If you were to define an absolute as a principle that is universally valid, a point of reference that is unconditional, there are four absolutes: evil, love, justice, and forgiveness.
There is only one time in the history of mankind that all four absolutes came together: at Calvary. It was there, when Jesus, the Messiah, was crucified, that evil was seen for what it can do to a society. And it was there that love was defined, that God’s justice prevailed, and that forgiveness for sin was made possible.
To those who nailed Jesus to the cross, it may have seemed like just another execution. But the man they nailed to a cross was the divine Son of God, and their act had eternal consequences. “It is finished,” Jesus said as He took His final breath, and indeed, it was. Finished was the predominance of human evil, finished any question about Jesus’ love, and finished was man’s alienation from God. Forgiveness for sin, and a viable relationship with God, was now available to all who would believe.
What we have here is more than a religious point of view. America is at a crossroads, and it is time we take a hard look at what we are doing to ourselves. If we survive as a society, evil must be condemned, love must be unconditional, justice must be unrestricted, and forgiveness must be without limit. These four absolutes define us, and our survival as a society may well be at stake.
I am sure some feel I am over-dramatizing the state of our nation, that my words are little more than a tempest in a teapot. We have harnessed the pandemic, we have survived an economic crisis, and we are slowly getting back to normal. But another pandemic has overtaken us, an evil that is both moral and spiritual.
We live in an age of relativism, but we can’t survive without an objective standard of truth. God no longer figures in our national thinking, and the Bible is no longer featured in the principles that guide our nation. But there must be a foundation for right and wrong that cannot be qualified, compromised, or minimized. If no one is wrong, if predispositions must be respected, if a radical minority can dominate our national life, pandemonium will follow.
We are a divided nation, polarized by forces none of us seem able to control. We decry evil and injustice but see no way to stop the deterioration of moral responsibility evident in almost every segment of our society. If ever there was a time when America needed Jesus and the message He preached, that time is now.
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