"When it is evening, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.' And in the morning, 'It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.' 

You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times."

Jesus, as quoted in Matthew 16:2-3, ESV

What happens when we lose the ability to reason in important things? 

In the above passage, we see the leaders of the Jews demanding that Jesus give them a sign. This despite the fact that Jesus had already spent a significant portion of His ministry performing miracles and explaining what God expected of them. They had ample opportunity to be convinced of His authority and His power, but they were so blinded by their personal ambitions that they did not want to see, nor did they want to believe what they want to believe the only logical conclusion of what they were seeing. The common people saw it immediately - they realized that Jesus was from God. But the very ones who had been studying the Word of God failed to see that which was plainly before them, even though it was right under their noses.

In short, they had lost the ability to reason in areas that were of the greatest importance. Had this been excusable, Jesus would have said so. Instead, He called them a brood of vipers and said that they travelled over land and sea to win a single convert, only to make them twice the son of Hell that they had become (Matthew 23). The Apostle Paul would later echo this thought concerning people who had lost the ability to reason when it came to that which God had clearly revealed. Consider the following:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in things that have been made. they are without excuse.

Romans 1:18-20. ESV

Throughout history, men have either pretended to be dumb, or genuinely are dumb when it comes to understanding God's Word. We can see that, for we have been guilty of this very sin ourselves. The point that God has consistently made throughout His Word is that He has given us enough information to understand everything that we need to. So, whether we are talking about seeing that sin is really sin, or if we are talking about understanding just what it is He expects us to be doing in the important area of obedience, the fact is that He has given us enough. Therefore, if our plan of life has been to pretend that no one can understand the teachings contained within the Bible, then we need to get a new plan.

Do you remember when you were in school and were either too busy or too lazy to study? Maybe it was a particularly tough assignment in math, perhaps it was a long writing assignment that that mean old English teacher had given, but whatever it was, you pretended not to know how to do it. So you told your parents that the teacher was just unreasonable and that hardly anyone in the whole class could figure out this maniacal teacher's expectations. If your parents were smart, they didn't accept your excuse any more than your teacher did. They probably told you something along the lines that you just needed to work harder or that you should have gone to the teacher for help, but whatever the case they for sure didn't allow you to get away with playing dumb.

Why not? Well for one thing, your parents knew you better than just about anybody else. They knew that you had a good mind and could use it if you were really pressed to do so. In a like manner, God really does know you better than anyone else - including yourself! He knows that He has given you a fine mind that is fully equipped with the capacity to reason; furthermore, He expects you to use that mind. Over and over throughout the Scripture, we see people who were punished because they should have known better but still feigned ignorance when it came to complying with God's commandments and expectations.

That being the case, we should learn from their mistakes and understand that God is serious when He tells us to do something... even when that something is hard! The fact of the matter is that God does have expectations for us and part of those expectations is to use the ability that He has given us to use reason and logic. This will require deep thought and even hard work at times, but that is okay. After all, we are trying to please Him - aren't we? Part of that process will require us to use our minds to the fullest extent that He has given us. He has given us the exact amount of information to understand His expectations and to do them. Anything else might very well find us without excuse of that final day when we appear before Him in Judgment.

One last thought: When we are young and have good intentions, we sincerely want to please our parents and teachers. It is a natural thing to seek the approval of those who are doing their best to help us accomplish the things that we are capable of. We want to make them proud, so we do our very best to make that happen. So, when it comes to the One who loves us more than we can imagine, shouldn't we be doing our very best to use every ounce of our ability to reason in order that we might please Him? I think it is only reasonable that we should, don't you?

This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, 

that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief.

I Timothy 1:15, NKJV

John Newton was born in 1725. His father was a seafaring man who remarried after his first wife died when John was only six. John's stepmother was not a very warm person, and he was sent to boarding school where he quickly learned the ways of the world. His father brought him aboard ship to serve as an apprentice and rehabilitate the young profligate when John was only eleven, but the attempt at rehabilitation did not take. He became more and more rebellious until finally, he was pressed into the British Royal Navy as a last-ditch effort.

John fell in love with a daughter of family friends and deserted to be with her. He was caught, punished, and traded to serve as crew aboard a slave ship. The captain of that slave ship once commented that even among men of profanity, he was the most profane man he had ever met. John would even invent profanity-laced poems with which to tease the captain - a relatively poor idea when one considers the era in which he lived, a time in which the captain was the absolute master while at sea John Newton was in and out of the ship's brig and was finally sold as a slave in Sierra Leone. 

His father once again came to the rescue and John Newton soon found himself a crew member of another slave ship. He had long since denied any faith in God, so the trafficking of human beings meant nothing to him even after having served as a slave himself. It wasn't until a particularly violent storm in which he gave up all hope that he proclaimed to the captain that the Lord Himself would have to save them if they were to have any hope. Two weeks later, battered and nearly starved to death, the ship finally reached port. John Newton began a fresh appraisal of his life to that point and didn't much like what he observed.

He then did two of the first smart things he had ever done in his life: He began a search for God, and requested permission of the parents of the woman with whom he had fallen in love with those many years ago if he might begin to write her. The parents reluctantly agreed and the two eventually married. John soon became captain of his own slave ship but began to have second thoughts as to the morality of the slave trade. He acquired a position as captain of a non-slave ship but had to quit before he took on this role because of poor health.

It was at this point that he truly began to act upon his slow conversion. He studied Latin, Greek and Theology. He applied for a position with the Church of England but was initially turned down for rather obvious reasons. Still, he persisted to the point that he was finally accepted and began to preach. He was so able to relate to the plight of the common man that his congregation soon overflowed. People literally flocked to hear this "clergyman" who had the unusual gift of speaking to them of things that actually helped them in their own personal struggles.

John Newton eventually became a champion of the abolitionist movement, a final act of penance from a life that had formerly been steeped in so much sin. In 1792 he wrote a poem that was to be used in the New Year's worship service. It's first line went something like this:  

Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.

It is through true life stories of men like John Newton that we can begin to see the patience that God has with His beloved creation. While we likely haven't been as depraved as John Newton, it is quite likely that we can all see the need for the saving grace that God extended to Mr. Newton in our own lives. We have all made mistakes - some of them nearly as vile and sinful as those we read about in the life of John Newton. Perhaps we have even come to the depths of despair that he reached, knowing that our own sins have placed us in a position of being far away from the only One who can truly rescue.

Isn't it comforting to know that the same grace that rescued John Newton is available to us today? I wonder what we could accomplish, if only we would take hold of that wonderful second chance that God's amazing grace affords to all of His beloved children.

The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.

Genesis 6:5, NIV (1978)

It happened again. Another mass shooting has occurred, this time being carried out by a boy who was only 14 years old. It turns out that he had been on an FBI watchlist as a dangerous person who had made violent threats since he was 13. But all of the watchlists in the world cannot prevent evil from happening, and this morning there are four families who are left grieving the loss of their loved ones.

People are rightfully angry and want something done. There are the predictable calls to do away with weapons, to increase security, to bring more regulation on people's lives. The sad truth is that none of these will work because they fail to address the heart of the matter. And what is the "heart" of the matter? It is the heart of the individual.

The world's most cataclysmic event happened when God brought the flood to cleanse the earth of its wickedness. Why did He wipe out nearly the entire world's population? The answer was given in Genesis 6:5, where it was revealed that every inclination of the hearts of men was only evil all the time. There comes a point in people's lives where they are so consumed by evil that evil becomes the only thing they think about. And when men's thoughts are only evil then lookout, for only wickedness can come from such a rotted state of the heart.

So, I hope that we can see from this that wickedness does not stem from the presence of weapons, nor does it originate from a lack of security or government regulation. When the wickedness of men's hearts becomes so dominant in society, giving one segment of that wicked society over another will not end the wickedness. It will just make it easier for the segment with the power to exercise their own brand of evil over the portion that has had the power to defend itself taken away.

No, concentrating power has never been a good idea, for absolute power corrupts absolutely. So, what is the solution? It's contained in the description of the problem. Men turn to evil when their hearts are evil. We have taken God out of our schools and have replaced Him with wickedness. You can't have a Bible supplied by the schools, but you can allow video games that teach people the joys of indiscriminate killing. You cannot teach God's morality anymore, but you can hand out supplies to allow children to participate in immorality. You don't believe that? Just check out the data on the phones that the kids are carrying. Just drop by the nurse's office in any big school and see what "goodies" they are handing out to "protect" our children.

The fact is that when you replace God's ways with Satan's ways you should not be surprised with the results. The solution is to go back to God's ways if we ever want to heal the hearts of our children. But, if we reject that path and choose the path of giving more power and more control to the very people who have been pushing for Satan's ways in the first place, then do not be surprised at the results. Weapons were readily available before we removed God's ways from the public square, but you rarely saw such acts of violence as we see now on an almost daily basis.

Why is that? When you remove God from the hearts of men, all you have left is a heart whose every inclination is only evil all the time. The solution to mending men's hearts has always been a love for God and a respect for His Word. Anything short of that will result in what we see today. What cataclysmic event will it take to bring us back? You don't have to wait for something that bad to happen. All you have to do is give your heart back to God and influence those you love to do the same. It will take time, but the rest will take care of itself. 

For the Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost. Luke 19:10, NASB

Dick Proenekke was the hero to every boy and most men because he did what most only dreamed of. He left everything behind, bought some land in the heart of the Alaskan wilderness and built a cabin with nothing but hand tools. Then he proceeded to live in this wild country for thirty years until his body said it was time to quit when he was about 82 years of age. It wasn't that Mr. Proenekke didn't like people, he just enjoyed the company of animals and being away from the daily grind of the city so much better. He once said that because he was alone that he had to be very careful, because if he made a mistake he would likely die because there was no one around to help. 

Now I could relate, for this was the life that I fancied myself living when I was a boy. For a number of years, we lived on the edge of some woods that was my "Dick Proenekke" wilderness. I would climb tall trees and hike deep into the woods just to see what was there. I can remember more than one occasion when I had easily climbed some Everest of a tree, only to find that the way down was not as easy. It turns out that the branches you are grasping with your hands on the way up are a lot easier to see than those same branches your feet are blindly searching out on the way down. And though I had never heard of old Mr. Proenekke at the time, I understood all too well what he meant about being careful, since one mistake could leave me in a veritable "death plunge" to the ground that was usually several stories below.

I remember getting lost one time as I was wandering through that patch of woods. My best friend Steven Price and I had discovered where a "blow down" or some other event had scattered fallen trees in a jumbled-up mess. We found one large tree precariously balanced atop another and had turned it into a makeshift seesaw. We quickly developed a big plan of turning the whole area into a type of wilderness amusement park. I have no doubt that charging admission was at the heart of this dream, for the two of us were always conjuring up ways that we could make money.

Anyway, I digress, for it was the time I got lost in the woods that I wanted to tell you about. Steven wasn't around, so I set out that day on my own to find our future theme park. I had only been there once, and we had found it quite by accident at that, so it took me a bit to find it. The problem was that I had meandered about so much in my search that I didn't pay attention as to how I got there. Now of course that didn't matter much since I was already there, but I really was clueless as to how to get back. And when I started back, I guess I got turned around and ended up in an entirely unfamiliar area. After a while, I realized that I was lost!

Have you ever been lost? I don't mean the kind of lost where you are in a stupid car with you family in Saint Louis and can't find that stupid bridge that's supposed to take you across the stupid Mississippi River (as a random example). I mean being on your own in the deep dark woods and realizing that no one even knows that you are there so that they can be looking for you lost. Of course I would have never admitted it to anyone else, for real men (even eight-year-old men) do not get lost. The great woodsman Daniel Boone put it best when he was asked if he had ever been lost. He thought about it for a long moment before replying, "I was never lost... but I was bewildered once for three days". 

Now, I would like to say that my being lost was but the beginning of an epic tale of harrowing danger and death-defying escapes, but the truth of the matter is that I wandered around long enough to finally come to a path in those woods that I recognized. I was so glad when I got home that I forgot all about my dream of fortune, and Steven and I gave up our plans of developing that Disneyland in the woods. 

Now to the point of all this. I have noticed that my life has been filled with far too many occasions that I was just aimlessly wandering around, not getting much accomplished. There have even been times when I have strayed too far from God. At such times, I did not feel particularly lost, but I have to admit that I have been bewildered a time or two. I think that's the problem with many of us - at least at times. We get distracted and our life just doesn't seem to be working out. We get far off the path that we should be on, and we begin to run into dangers and hazards that make our lives very, very uncomfortable. After a while, our confidence of knowing what we are doing and where we are going begins to fade, and we become confused and angry and depressed.

And while we don't feel particularly lost, these feelings that we have are very bewildering. So, we just continue to wander about, getting more and more frantic, searching for something that we cannot find. Eventually, if we are fortunate, we will finally admit what we are feeling: We are lost! But what can we do? This is where the beauty of God's eternal plan comes into play for, as we read in the passage above, Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost! This is the ultimate "good news" of the Gospel, for this means that we do not have to continue in our confused and angry and depressed state any longer.

Part of the good news is that when we are lost, we are not ever really alone, for God and Christ are always present if we will just open our eyes long enough to see it. The reason that we read the Word of God is so that we can find that narrow path that we have strayed from. And though that path of life is indeed narrow, it is also safe and secure, and it leads us home! And I can tell you from sweet experience, there is no place like a familiar path when you have been lost and far from a home that you weren't sure you would ever see again. 

Have you ever been bewildered? Maybe it's time to call for help. For God is always willing to guide you back to that narrow way that leads to life, and Jesus has come for the express purpose of seeking and saving the lost. Why not let Him find you?