Vacuum

Aristotle first put forth the phrase, "nature abhors a vacuum" (my wife abhors her vacuum too but that's a story for another day). The topic for this posting isn't that noisy appliance we occasionally pilot around our homes; searching for stray Cheerios and dust-bunnies. No, rather today I'm thinking about an empty space; void of all matter or substance. Such a space demands to be filled because of the tremendous weight of its surroundings. As you're sitting there, reading these words of mine, the air is pressing against you at the rate of more than a ton per square foot! Were it not for the equal pressure within your body, you'd be squashed until an equilibrium was achieved! No worries though, that's how our lungs function; the muscles of the diaphragm create a vacuum by expanding the volume of the chest cavity and the lungs receive the resulting rush of air. Try this: After exhaling, pinch your nose and seal your lips; now try and draw a breath. With your nose still plugged and the veins sticking out of your neck, glance around the room; anyone staring at you? Just tell those folks giving you the funny looks that you're doing a scientific experiment! Now, unless your body can withstand the force of five or six tons, you couldn't do it; could ya? I'm sitting here with a smirk on my face just imagining how many of you I actually got to try it!
I'll bet you never thought of yourself as a vacuum before; am I right? Well, you are; semi-voluntarily all day, every day and you have been since the doctor smacked your posterior that moment you were born! As much as I'd like to go on about our physiology, I'm actually heading in a slightly different direction; but then, you knew that already, didn't you? People are spiritual vacuums as well. By design, we must be filled in the spiritual realm every bit as much as our lungs must fill when we draw a breath in the physical realm! Jesus had something to say about the subject and you can read His words in Matt. 12:43-45.
I don't know about you, but lately I've had a very heavy heart as I've witnessed the steady decline of my people. Western culture continues to decay and has been since the systematic eradication of biblical influence began. The lights went out in Europe decades ago. Churches there are merely a shell; a mockery of what they once were. While people worry about such things as the bird flu or mad-cow disease, the really frightening pandemic spreading across our hemisphere is a spiritual one. We pushed God out of our government, our schools and yes, even our churches. The resulting void demanded it be filled; and so it was!

"But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power...always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."
2Timothy 3:1-5p,7

I look upon what the ignorant masses are so willing to worship; anyone or any thing but Jesus, and I just want to weep. When godliness is removed from a nation, there is simply no limit to the depths to which its people will descend. Finding examples of depravity in our society is an effortless pursuit. I read today of a 22 year old woman; selling her virginity to the highest bidder on the internet. Why? To raise funds to pay for her masters degree in marriage and family therapy. I'd find the irony laughable if it weren't so tragically sad.

"For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man..."
Romans 1: 21-23p

Do you sense as I do that we the people have given up the pursuit of a more perfect union? We've all witnessed the revelry; the exuberance and exultation the past two days as people welcome their new-found hope and change. It strikes me as profound; a nation, having forsaken the one true Savior, is so willing to put in His place; in the resulting void, a counterfeit messiah. Pray, my friends; pray fervently! Pray for the man who's been placed in such an impossible role. Pray for the people who put him on that pedestal. I hope for change as well; we call it revival.