08/20/20 WHAT’S HAPPENING TO US? — Centuries ago, in his “Essay on Man”, Alexander Pope wrote: “Vice is a monster of so frightful mien; As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.” For those of you not fluent in Old English, perhaps I should try to paraphrase. Some ideas and behaviors are so obviously evil that godly people are instantly repulsed when they first encounter them. But if we’re exposed to them over and over, we often become desensitized. Eventually we decide just to tolerate them, perhaps even pity those who approve of them. If this continues we may even lose our minds entirely and actually embrace them!?

A recent FB post I heard about described another, similar regression: Once we take the first step and overlook evil, soon thereafter we permit it, legalize it, promote it; finally we celebrate it, and persecute those “narrow-minded bigots” who still call it evil. It sure seems like there’s a lot of that happening around here just now!?

Scripture give us the ALTERNATIVE, the ANTIDOTE in Ephesians 5:11-12 (CSB): ^“DON’T PARTICIPATE in THE FRUITLESS WORKS OF DARKNESS, but instead EXPOSE them. 12 For it is SHAMEFUL EVEN TO MENTION what is done by them in secret.”