Back in 2001, a famous American leader said he looked into the eyes of Russian President Vlad "The Invader" Putin. Then that American politician declared that he "found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul; a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country.” This is what happens when people look at spiritual things with completely humanistic eyes.
Putting aside the spiritual and theological folly of that, the question remains - can you look into a person's eyes and see their soul? Yes and no...as an evangelist who has encountered maybe thousands of people in the past two decades, from witnessing about the Gospel to handing out gospel tracts in massive parades, I can state for a fact that a spirit-led Christian CAN discern the lost nature of a person.
If you first set your mind on God and pray as King Solomon prayed in the beginning (1 Kings 3:11b - but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right), God WILL grant you that extra dispensation to see things the average person constantly passes over. It is absolutely scary to look into the dead eyes of scores of wasted twenty and thirty somethings in front of bars at 11 in the morning of a St Patrick's Day Parade...or a stinky tavern during the three mile long State Fair Twilight Parade or witnessing to this current lost generation. It should scare the daylights out of people like you and I, because we do something more about it, these people are all going straight to hell as more and more people do not seem to care. It is almost a reflection of the American soul!
What is really the true state of the American soul? Can a nation have a soul, in the first place...or....a continent...and western civilization? The answer is yes. However, when taken as a whole, facts are starting to show that we have lost our way. Briefly, here are the latest relevant numbers from the Harris Poll on what America believes:
--68 percent believe in heaven, down from 75 percent;
--68 percent believe that Jesus is God or the Son of God, down from 72 percent;
--65 percent believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, down from 70 percent;
--64 percent believe in the survival of the soul after death, down from 69 percent;
--58 percent believe in the devil and hell, down from 62 percent
There are a lot more numbers, but these are just a sample from just two months ago and every single important category is down from an already declining number in 2005. (Read the rest of the Harris Poll here)
The main draw from this is to examine the Spiritual Condition of the Country. The diagnosis is CRITICAL. Second and third opinions have confirmed this. Instead of wondering about wondering about Vlad the Invader (of Ukraine etc) and his soul; we had better wake up from the self-induced soul sleep which the powers of darkness have successfully lulled this country into!
While we are losing scores of unsaved people to eternity daily, the corrupt leftist culture of sleaze from music, film and social media is extending its tentacles into formerly safe homes and churches. We are losing the very future - our precious millennials and our grandchildren to the world, and no one seems to have a clue or a passion to do anything about it! Citizens of the wealthiest and most blessed nation in the world care more about using their electronic gadgets and temporal self-aggrandizement than eternal things.
To combat that, the western church (England, Europe, North America etc) in a sign of their theological background gone soft, has been discovering more and more that they're now part of the cultural landscape. Sunday morning in too many of our top churches in most of the major population centers of the west (and that includes Australia) have become entertainment centers with rock star preachers...some with multi-campuses on the jumbo-tron TV screen and everything else that goes with their multi-media industry.
As a result, they spend so much time trying to maintain that level of whatever-they-call-that kind of ministry, they have almost no time for the real work of the true church - raising up disciples; outreach and true service. The upshot of all of this is - the church is now mirroring the culture! Divorce, pornography addiction, alcohol and drug abuse and all the junk of society are playing out inside the walls of the church building. Is it any wonder we get the poll numbers of the rapid Decline of the Faith in the God (and therefore Christianity) we just saw being released by Harris and other polling outfits?
It is so bad now that the sign over the door of the church of our fathers that used to read "YOU ARE NOW ENTERING THE MISSION FIELD" is now inside the church sanctuary. So what is the condition of the American soul? - SICK!
NEXT: WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
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