Dumbing down

Dumb-and-DumberIt’s one thing to be simple, but another to be ignorant and lacking understanding. It’s often so shocking, heartbreaking and infuriating for me to see in my home country the level of ignorance concerning the things of the Lord or especially the history of faith.

Martin Luther

If I asked 100 Americans who Martin Luther was, I honestly believe over 90% would ask if I meant Dr. Martin Luther King.  Here’s another example. Martin-Luther-King-Jr--Day-CelebrationI have some friends here with master’s degrees or doctor’s degrees and often I’ll hear from them that “Allah” is a moon god, an idol that the Arabs worship.

My reaction is exasperation and real sadness. Maybe it’s like when God spoke through Hosea to the nation of Israel some 2800 years ago, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you.” (Hosea 4:6)

And I’m not just talking about “taking God out of the schools”. I’m talking about a huge falling away from a knowledge of the significance of spirituality in the civilization of mankind. I was in my third year of university when I personally experienced that the God of Abraham was for real. Among my many emotions at that time was anger at how little I’d learned about anything having to do with the great changers of history who were not politicians, businessmen or scientist but were purely spiritual people.

Joan of Arc

I myself had no idea who Martin Luther was, the German priest who set in motion the Reformation in the 1500’s and changed the course of European history. Joan of Arc? Never heard of her. But an illiterate girl who herded swine “heard voices” in the 1400’s. And by obeying the voice of God, she ultimately led the armies of France to defeat their invaders at that time, the English.

St Patrick

And there’s so many more. Saint Patrick? “Ha, ha, ha! Let’s all wear green and get drunk”, most would say. But that man virtually alone changed the course of the history of Ireland, starting a wave of faith and devotion in what was a land beyond the edge of civilization at that time. Patrick’s influence continued in his followers for several hundred years, inspiring other missionaries in the next two centuries to go out to places like the darkest … no, not Africa but places like modern Holland, Germany and the rest of Europe to take the light and love of Jesus Christ and to turn those peoples to the Lord during the times called the Dark Ages.

Did you know that? I didn’t until I was way up into my adult years. But it was those spiritual people, people of faith who changed their generations, brought civilization and spiritual enlightenment to their times and neighbors and that’s why we have what has been called “Western Civilization”.

Google glasses

So there’s just this huge irony. We have smart phones, the latest apps, Google glass and every kind of advancement and technical innovation that our hearts could desire. But all the while, the gloom of ignorance and the lack of basic knowledge of the spiritual world increases like the armies of Mordor across the world. Even a knowledge that there is a God is less and less a part of the mentality of hundreds of millions of people in the “advanced” and “civilized” nations of the world.

It’s a sad, ominous, foreboding situation to observe. Hosea also said, “They have sown the wind and they will reap the whirlwind.” (Hosea 8:7)  How can there not come a reaping and reward for society’s abandonment of God and our eternal foundations, for ignorance of the reality of the spiritual world?

I experienced it myself. I was brought up in a home that didn’t acknowledge a prayer-answering God. “Maybe there’s a God but He is way off somewhere. Don’t bother Him and He won’t bother you”, seemed to be the idea. So in my greatest time of trial and difficulty, I simply and truly didn’t know there was a God, didn’t know or understand virtually anything about sin, faith, repentance, submission, redemption or grace. These were all utterly unknown to me. It’s an absolute miracle of God that He somehow pulled me through that time.

How many hundreds of millions now are in just as much spiritual darkness and delusion, no matter how advanced the technical gadgets they have? May God help us to do all we can to share His light, spread His truth and to keep our candles burning in this time of billowing darkness that we live in, even though most are blissfully ignorant of their ignorance.

4 thoughts on “Dumbing down

  1. Mark, I read it all and my same experience of ignorance (untaught) about the Reformation happened when I was 53 years old visiting an independent church when the pastor told me my mother’s Bible was outdated and ordered me to read one of the dozen Bibles in his office. I refused and he called me a heretic and said I am excommunicated. Well I didn’t know what either word meant but I soon found out that excommunicated meant I must never darken the doors of that Holy church because I am a heretic. The dictionary said a heretic is an enemy of the church. That week my granddaughter was graduating from Kindergarten in another Church way up in Pennsylvania. At the door before the service they handed me a pamphlet with the history of the Moravians and how they were persecuted and came to America. Their founder was John Huss who was burned at the stake for putting the Word of God in the hands of the people. That started my long history search and I learned the horrific demonic ways the devil moves in to dumb down society. Since then I have 6 volumes of Pilgrims Path to Freedom on amazon.com/pearlsturgis and am now doing a daily column on the Observer by Richard Miller….my column title is “Daily Bites of American History.” The dumbing down is on purpose by satan himself.

  2. Very timely piece of the history of Christendom, young squire of the realm. It’s interesting how u brought up Martin Luther. I also have found many ppl immediately refer to the black uprising of the 60’s in the new world.
    Also got me very convicted of my responsibility and of course all those who profess Jesus as their Lord and Savior. What a responsibility that is!! But a joyous one also! BTW, is one back in the USA? Or are ye still down there in Bulgaria or was it Romania??? blessings!

  3. Sadly true! I am also often baffled at the ignorance of especially often the younger generations, and not just millennials! And sadly that ignorance of spiritual things isn’t confined to the younger generations, even if they may know about some of the historical figures, that’s often as far as it goes…merely head or intellectual knowledge, no opening of their hearts to receive the spiritual truths or the message they delivered!!
    It’s the result of a concerted effort of the enemy to, as you say, dumb folks down and darken the hearts of the unbelievers to consider all such stuff as merely fairly tales and the reserve of dotards who needs ’emotional crutches’ in turning to ‘religion’, lest the light of the glorious Gospel which is the image of Christ should shine unto them and open their eyes and set them free from their zombie entrancement to his ‘entertainment’ and gadget-induced stupor where they don’t even realise that they’re his slaves and merrily treading the broad and wide gate to destruction! :-/
    Lord help us to hold forth the Word of truth in the midst of these crooked and perverse nations among whom we shine as lights in the word, and point them to the True Light of the world so they can see and hopefully recover themselves out of the snares of the devil where they’ve been taken captive of him at his will and by his lies!

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts in this article Mark! GBY! 🙂

    Philippians 2:14-16
    14 Do all things without murmurings and disputings:
    15 That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;
    16 Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.

    2 Timothy 2:25-26
    25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;
    26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

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