While millions of people in the world are living in abject poverty, sleeping on the ground, and starving to death, greed runs rampant in the United States of America. We call ourselves a Christian nation while acting like a pack of wild dogs over a freshly killed carcass. Black Friday, as the day after Thanksgiving is now called, has turned into a fiasco brought on by money hungry corporate executives and their willing cohorts, the American shoppers. From just one news source I noticed these headlines the day after Black Friday:
· Shopper pepper sprays 15 other shoppers
· Competitive shopping turns into chaos
· Girls punching each other over Yoga pants
· Mayhem over $2 waffle maker
· Two women injured in brawl
· Woman shot, robbed after midnight shopping trip
· Police use pepper spray to break up melee
· Grandfather smashed to ground as he tried to protect grandson from crowd
· Police Taser customer
· Gunfire erupts at mall
Now let me see if I understand this. Thursday, the 24th, was Thanksgiving Day. Friday, the 25th, (the very next day) was Black Friday. On Thursday we should be:
· Thanking God for all our many blessings, i.e. (no particular order);
· Living in a free country
· Freedom to worship
· Our families (spouse, children, parents, siblings, etc.)
· Roof over our head
· Our job
· Our means of transportation (car, etc.)
· Our health
· Clothes on our back
· Friends
· Neighbors
· Our “needs” provided
· Many of our “wants” provided
· The food we eat
· Modern medicine
· And on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on
BUT the very next day, Friday, right after thanking God for His unlimited blessings, it is all forgotten, and we are overwhelmed with greed. Grown adults (tongue in cheek) act like vicious, spoiled children. What happened!
Frankly, I don’t think the above scenario is true at all. People don’t thank God for their many blessings, and then go shopping the next day and become a riotous mob. I certainly give credit to those, who the day before, were thankful for their many blessings, thankful for what Thanksgiving Day truly represents, and will carry that thanksgiving attitude all through the year. The problem rests with those who are not thankful, think the world owes them a living, and have no feelings for anyone other than their own selfish desires.
For those of you not living in this country, I would like to say that not everyone here is a greedy, unthankful idiot. There are many good people in our country who I am sure feel the same way I do, and that is; ashamed at what some of us have turned into. Many in this country are God-fearing and respectful of their neighbor. There are even many who may not be God-fearing, but they are at least respectful of their neighbor. Unfortunately, there are many others who are neither. They care for no one but themselves. So what is the problem? How has this happened? The problem rests with the heart of man.
The Lord God said through the prophet Jeremiah,
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)
Unless the heart of man is changed, deceitfulness and wickedness will rule his actions. Jesus said,
“There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.” (Mark 7:15)
The Lord says through the Apostle Paul (and the Psalmist),
“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:10-18)
We did not used to be, as a whole, a nation of savages, but when we began removing God from our schools (via court actions) and every other vestige of our lives, a vacuum was created. When a vacuum is created, something has to fill that space. “Why?”, because the heart of man is naturally drawn to wickedness. Without God to fill that void, man is drawn to self-indulgence. When there is no interest in God, there is no concern for the welfare of others. When asked by a scribe, “What is the first commandment?” Jesus responded as follows,
“And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31)
Jesus said to His disciples,
“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John 13:34-35)
True love for one another can only come from the Lord God. When one has the love of God in their heart, there will be love, respect, and concern for others. He/she will not act like two hungry dogs fighting over one food dish. However, without this love within us, controlling our mind and emotions, we act like animals. The result is “the strongest survive” on Black Friday.
In 1963 the United States Supreme Court sided with Madeline Murray O’Hare (8 to 1) to ban Bible reading from the public schools. Since then, with the aggressiveness of the ACLU, every area of our lives has been affected by the removal of God and anything that is remotely attributed to Him. We are now reaping the rewards of a school system with no Godly influence. Children and grand-children who have never heard anything from the Bible are now adults and demonstrating what happens to a nation that removes God’s Word from its citizenry. God helps us, because it is only going to get worse.
Grant Phillips