Caution
This article is intended for mature audiences
and may not be suitable for all viewers.
It is also prohibited for anyone who does not sincerely
believe in the Divine inspiration of the Bible.
Biblical discretion is advised.
Imagine a city where the majority of its citizens have leprosy. Now picture everyone in that city doing whatever they can to get everybody else to catch the disease? What if the Social Services Department condemned everyone who did what they could (in a good and right way) to prevent the disease? What if all the TV shows drip-tortured their citizens month after month and year and year in a way that shaped everybody’s belief toward thinking that catching the disease was a good thing and being healthy was wrong? My guess is if you lived in that city very long, not to mention your entire life, you would contract some form of leprosy because it is a highly contagious disease, no matter how hard you tried to stay healthy. Having said that, let me ask you a question―is it possible you might have contracted a bit of leprosy? I know I have on occasion.
Leprosy is a disease which deadens the skin and its nerve endings. As the disease progresses, victims can no longer feel any pain in the leprous part of their body. (In our fictitious city, everybody gets excited about the idea of “no pain.”) The problem is when your right hand is leprous you can touch a scalding hot skillet and never feel a thing. In fact, you can keep right on talking and lean all your weight on that skillet, right up until you sniff the aroma of roasting flesh―yours!
Or maybe it didn’t happen that way. Maybe in our advanced leprous society the first clue was when a leper wrinkled up their nose and said, “What stinks around here?” Without a clue about what’s causing the stench (which is “feeling no pain”) all the lepers point their flaky, white fingers at you, the only healthy person who still thinks pain has its place in child training. All the sicko-s then cry out, “It’s you―you’re causing that smell! You’re no longer allowed to stink up our world. Catch leprosy right this minute or lose your children!”
The Value Of Pain
It is a fact of life that pain serves an important purpose in this age. If you stick your hand into an open flame without knowing it, in order to protect you, signals will immediately rip through your arm and scream at your brain that something dangerous is going on and you need to change your behavior! Not only that, but you will instantly (and miraculously) know exactly how dangerous things truly are and precisely what you need to do to fix it. But there’s still more! Along with all that miraculous knowledge you will also get an overwhelming urge to do the right thing―that’s right, you will actually want to yank your hand out of that fire and never put it back again! Since pain is such a natural part of everyday life in the real world, is it possible that pain can be helpful to us in other ways?
But wait, there’s still more! (I hope this doesn’t sound like a commercial). Pain is such a good teacher it does not even matter how large or small your brain is because you will still get the message! So tell me: is this a good thing or a bad thing? Could it be beneficial to use a natural method of training which does not discriminate against anybody’s intelligence, or the lack thereof, but can still protect our children from incredible harm? Is it possible that our child’s real protection is not dependent at all on how much education they have? The truth is there are many things we can still learn from pain, even when we are old. We never grow past the age where pain can’t teach us powerful things of eternal consequence. Even God Himself ignores all the clamor coming from the leprous society and still uses pain to train His people for His Kingdom, right up until the very day they die.
That, my friends, is not only a good thing, it is a great thing. Why? Because pain can keep those flames that are burning your hand from inflicting more damage. How? If somebody does not feel any pain, they will unknowingly keep their hand in the fire, which means those flames will then race up their arm and catch their head on fire. I can tell you with some certainty that if your head ever does burst into flames because you either resisted the message or never received the warning signals in the first place, you won’t be seeing, smelling, or hearing anything for a very long time except absolute terror.
Those who have an ear to hear, please hear what the Spirit of God says to the churches.
The Ripples
What happens when a society starts believing that pain, whether physical or emotional, is so terrible that it must be avoided at all cost? What happens when that same culture then proclaims publicly that every child in the world (including yours) has the right to grow up in a pain-free home? What happens when people start thinking that as a society we have evolved past the point where pain is necessary to teach us anymore because we have become so intelligent, so advanced, and so progressive in our approach to life that we can learn everything we need to know without it? Besides appearing insane to anyone with any common sense (and there are more of these kind of people than you think), any society that resorts to these kinds of absurdities will look just as ridiculous as the one I described.
Are the trends in our youth indicating that the “no pain” philosophy is working in the real world? No! The numbers are screaming that the “no-pain” approach is breeding a nasty sort of self-indulgence, self-centeredness and a backward culture where children absolutely will not listen to anybody. Not only is learning in the classroom declining, but the trends are telling us that something worse is happening (what could possibly be worse than declining education?). Our youth are bursting into flames all over the country because their brains aren’t getting the signals they need to teach them how to live within the protective boundaries. Instead, they are venturing out into the world and sticking their flaky, pain-free hands anywhere they want to (including drugs, sex, and gang life). Some of those same children are then so traumatized by the aftershocks of their leprous behavior, they feel like they can’t bear living in this horrible world anymore―so they commit suicide! The suicide rate for those between the ages of 15 and 24 is spiking at an alarming rate in our society, but I predict that the trend will increase even more in the future. The reason is because ages 15 to 24 represent the period in people’s lives when they are experiencing both the freedoms and the harsh realities of life for the very first time. They are not, however, prepared for what comes upon them. Instead, they are discovering “a world of pain” exist just outside the rhetoric of the leprous city where as children they were raised and went to school all their lives.
Sorry world, when you remove pain from the equation you’re not going to get what you think you will. Besides, you’ve tried your way long enough now, so please stop pretending you don’t know what’s happening. The next generation is being tortured beyond belief because so many of our youth are not prepared for the pain that their unrestrained behavior will bring upon them in the real world. In the past they always exhibited that conduct in a “pain free” environment, which means the shock to their system is horrific. We also would like to ask you to stop blaming us for all the mess your “no-pain” philosophy has created. You can throw the Bible off this planet, but common sense, the facts of life, and the natural order of things will still be screaming how ludicrous your leprous philosophy is.
Yet in spite of all these things, the leprous society continues to base much of its philosophy on concepts which defy natural order. Meanwhile, the rest of us who are being shut out of the conversation (and being blamed for causing the stench) are standing around scratching our heads wondering why society can’t see what’s happening.
God’s Weighs In Through His Word
It is precisely because of these developments in societies that forsake God’s ways that the Bible says, “professing to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:22). It is an unchangeable truth that when societies refuse to honor God they “become futile in their speculations and their foolish heart is darkened” (Romans 1:21). This is how a leprous society as ludicrous as the one I described can come into existence. God has not only been taken out of the schools where our children are supposedly learning (to make room for witchcraft and other “deities”), in some places it is actually considered dangerous to believe in God, even though the trends, common sense, and the facts of life (not to mention the Bible) are constantly flashing warning signals otherwise. It is a bit ironic that the society that is so enamored with the “no pain” philosophy can no longer sense the warning signals screaming at their brains because they have fanned their leprosy into such full bloom. This is why I cannot describe it any other way than a leprous society.
The truth is there is nothing more dangerous in this world, or in this age, or in the age to come, than refusing to acknowledge God and any of His ways (which Romans 1:16-25 explains so well). Today the state of affairs is so egregious, it makes you wonder if invisible forces might be at work somehow, forcing our society into increasingly outlandish forms of slavery (see Ephesians 6:12). You may not be able to change the thinking of the massive leprous society out there, but with God’s help you can certainly make all the changes necessary in the sphere that is under your charge (i.e. your own children and your own home). When enough people demonstrate both the fruitfulness and pleasant life that comes with obeying God’s truth, then it is up to God to decide when the time has come for Him to intervene in the affairs of the world through the witness He has raised up. That colossal job is His; ours is to lovingly yield and obey Him in the sphere over which He has given us charge.
The Crusade
What the world really despises (and rightfully so) is abusive parenting, for which we commend them. What they don’t seem to get is that God and sincere Christianity do also! Part of the problem is words like “abuse” and “spanking” are used interchangeably, as if they are the same thing. (See my future article, What Is, And What Ain’t, Spanking! in the Godly Parenting tab after part 2 of this article appears on the homepage.) The truth is there is a world of difference between abuse and real spanking. Society is not becoming leprous because it is crusading against abuse, it is rotting because they are lumping common sense child training (some of which is based on God’s ways) into the same pile with every other form of abuse―just because pain is involved! I have never seen a worse case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, or a more literal one. Our entire society, but especially our children, are being led to slaughter (or shall I say, stumbling into the flames) because the world is refusing to acknowledge this simple distinction. Yet every day the mantra keeps bubbling crude. (Now there’s a save-the-world “clean-up crusade” you can truly get excited about).
Concluding Part 1
In light of these things, let me ask you a few questions before we break for Part 2.
Are you healthy or leprous?
Have you contracted a minor form of the disease and do not realize it?
Or have you contracted a more serious strain and are contributing to the leprous epidemic by nodding your head (and applying) Dr. Spock’s advice?
I don’t know about you, but during the many years my wife and I were busy training our children, I sometimes noticed a strange, white flakiness forming on my hand because of the highly contagious propaganda spewing from the leprous society. Whenever I recognized the flaky deterioration, I would immediately ask the Lord’s to cure me. At some point He always ended up commanding me from His Word saying, “Stretch out your hand!” Whenever I obeyed Him, my withered hand was always restored and my children began learning again.
Sometimes sincere Christianity must not only be yielded and humble―it must also be courageous! (Stay tuned for a very important Part 2).
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