days, II Timothy 3:1-5, “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.” In like manner, Peter write to the believers in his day, II Peter 3:2-7, “You should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires…For they deliberately overlook this fact…that the earth was formed…by the word of God…by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.” The judgment of God is nearing. Our nation must begin to take a serious God seriously. Consider these things with me.