slideshow

The United States may be drowning in cesspools of its own making. We have dumped all our failure and filth into one large sewer, take a daily bath in it and wonder why we are in such a stinking mess. If you doubt that, read newspaper and magazine headlines, listen to radio and television news.

Front-page headlines in newsprint and electronic news loudly blare, “Prisons crowded: Violence Doubles”, “Teenage crime increases”, “Bullying creates problems for the nation’s schools”, “Lawman critically injured in shootout”, “Alcohol and drugs cause prom death.” On it goes every day.

Has our nation embarked on the trail of self-destruction? The cost of crime escalates continually. Young people seem to give up on life before it really gets started.

Cheaters, liars, adulterous men, women and youth, sexual immorality, crooked living and those who are supposed to be our leaders condone sensuality at its worst. Business and politics, movies and television, education and ignorance are often polluted with every imaginable form of evil, indecency, double dealing and unethical behavior.

Our nation and most all nations seem to be living on the brink of destruction. Collapse – morally, economically, politically, educationally – could come any day.

If we keep doing what we have been doing, we will get what we’ve been getting. That being true, we must change course quickly or suffer the eternal consequences. Here are a few suggestions for improvement.

1. Begin the rescue operation in the family house. As the family goes, so goes the nation. Make the family anything less than a man and his wife and we have begun the destruction of the nation.

2. Continue it in the church house. To the extent that the church is weak and powerless so is the nation weak and powerless.

3. Add strength in the schoolhouse. What do we believe about education? There was a day when children did not want to fail a grade or even flunk one class. Are too many being promoted without earning promotion?

4. Take it to the workhouse. Do we have citizens who are not willing to work, but are willing to receive that for which they did not work?

5. Consider every government house. We have too many fraudulent, deceptive people in government from the lowest place to the highest place. No nation will ever be any better than its leaders.

6. Remember the military house. Were it not for the physical and moral strength of our military power, there are nations that would seek our destruction.

7. Respect your neighbor’s house. Be content with what you have. God said, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house … nor anything that is your neighbor’s” (Exodus 20:17).

8. Go to the money house. In recent times, money and banks have occupied prominent headlines. Have we forgotten that “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil …” (I Timothy 6:10).

9. Take it to the sports house. Since I was 10, I have had interest in sports. I am, however, extremely disappointed that so much alcohol, drugs, gambling and cheating, on all levels, have infested the sports world.

10. Proclaim the truth from every house and all houses.

Ancient words of powerful truth, “Unless the Lord builds the house, They labor in vain who build it;” (Psalm 127:1). Every house should be built on a solid foundation.

Our nation has been playing the part of the fool to perfection. Blind leaders leading the blind. If that continues, we will all fall into the ditch of destruction.

Leaders for every area of life must be taught to lead by the word of God or forfeit their claim to any degree of leadership.

———

Dr. William “Bill” Ellis of Scott Depot is a weekly syndicated columnist who writes on a wide variety of subjects. Ellis has spent 25 years as a radio and television broadcaster and as a guest speaker and teacher on college campuses.