Friday, December 10, 2010

Vanity, again







"Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of the hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men,  leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. 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; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them." Romans 1:24-32




The virgins have become whores. Love has turned to lust. Prayer has become an inconvienience. Money has become the god we worship placed upon the altar of the worldly. Chastity has turned to unrestriction, fasting to gluttony and forgiveness to eye for an eye. Understanding has been perverted to condemnation. We will burn in the hell we have created because of our own willingness to be ignorant of truth, to create our own truth in place of the absolute.

We, unfortunately, live in an era in which God has given many of us over to ourselves, to practice what we desire because of our hatred towards the authority of God. As soon as man began to think he was capable of doing things without God, man began his downward spiral. We have grown to believe that we can have heaven here, as well as after our death. Many strive for material wealth and use God to justify this behavior, as if vanity is some sort of virtue. There is also a growing number of people who practice sexual immorality and again use God to try and justify it as being moral. This includes but is not limited to: homosexuality, pornography, adultery, pedophilia, etc. There are those who stop and wonder why we live in such a world where people can commit some of the most disgusting crimes, and they are left guessing as to the cause of this madness. This anarchy did not begin suddenly, but over a period of time in which we slowly started to see serial killers, but not on a massive scale like we see today. There were people such as H.H. Holmes who constructed a very elaborate hotel which was actually created to torture individuals who happened to come through, mainly the rich. Jack the ripper was also a very prominent killer who was never caught. There was Albert Fish in the early part of the 20th century, who murdered and ate his victims. One in particular girl he murdered, raped, and ate, he sent a letter to her mother describing what he had done and how she had tasted.

On top of the horrific murders of serial killers, there is the ever growing mindset of materialism. The love of money. The allure of material wealth is all too strong for the vast majority of those who inhabit this earth, and it destroys the nature of man. Our nature is not to serve money, but God. For we cannot serve two masters, we will end up loving one and hating the other. (Mt. 6:24, Lk. 16:13) That is exactly what is taking place today and has been since the beginning of the industrial revolution, which in my opinion sparked this materialist overconsuming mindset. Have we forgotten the words of St. Paul? "The love of money is the root of all evil." 1 Tim. 6:10 We have fallen in love with material things and money that we are willing to go into debt to get what we want, and almost cannot escape it. Yet again we have forgotten the words of the wise Solomon "The borrower is servant to the lender." Prov. 22:7 If we owe someone, they become our master. We slave to pay them off and retain them and our debt in our mind and not God, the one we truly owe everything to.

The world as we know it is becoming more promiscuous. Everywhere we look we see pornography. We see the objectification of women so much that women grow up feeling the need to objectify themselves. The women decorate themselves up like a whore, for what reason? Many bare their breasts and wear tight fitting clothing, what is the purpose for this? They are happy to dress like whores, they are practicing the opposite of chastity. No unmarried woman, especially a virgin, would have even thought of dressing like this in the early church and yet our leaders even permit this disgusting display of whoredom. When you cannot tell the difference between a whore and an Orthodox Christian woman, you know we have all failed.

The end is now, pray.