Lower Nature vs. Higher Nature of God

David Kupelian, once again, has written another brilliant article. It is quite long in that it starts off explaining what is behind the current epidemic of teacher-student sex. You can go the the site and read the entire article. In the preface, we read:

"Editor's note: In light of the sensational dismissal of charges against Debra Lafave, the Florida teacher who committed statutory rape on her 14-year-old student, WND is publishing the following story, featured in the current issue of Whistleblower magazine in an issue titled "PREDATORS." David Kupelian's exposé is one of 15 in this groundbreaking investigative report on teachers who sexually prey on their students – a hidden scandal experts say is much larger than the clergy sex scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church."

I brought over the latter portion of the article because I found it quite enlightening and truthful. The fact that our sexual nature often succombs towards aberrant, sinful behavior (which is inevitably tied in with our Fallen nature) is nothing new. However, David's biblically-based explanation of why we currently have this huge explosion of sexual immorality and an epidemic of sexual predators in our nation today is the part that I want to focus on in this post.

Here is the excerpt from his article:

"Some people, wrongly believing mankind's universal embarrassment over their private parts (yes, "universal" – even in darkest Africa the natives wear loin-cloths) represents an unhealthy shame toward their own bodies, embrace nudity as a philosophy and lifestyle. But they have misinterpreted the embarrassment and abandoned a core truth, namely: The fact that humans have embarrassment over sex and need to keep themselves covered all the time is not some repressive Victorian hang-up over sex. Rather, it is evidence – a very important and powerful clue, and one we better interpret correctly – that our sexual nature somehow is tied in with our – gasp! – fallen "animal" nature.

You see, the truth is, we're not just animals, like goats. We have two natures – an animal nature that eats and procreates, and a spiritual, eternal soul that survives this life.

If we were only animals, then this article would be over and all the concerns expressed earlier about sexual predators would be wrongheaded, the prosecutions unjust, the incarcerations cruel, the stigma undeserved. If we are only animals, there is simply nothing at all wrong with 43-year-old teachers having sex with their 13-year-old students, as long as it is "consensual."

Moreover, if we are just animals, then all consensual sexual activity – any place, any time, any type – is fine, just like with my children's goats.

In that case, of course, when we die we just get buried in the ground and that's the end of us. No afterlife, no soul or consciousness surviving the dissolution of our bodies, no ultimate standard of right and wrong, and no ultimate accountability before the Creator for the way we’ve lived our lives. Just a nice meal for worms.

Is that what you believe? Many people do. That’s what ex-Beatle John Lennon was preaching in his New Age anthem: "Imagine there's no heaven, It's easy if you try, No hell below us, Above us only sky."

For many, this all-consuming obsession with denying God, Judeo-Christian values and our own immortal souls centers around one thing only. Do you know what it is? Do you know what most of the hostility we see toward Christianity in today's culture is actually based on? It's not because following Jesus Christ means we must love one another, feed the poor or comfort the sick. After all, no one is threatened by those things. Rather, at the root of so much loathing toward Christianity and the Bible is what they have to say about sex.

The Old Testament book of Leviticus, for instance, is full of detailed laws and prohibitions regarding sexuality and sexual behavior. Why is this so? What on earth did sexual behavior have to do with God setting the House of Israel apart from the rest of the pagan world so it could be worthy of His special blessing and destiny?

"Why can't we all just be nice to each other," you might wonder, "and have as much sex as we want, with whomever we want, whenever and however we want, as long as it's consensual? And why can’t we call that good, righteous and loving?"

Very simply, how do we know sex outside of marriage – whether it be adultery or premarital sex or homosexuality or teachers seducing kids – is wrong, a sin before God and an offense to our fellow human beings?
For one thing, God has provided some major clues for us, the obvious implications of which we somehow manage to ignore – just like the elephant in the parlor.

For some, the most persuasive clues are in the Bible. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament are unequivocal and total in their condemnation of homosexual sex, of fornication (a term rarely used any more), of adultery. Jesus raises the bar the highest when He says: "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart (Matthew 5:27-28 KJV)."

But the Bible is not the only clue. As I tell my kids, biblical truths are reflected in everyday life. So, stealing and murder and lying aren’t wrong just because the Bible says so. Rather, the Bible says stealing and murder and lying are wrong because they are wrong. They were always wrong – and the Bible testifies to that timeless Truth that predates the Bible itself. (Remember, in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob's time there was no Bible.)

Thus, the wrongness of sexual immorality should also be as self-evident as the wrongness of stealing or murder.

What? You say you can see that stealing, lying and murder are wrong because they result in victims, but you can't see that premarital or homosexual sex is wrong because you can't see the victim?

Let's look at a few more clues.

Here's a stunningly obvious one: Sex has the potential to produce offspring. And since the evidence is irrefutable that children need both a father and a mother, as well as a stable, long-term, loving home life, this one clue alone leads inexorably to the conclusion that sex is meant only for a committed heterosexual marriage.

Another clue: A ghoulish smorgasbord of sexually transmitted diseases – many incurable, like AIDS, herpes and human papilloma virus (thought to be one of the main causes of cervical cancer), as well as hepatitis, syphilis, Chlamydia, gonorrhea and a host of others – is a pretty darn good indicator that we weren't meant to have wanton, rampant sex.

Still another clue: Millions of dead babies – over a million a year just in the U.S. Recent news reports document that in Zimbabwe dead babies clog up the sewers in the capital of Harare, so many are flushed down toilets and dumped in drains. Getting pregnant when we don't want children tempts us to kill our offspring.

Let's stop for a minute and ask: Just how obvious do clues need to be before we figure out the message? Horrible plagues and millions of unwanted babies seem like pretty good indicators that God didn't intend for us to use our bodies the way many of us do. And yet, in our cleverness we find ways to circumvent these divine roadblocks by way of artificial birth control, abortion, alternative sexual acts and so on. But we're still just making an absurd end-run around God and His obvious restrictions on sex.

Another way we know extramarital sex is wrong is simply because it's pure selfishness and self-gratification. In marriage, there is commitment, sacrifice, self-control, personal growth, mutual respect. In non-married sex there is nothing but use – using the other person in an attempt to fulfill ourselves. Without commitment, there cannot be love. Sorry, the truth hurts.

The Bible admonishes us mortals to choose sides, between life and death, between good and evil. Most often, that choice takes the form of choosing to side with our higher nature against our own lower nature. Satanism and other worldviews based on deception and seduction have always taught the opposite: Side with your lower nature against your higher nature, a conflict Satanists (and yes, they exist) blame on a vengeful, capricious and cruel God ("Why did he create us with all these powerful urges and drives, only to forbid their expression?")

In our culture today – like latter-day Narnia – the prevailing mindset is, increasingly, to mock and demonize those who rebuke our growing infatuation with our lower nature.

At the center of this struggle is sex – one of the greatest mysteries of life. If we never understand sex, we never understand life. For many of us, unfortunately, our understanding has been hijacked by the 1960s cultural and sexual revolution, which was based on lies.

Yes, lies. The sexual revolution glorified the destruction of Judeo-Christian civilization and the morality at its core. Like all revolutions, it seemed sweet at the time. Do you remember?

It seemed so promising, so genuine, so liberating. Boomers will remember 1967's "Summer of Love" in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. A hundred thousand young "flower people" flocked to the West Coast mecca of the hippie revolution. Scott McKenzie sang, "If you're going to San Francisco, Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair. If you're going to San Francisco, You're gonna meet some gentle people there." Free love and expanded consciousness (with the help of marijuana and LSD) would save our nation from the ravages of war and the greedy materialism that led to conflict. It was beautiful, otherworldly – or so it seemed.

But somehow, just a few short years later, the flowers had faded and Haight-Ashbury was transformed into a scene of crazed, meth-addicted hippies with human degradation and venereal disease and crime everywhere. Already, the toxicity of the '60s revolution was becoming apparent. Today, that cancer has metastasized throughout our culture to the point that children have sex in the school auditorium.

Funny thing about lie-based revolutions. They all turn out bad. Communist revolutions promise freedom and equality, but deliver despotism and misery and death. In the exact same way, the sexual liberation movement, which offered freedom, equality, self-fulfillment and pleasure, has just about destroyed America.

So, where do we go from here? Quo vadis?

If we just go along with whatever compulsions and drives we see rising up in us, and wallow in them, and justify them, and condemn anybody who says otherwise, we're living as animals, not humans.

And believe me, that's not truly living. Unless, of course, you're a goat."

*******

I love this quote from C.S. Lewis:

"You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." – C.S. Lewis

The trouble today is that ungodly people focus on only the body and it's pleasures; to the detriment of neglecting their Creator, God and their eternal soul.

Jesus said,"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? " Mark 8:36 KJV

Titus 2:12 (KJV) - "Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;"

Several verses in Titus are very valuable in describing how we are trained by saving grace:

"11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, 12 teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, 13 looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.
15 Speak these things, exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you." Titus 2:11-15 (NKJV)

The current rejection of Judeo-Christian morality, ethics and values have created the cesspool of raging sin that currently grips our nation's young people into the bondage of "ungodliness and worldly lusts."

I heard a news story where teens and twenty-something year olds are "bored with regular sex" and desire new and more exciting versions. Ever hear of a cuddle puddle? There was even a scene on regular national T.V. that showed a teenage sexual orgie. Is this what we want for our children and grandchildren to grow up in?

Titus 2:1-8 tells us how good church conduct and the proper upbringing of children in the home can benefit them now and through adulthood:

2But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine: 2 that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience; 3 the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things-- 4 that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.

6 Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded, 7 in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works; in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility,* 8 sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of *you.

Footnotes:
2:7
NU-Text omits incorruptibility.
2:8
NU-Text and M-Text read us.

Isn't it fascinating that the "NU-Text omits 'incorruptibility'? Isn't that what modern secular humanism would like to do?

Notice what the original KJV says on verse 2:7 -

Titus 2:7 (KJV) - In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine [shewing] uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity,

It's interesting to note terms that are synonymous with the term "corrupt" from a college thesaurus:

1. dishonest
2. dishonorable
3. crooked
4. shady
5. unscrupulous
6. fradulent
7. unethical
8. unprincipled
9. base
10. immoral
11. depraved
12. debased
13. iniquitous
14. mean
15. low
16. sinful
17. evil
18. subvert
19. lead astray
20. debauch
21. contaminate
22. poison
23. pervert
24. seduce

The antonyms of corrupt include:

1. honest
2. honorable
3. upright
4. ethical
5. principled
6. scrupulous
7. righteous
8. noble
9. high-minded
10. reform
11. uplift

The antonyms of corruption include (many of the above plus):

1. trustworthiness
2. integrity
3. goodness
4. good
5. righteousness
6. morality
7. purity

Scripture says it best. After all, it is the Word of God that lasts for eternity.

Hebrews 4:12 (KJV) - For the word of God [is] quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and [is] a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

The physical world was created by God and His Word.

Hebrews 11:3 (KJV) Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

God's Word is incorruptible, unlike the words of deceived man:

1 Peter 1:23 (KJV) - Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

Proverbs 30:5 (KJV) - Every word of God [is] pure: he [is] a shield unto them that put their trust in him.

God's Word is even more important to our spiritual life than the food we eat is to our physical life:

Luke 4:4 (KJV) - And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

The importance of knowing the Word of God is indisputable:

Luk 8:11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
Luk 8:21 And he answered and said unto them, My mother and my brethren are these which hear the word of God, and do it.
Luk 11:28 But he said, Yea rather, blessed [are] they that hear the word of God, and keep it.
Jhn 10:35 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;
Act 4:31 And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.

Faith comes as a result of hearing and knowing the Word of God:

Romans 10:17 (KJV) - So then faith [cometh] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Christ is Lord over all; even those who refuse to acknowledge Him:

Acts 10:36 (KJV) - The word which [God] sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (he is Lord of all:)

There are over 107 verses discussing the "Word of God." Here is one that emphasizes the importance of keeping God's Word:

1 John 2:5 (KJV) - But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.

Philippians 4:1-8, some of my favorite verses, share the importance of guarding our hearts in Christ Jesus and how to gain the peace of God:

4 Therefore, my beloved and longed-for brethren, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, beloved.

Be United, Joyful, and in Prayer

2 I implore Euodia and I implore Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. 3 *And I urge you also, true companion, help these women who labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the Book of Life.

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!

5 Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.

6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;

7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Meditate on These Things

8 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy--meditate on these things.

9 The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.