What About YOUR Private Life?
What about YOUR heart and mind? Do you "fly off the handle" easily? Do YOU become ENRAGED at someone over racial, religious, political issues? Do YOU become so ANGRY, SO MAD, SO CONSUMED with inflamed passion that you would literally resort to VIOLENCE?
Millions do!
And why? The answer is simple. It's like a recipe for an evil concoction. Just take human nature. Sprinkle in a few situations; add a lot of entertainment pressures, such as TV violence, radio jazz and noise, movieland make-believe, newspaper sensationalism, paper-backed perversity and sex; stir well — and VIOLENCE will erupt!
Solomon wrote, "Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood: so the forcing of WRATH bringeth forth strife"! (Prov. 30:33)
Do you SNAP at your children, argue with your employer, yell at your spouse? Are you irritated much of the time — impatient in stress and trial — ANGRY at situations that frustrate you?
If you're HUMAN, and if you lack the SPIRIT OF GOD — you ARE!
It's been said, "You are what you eat." And your MIND is what you THINK! And if YOUR STEADY DIET IS ONE OF VIOLENCE — then you could become a VIOLENT person very easily!
Will you be one who will be filled with RAGE because of your spouse's religious beliefs? Will YOU become brutally VIOLENT because of RACIAL prejudices and hatreds? Will YOU ever be one who will PERSECUTE someone else for his religious, racial, political or personal beliefs?
Probably not, you may think — but, THINK AGAIN! Unless you're CHANGED, unless your very NATURE has been altered from a violent nature to a peaceful one — you MAY!
It's a SICK, SICK, SICK WORLD!
Look around you. Unless you are careful, YOU could become one of the rioting, looting, crazed individuals preying on a sick society! Most people today are PASSIVE about the crime and violence in our midst.
Law enforcement officials decry the near-obsession of the modern courts with insuring the protection of the CRIMINAL and his "rights," instead of strengthening the laws prohibiting and punishing criminal acts.
When a man brutally murdered his wife, became remorseful, went to the police and signed at least two separate written confessions, and later led the police to the garbage dump where he'd deposited the body — the courts later held his "rights" had been violated when no legal counsel was provided to inform him his confession was not necessary.
Today the man is walking the streets. The judge threw the confessions out the window.
And so it goes. With the public obsession with protecting the rights of criminals, and with the police being increasingly handcuffed in dealing with crime, is it any wonder that CRIME AND VIOLENCE rampage more than ever before?
Society is SICK!
Symptomatic of this delirium is the hazy notion between right and wrong, which often results in almost complete public indifference to crime. Noninvolvement is the course many take when a crime is being committed.
Bystanders ignore shootings; turn away from women giving birth on a cold sidewalk; refuse aid to victims of automobile accidents; refuse to help officers in making an arrest; casually watch as a woman is raped.
You probably well remember the case of Catherine Genovese, whose attacker returned to stab her three times as at least 38 neighbors heard, or looked on. None of them would help her, or even summon police. She died.
Case after case could be cited, where neighbors, passers-by, or on-lookers, just casually went their own ways, ignoring the crime, the assault, or the rape.
Such an attitude of public APATHY contributes to the rocketing INCREASE in violence and crime! WHY do these things ever happen?
They reveal one stark truth: Out peoples are sick! And there is ONLY one sure cure!
Here's What You Need To Do!
Yes, we're a world of cheats. A world of murderers, thieves, deviates, queers, pornographers, racists, bigots, liars, pretenders, alcoholics, dope addicts, pleasure-mad thrill-seekers and religious nuts.
Society is SICK!
VIOLENCE threatens to spill over like a flood and bathe our cities knee-deep in rivers of blood! Berserk frenzy, madness, mayhem are a continuing FEAR to millions. TERROR lurks and prowls in city parks, along city streets and in the alleys.
What can YOU do about it?
First of all, you need to have more of the attitude of God's righteous servants of old, who "sighed and cried" because of the horrible atrocities, the terrible ABOMINATIONS that occurred around them, daily! Read in Ezekiel 9, of those who, because of their attitude of abhorrence of the evils of this modern era are to be spared from the apocalyptic destruction soon to befall this world!
Read about righteous Lot who was vexed every single day because of the "filthy conduct of the wicked" and the "unlawful deeds" of the average citizen around him (II Pet. 2:7-8).
You need to develop more of the attitude Jesus illustrated when He said His true servants would be praying, "Thy Kingdom COME"! (Matt. 6:10)
In other words, you need to begin to view this world as GOD views it, and not as you have always carelessly taken it for granted.
Next, you need to become very personally critical about the way you spend your leisure moments!
You need to become highly selective about the motion pictures you view! Let's face it, you KNOW, and KNOW that you know, that MOST motion pictures today are filled with pure slop, swill, violence, ghoulish insanity, murder, robbery, triangles, licentiousness, perversion, and every form of vile evil!
It is exceedingly difficult to find ANY motion picture that is really suitable for any person who is sincerely trying to live according to God's laws!
Always ask yourself, "Would Christ watch this?" And then, if you really KNOW the Christ of the Bible, you will be able to find the answer. If you feel Christ would not watch it — then remember YOU shouldn't watch it!
The same holds true for television!
However, it is true that television offers a far greater variety of programs through the day — and that there are certain educational and instructive programs, news programs, that are available. For example, interview-type programs; weather reports, travelogs; certain light comedy or perhaps musical programs or variety shows are not necessarily wrong to watch.
But DON'T become an "addict"! Don't become its SLAVE! Use your television set wisely, use it carefully, with discretion!
And literature?
Take a look at ANY bookstand. About all you'll see is pure TRASH of all types. Most magazine stands would have been labeled PURE PORNOGRAPHY only a FEW DECADES AGO! Weird books, sex stories, murder mysteries, horoscopes, demoniacal "comic books," (and what is really "comic" about any of them?) are NOT fit to stuff into any human mind!
What about your hobbies, pastimes, your moments of relaxation? Are you living WHOLESOMELY — in a refreshing, balanced way that gives you a true change of pace — that really is "recreation"? Or are many of your leisure moments spent in literally tearing down your body, and polluting your mind with the VIOLENCE of this violent age?
Forming HABITS of Violence
Probably, you feel depraved acts of wanton destruction and violence are committed by a certain type of person. But you're wrong.
It is this very enigmatic problem that worries modern-day law enforcement officers. They see horrible acts of murderous violence being committed more and more by the "average" type person. They prove conclusively that crime is not limited to those who have grown up in slum or underprivileged areas; that criminals are not demented, or retarded. They shake their heads in disbelief at bestial atrocities committed by the "good" people in society!
Why does it happen? Why do members of a family fly into a sudden fit of rage, grab a gun, and MURDER in cold blood, other members of the same family?
They probably just witnessed a dozen murders on television and in the movies, and read of more violence in the news! They had probably been feeding and gorging their minds on some murder mystery thriller, in almost every leisure moment!
Is it any wonder, when tempers flare, and a person reacts almost AUTOMATICALLY according to HABIT?
If you're not extremely careful what you SEE, how you THINK, what you HEAR, what you READ — YOU MAY BE ESTABLISHING THE SAME PATTERN OF VIOLENCE in your own life!
So THINK about it. INVESTIGATE your life. Be willing to be honest with yourself about yourself! God says, "WOE unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope . . . WOE unto them that call evil good, [that was sure a "good" movie, you might have said!] and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" (Isa. 5:18-20)
Millions keep wondering WHY Violence. But it's HUMAN NATURE to be violent. Just as Dr. Robert M. Page has said, "so long as you have human nature, there will be wars." You have seen the PROOF, now, from the Word of God. Now that you know more about human nature — now that you understand more of the TRUE cause for crime and violence — what are you going to do about it in your own life?
Check up on yourself! Be willing to call a spade a spade! Label things what they really are! And then, with the help of Almighty God, ROOT OUT of your life the hatred, prejudice, bigotry, and murderous violence of this violent world!