As I
look out my window this morning, the parking lot is shrouded in a thick fog. I
was surprised by the fog when I left my house, although I should not have been.
There is much moisture in the air, as the many snow piles slowly melt in the
warming temperatures. That moisture condenses in the cool air, blanketing the
world in a white, opaque mist.
In
some ways, I like foggy days. There is something mystical and mysterious about
a world covered in fog. But fog can be very dangerous. A number of years ago a
young mother with small children was killed when she collided with a school bus
on a very foggy stretch of highway. I was driving up from Iowa once, when I was
engulfed in a thick ice fog. Visibility went from clear to non-existent. Almost
immediately, I came across cars in the ditch and multiple car crashes. We
counted close to 20 such incidents as we inched our way north. Then we emerged
from the fog and everything was clear again. It was amazing and very scary.
I
grew up with old horror movies. All of them used fog to portray foreboding and
danger. The hero or heroine usually found themselves alone in the fog, with
tense music in the background. You just knew that at any moment something was
going to reach out and grab them. The old Sherlock Holmes movies were routinely
set in a London shrouded by dense fog. The lesson I learned was that bad things
happen in the fog.
We
live in a world that is shrouded in a spiritual fog. Paul describes this fog in
2 Corinthians 4:4. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they
cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of
God. Satan has done a masterful job of filling our world with spiritual
fog. It is thick and confusing. It keeps people from seeing the light of
Christ.
Satan
has created a thick moral fog. Today, morality is based on what feels good, and
not on what is morally right. God has clearly stated that our sexuality is a
gift from Him that is to be exercised and enjoyed within the bounds of
marriage. Today, sex is a party game. We no long are disturbed by people living
together before marriage or having casual sex with (sometimes) total strangers.
We have reduced our sexuality to a physical, biological act, devoid of real
purpose and meaning. We have opened the floodgates of sexual expression. Anyone
who stands up for a biblical view of sexuality is labeled as a prude, a bigot
or a subversive.
The
Bible clearly blows away this fog and shows it for what it really is; a
distortion and misuse of God’s perfect design.
Therefore
God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for
the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God
for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who
is forever praised. Amen.
Because
of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged
natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned
natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men
committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due
penalty for their perversion.
Furthermore,
since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave
them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become
filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full
of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers,
God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil;
they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve
death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those
who practice them. Romans 1:24-32
Satan
has also created a spiritual fog. For a time, the truth of the Bible shone
brightly in many parts of our world. It was recognized as a guide to spiritual
truth. The reality that Jesus is the one and only Savior of the world held
sway. Then Satan turned on the fog machine and everything changed. Today,
people are excited about spirituality, but not about Jesus. We are routinely
told that there are many ways to connect with God and that there are many gods
with which to connect. We are encouraged to create our own personalized belief
system, while accepting everyone else’s personalized belief system as just as
valid. To stand on the Jesus’ claim to be the exclusive Way, Truth and Life, is
to be seen as intolerant and misguided. Truth has become relative. Everyone is
invited to create their own truth.
Again
the Bible blows away this fog and shows how misguided it really is.
The
wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and
wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to
them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the
world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been
clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without
excuse.
For
although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to
him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although
they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the
immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and
reptiles. Romans 1:18-23
Fairly
soon, the sun will rise high enough in the sky to begin to burn away the fog
outside. Already things are becoming brighter and clearer. The only way to burn
away the spiritual fog in our lives is to come into the light of the Son. As we
allow Jesus to shine the light of truth into our hearts and lives, the fog of
Satan with clear. But Satan does not give up easily. He will persist day after
day to cloud our minds, hearts and souls. Daily we need to invite Christ to
shine his light into our lives.
This
is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead
of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light,
and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But
whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly
that what he has done has been done through God." John 3:19-21
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