Their Own Worst Enemy

I’m sure we have all experienced a time or circumstance where we were our own worst enemy. Whatever happened, we made it worse for ourselves. As much as we tried to do what was best somehow the opposite happened. This seems to be a growing trend in the world, and unfortunately, the world doesn’t realize that it is its own worst enemy.

 

Genesis 1:27-28 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Genesis 9:19 New American Standard Bible (NASB) (emphasis added)

These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated.

Galatians 3:28 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

 

Racism

The issue of racism has been a problem for millennia, and it is not an issue restrained to race itself. As long as people have been different from one another they have looked down on and been suspicious of those who are dissimilar. That is unfortunately human nature, but the concept of racism itself has been worsened by something the “world” did in an effort to make things better.

 

Biblically and biologically, there is actually only one race, and that is human. Biologically, what we refer to as “races” are really only different people groups. Unlike animal families that have different species and subspecies, humans only have one. There is greater genetic variation within a people group than there is between people groups, i.e. there is greater variation among Koreans than there is between Koreans and Germans, etc. Biblically, we are all descended from the same two people, Noah and his wife. So in a sense we are all related if we go back far enough. We are also all made in the image of God. Biblically, and biologically, there is no ground for prejudice. We are all equal, in our genetics, potential, and worth, we were created equal.

 

While there has always been pride and issues with inferiority, the problem of racism was actually fueled by an invention of the secular world; evolution. In their attempt to do away with God and make man the superior being, they actually presented the stage for racism. The theory of evolution proposed the idea that some “races” are lower on the evolutionary chain, inferior in intellect and development. It brought about the concept that some people, Africans for example, were not capable of “our” level of intelligence because they were lower on the chain. This idea is obviously false because many of our greatest minds are of African descent. Yet, the damage has been done, and much of our trouble in today’s culture is due to this “worldly” idea. In a way, the world created its own cause for destruction in its attempt to get rid of God.

 

Genesis 2:24 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

Hebrews 13:4 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

Song of Solomon 3:5 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

“I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
By the gazelles or by the hinds of the field,
That you will not arouse or awaken my love
Until she pleases.”

 

Sex

Another area where the world has tried to do better than what God ordained and actually made things worse by it is sex. In the Bible, God commanded that sex was to remain in the context of marriage, and that sex outside of marriage (whether the parties were already married or not) is wrong and destructive. The verse in Hebrews talks about fornicators and adulterers. Adulterers are obviously married people who have sex with someone they are not married to, but the word “fornicators” is the same concept but applies specifically to those who are single. The world does not want to wait until marriage to have sex and so have ordained that sex can be whenever with whomever. Yet this deviation has resulted in so many broken homes and lives because it went outside of the way God made it to happen. (In the last verse, while it says “until she pleases”, means until the time is right or appropriate, until she marries.)

 

The reason for this is because when God created people, He made them for community, to need each other and Him, and sex is one of those ways to fulfill that need. It was designed by God to be that bond formed between a man and woman so that they will feel more strongly about and be more loyal to each other than anyone else. It is that bond which unites them and keeps the marriage strong. Whenever two people have sex, they become one flesh. They are being united in every sense; physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually, for sex encompasses all of these levels. It was made to be sacred and special.

 

When people have sex outside of marriage, especially with multiple people, they are taking what was once sacred and special, and making it commonplace and ordinary. What should unite two people for life on every level through an act of mutual love and affection, becomes merely a way of finding selfish, physical pleasure. Instead of two people being united as long as they lived, they become broken and united with many, and instead of feeling something special for one person it turns into a tangle of hatred, desire and despair on top of physical pleasure. I believe this is why so many marriages fail now. It is like taking tape and sticking it to something, then pulling it off and trying to stick it to something else repeatedly. Eventually it loses its stickiness, and so with sex. It loses its ability to unite two people because those people have already united themselves to others. By taking things into their own hands and doing things their way instead of God’s, the world has created the source of its greatest heartaches and downfalls.

 

Psalm 139:13-16 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

For You formed my inward parts;
You wove me in my mother’s womb.
I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works,
And my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;
Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book were all written
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them.

Jeremiah 1:4-5 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
And before you were born I consecrated you;
I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Genesis 9:6 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Whoever sheds man’s blood,
By man his blood shall be shed,
For in the image of God
He made man.

 

The Value of Life

A third way that the world, in taking matters into its own hands and trying to do things its own way, has actually made things worse is with abortion. Not only does it give further rise to and encouragement of sex outside of marriage (through the ease of not having to deal with some of its consequences), but it also denies the value of life.

 

As stated in the very first verse (Gen 1:27), people were created in the image of God, and inherently have greater value than all other life as a result. The Bible is clear that God knew each of us, not only before we were born, but also before the foundations of the world. It is God who “knits” each of us in the womb, personally and intimately.

 

This tendency toward serving self at the cost of others is serving to decrease the value of life in general, but abortion also causes another problem. It detracts from the value and devastation a woman feels when she loses a child before it is born. Having lost two children this way, I know the very great pain it brings. Yet, with the advent of abortion comes the idea that it is not losing a child, but only a fetus or a pregnancy. It is a thing, not a person, and so losing it is (supposedly) of lesser value. It implies the pain should not be that great.

 

I had people talk to me about how sad it was that I “lost the pregnancy” as if I had lost my keys, and I wanted to tell them I didn’t lose a pregnancy. I lost two babies. To the woman carrying, it is a child. There is a bond and connection that no other can rival and the pain of losing that child is beyond comprehension. Unfortunately, many who have not experienced it are led to believe (inadvertently through the ideology of abortion) that it is not as bad as losing a “living” baby or one that has already been born.

 

My babies were alive. They each had a heartbeat, and even at that point 18 weeks into the pregnancy had different personalities that we could see in the ultrasound. I do not believe the pain was less than it would have been had I carried them to term and they died in my arms. I know others who lost babies after they found out they had conceived, but before any heartbeat was detected, and their pain was just as great. Life is valuable, to God and to us, regardless of how the world defines it. By trying to make people feel better about their sin, the world has only served to cause greater harm and devastation and makes people feel worse about their sorrow.

 

The world is its own worst enemy because it takes what God has made and ordained and tried to change it. The result is not freedom and happiness, but pain and destruction.

 

Romans 1:22-23 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

1 Corinthians 3:18-20 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, “He is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness”; and again, “The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are useless.”

James 3:15-17 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy.

 

The rules and ways God has ordained were not meant to punish or hinder us, but to give us life out of His love for us. It is the way God made the world to work, and going against that is choosing what is harmful. Do you choose God’s way or the world’s? How have you fallen into the world’s wisdom or way of thinking? Ask God to help you realign with His ways and wisdom. Ask Him to lead you in the way of life and not destruction.