I was browsing around today and found this remarkable story – A Crowded Womb. As I was contemplating the senselessness of abortion, I ran across a passage in one my favorite books, The Vanishing Conscience by John MacArthur. It just rings true.
The death of common sense. “Professing to be wise, they became fools†(Rom. 1:22). Those who refuse to honor God lack spiritual understanding. Even their rational faculties are corrupted by their unbelief. Their thinking is especially twisted with regard to spiritual matters, because their sin is spiritual rebellion. They have no means of discerning between truth and falsehood, right and wrong. Having rejected God, they have no hope of reasoning their way to spiritual truth. They are fools in the most profound sense of the word: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; there is no one who does good†(Ps. 14:1; cf. 53:1).
The foolishness that verse describes is a comprehensive spiritual blindness. It is the worst foolishness of all. It corrupts the conscience and leaves the unbeliever incapable of right thinking about any spiritual matters.
Our society is shot through with spiritual foolishness. It seems moral judgment has been completely overturned. Public schools cannot teach the Bible or even morality but are encouraged to instruct children in sexual technique, then supply them with free condoms. School nurses are not supposed to dispense aspirin without parental consent, but they may send young girls to abortion clinics without informing anyone in authority. Baby whales and baby seals have more legal rights than unborn infants. Courts are more concerned to protect criminals’ rights than victims’ rights.
Common sense rarely figures into public policy or society’s sense of morality. Professing wisdom, our culture has enshrined its foolishness proudly for all to see.
MacArthur, J., F., Jr. (1994). The vanishing conscience (Electronic ed.). Logos Library Systems (63). Dallas: Word Pub.
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