Instability is the hallmark of our times!
The spectacle of dignified government leaders engaging in screaming harangues;
senators, congressmen losing their tempers — the constant reports of
riotous mobs raging at police — these and other violent outbursts of rampant human passion fill your newspapers.
Here's WHY such unbridled emotion, and what YOU ought to do about it.
"BUT — WHAT CAUSED it?" ask bewildered citizens in the wake of another violent riot. Officials demand an investigation.
Police issue official statements about the "cause" — usually that of police action in attempting to arrest a criminal, and the riotous attempt of a mob to prevent it.
But isn't the question a little silly, after all?
The true CAUSE of riots is HUMAN NATURE. Vanity-filled, jealous, lustful, greedy, resentful, rebellious, hateful, riotous HUMAN NATURE!
The Age of Hate
As never before, you're living in a time of hatred. Arabs hate the Jews, Africans hate East Indians, Whites hate Blacks, and Blacks hate Whites, Pakistanis hate Indians, Nationalist Chinese hate Red Chinese, North Koreans hate South Koreans, and South Vietnamese hate North Vietnamese. Husbands hate wives, and children hate them both — and probably, your neighbor hates you! And whom do you hate? Some people seem to hate almost everybody.
Did you ever wonder WHY — and shake your head with a certain resignation — over all the unbridled HATRED in the world today?
Violent emotional outbursts seem to characterize our day.
Prior to the Jew-Arab war, it was the screaming invective of Radio Cairo — the yelling, purple-veined, slavering mobs careening through their littered streets, with their reddened, crazed eyes glaring their hatred — fed by the "holy war" propaganda of a deliberate government attempt to foster hate.
Then, during the war, the manufactured scapegoats of Britain and the United States became hate objects. Humbled in an incredibly swift and utterly decisive defeat — it was only a matter of weeks later that Radio Cairo was once again calling for "holy war" against the Jews!
Have you ever witnessed a mob? Ever been part of one?
Have you tried to REASON with a person who is caught up in his own blind, passionate HATRED? Ever tried to "talk sense" to him?
LOOK at the threadbare fabric of this rotting society! Look, and see if you DARE to look clearly and plainly at the fantastic amount of blind RAGE, at the hate potential, all around you. Our cities have become hotbeds of racial violence and brutal crime. Our towns fester with the same sins. Our families nag, scream, shout, curse at one another. Diplomats hurl invectives! "LIARS!" screams a liar. WHY?
A World Ruled by Emotions
It's an emotional world. One that is being RULED by emotion.
You are a human being, with human passions, desires and emotions. When you were born — you knew absolutely nothing. Yet, you were born with a certain NATURE, which is described in YOUR BIBLE as being COMPLETELY and DESPERATELY wicked and evil — try as we may to deny it! (Jer. 17:9) As a tiny baby, you had absolutely NO CONTROL over yourself. You screamed with rage. You whimpered with hurt feelings. Your hunger brought wails of protest. You made a mess of yourself, and then became enraged at everyone in general because of it!
There are four major ways in which each person SHOULD mature. Some only make it through one of them. First, you grow up physically. Then, if you are blessed with the RIGHT education, the RIGHT environment, and RIGHT values and principles, you grow up mentally.
In due time, hopefully, you grow up EMOTIONALLY.
And FINALLY — IF GOD SO WILLS, you can grow up, SPIRITUALLY!
Your most precious possession is your mind. You are a physical, human being, but made in the very similitude and copied form of GOD (Genesis 1:26). God Almighty has given each of us a wonderful MIND, with a fantastic capacity for GOOD.
The mind may be likened to a powerful machine — capable of a great deal of constructive work. But misdirected, misguided — it is of such force and power that it could cause incredible DESTRUCTION. The mind is a fine INSTRUMENT — meant to be carefully cared for — utilized in the only RIGHT way, according to the instruction book sent along by the manufacturer! And that instruction book that tells how YOUR MIND ought to operate is the Holy Word of God your Creator!
But most people NEVER TRULY USE THEIR MINDS!
How many people do you know who are truly emotionally STABLE? Who are emotionally MATURE? What about You? Do you actually CONTROL your emotions? If so — you're a very RARE person.
I have said the world is RULED by its emotions. Let's see just how true this is. Let's take a quick look at the fabric of the world — at government, race, advertising, entertainment — even religion.
Actually, world leaders, politicians, advertisers and movie producers know very well that most people are ruled almost wholly by their emotions. They make very good use of that knowledge.
When the foreign policy of a nation demands war with another nation to achieve its ends, the propaganda experts immediately turn out patriotic movies, magazine stories and books — only the pictures of real expediency are shown in newsreels and magazines, and the public is told exactly what the experts decide.
Witness the shameful fiasco of enraged mobs burning American Embassies in the Mideast recently.
This is all a cleverly calculated plan on the part of a nation to induce its people to get wholeheartedly behind the aspirations of the government — to develop a "flag-waving" attitude of patriotism! World leaders know this — and make use of it!
By appealing to crazed, uncontrolled, human emotion, rulers can make a whole nation into a riotous mob!
The Advertising Ploy
The advertisers are especially clever manipulators of the emotions of the unsuspecting, gullible public! Knowing that most people buy a product on the "spur of the moment," just on impulse, the advertisers' aim is to somehow appeal to these impulses!
The typical monkey wrench advertised by a buxom, scantily clad young woman is a good illustration. The pleasure-mad sensuality of our modern living has led the world on a moral landslide of degeneracy where the word "sex" must be utilized if the eyes of John Q. Public are to be attracted to anything.
It is difficult to buy a magazine without a gaudily emblazoned announcement of an article dealing with some special facet of SEX within its covers. In the last two decades a veritable FLOOD of little "pocket" magazines loudly flaunting sex, and little else, has jammed the newsstands.
Emotions Swept by Movies
A cursory examination of our motion-picture industry should convince even the most dubious of their wholesale effect on our emotions! The average individual viewing the unfolding of a story on the glittering screen is completely yielded to his emotions.
He is seeking to relax, to be entertained, NOT to think constructively, to argue, or to investigate the reasons behind the plot of the story. Therefore, it is a simple matter for the producers of the motion picture to keep his emotions in rapt attention.
From deep suspense to fright, and then a few minutes of serene pleasantness, to be suddenly dashed to the dismal depths of despair — swept up again to buoyant heights of joy and laughter, he anxiously identifies himself with the hero. Slugging his way through an angry mob, he feels the delicious, vicarious feeling of his knuckles pounding the blubbery face of the ugly leader into unrecognition. And so — as his emotions are running riot — the only control of emotions is in the film itself, since the viewer has lost his own.
Take a look at national crime rates! Especially in the United States, crime directly attributive to unbridled emotional outbursts has risen sharply. It is a common occurrence to read of brutal murders as a result of arguments in a home! Official crime reports show the majority of murders are committed in the family, or among close acquaintances — who KILL in a moment of blind passion! Our large cities especially are plagued with sudden outbursts of violence as a result of pent-up emotions exploding in uncontrollable riot.
WHY?
The answer is quite simple. Because the average individual has never learned to hold his impulses, his emotions in check! Our helter-skelter search for the physically and emotionally satisfying has led us up a box canyon of emotional turmoil and instability! If there could be only one major situation to serve as a graphic illustration of that fact, it is OUR NATIONAL DIVORCE RATE!
People are not happy! Our homes are not happy, and, when the basic institution of any society, the HOME, is unhappy — the entire nation is in danger!
Bigotry and race hatred characterizes a great deal of society today.
Feeding it — fanning its raging flames are the hate mongers with their lust for personal power, or their blind, unreasoning hatred for the members of another race, regardless as to their personal character.
Whether it's a Negro talking to his children about "Uncle Charlie," or a white, speaking of the "Niggers" — the sickening story of prejudice and race hatred is the same. Soon, this unbridled emotional rage is destined to write one of the bloodiest chapters of all human history! And how totally UNNECESSARY it all is! HOW FUTILE — HOW WORTHLESS!
Look at the passionate forms of ESCAPE people use. From a yelling, screaming emotional RELIGIOUS "experience" to a drunken whiskey jag, man seems bent on remaining enslaved to his own violent emotions.
Many times we receive letters from those who, in a frenzy of emotion, and because others around them were doing it, went down the aisle to kneel before a shouting preacher to "give their hearts to the Lord." Later, they wondered what it was they did. But the emotion of the moment swept them away. They really DID FEEL remorseful — they FELT ashamed — they FELT like going to the altar — they DESIRED forgiveness — but they didn't KNOW WHAT TO REPENT OF didn't know WHAT IS SIN, and didn't know the TRUTH ABOUT SALVATION!
It was all EMOTION, and precious little spiritual UNDERSTANDING!
Yes — whether it's the highest-level government parleys, or the simplest neighborhood squabble, the whole world seems gripped by its uncontrollable emotions!