bitbear on Nostr: Repost from Author/Columnist Larry Alex Taunton (who sadly isn’t on #Nostr yet) A ...

Repost from Author/Columnist Larry Alex Taunton (who sadly isn’t on #Nostr yet)

A NOTE (MOSTLY TO MEN):

The most important thing in your life is not the preservation of your life.

Perhaps this tweet seems random, but it comes from extensive observation of some people around the world, men in particular, whose conduct I find reprehensible when under pressure: e.g., during the pandemic, in truly dangerous situations, or in determining where and to whom they minister.

When your core ethic is self-preservation, you reduce the meaning of life to a base selfishness. When a significant part of society consists of such people it corrupts the whole of society in ways that aren’t readily perceived but are nonetheless felt.

How many times during the pandemic did we see people—I am harder on men here—whose behavior, driven by fear, was embarrassing? They were willing to live in lockdown and isolation, to abuse the unvaxxed and unmasked, and it was clear to any who watched them that nothing and no one mattered so much as themselves? In Dante’s Inferno cowards are so reviled that they are rejected by both Heaven and Hell. I second Dante’s judgment.

It is precisely this abhorrent characteristic that enables governments to incrementally rob a nation of its freedoms. Having a cynical understanding of human nature, they know that such people, when given a choice between freedom and security, will invariably choose security. Thus, governments can package the most oppressive measures as “for your safety” and many people will enthusiastically embrace them even though it is against their best interests to do so.

It’s why totalitarian regimes, or those that aspire to become totalitarian, traffic in nothing so much as fear: it’s CNN’s pandemic death count graphic, which remained on-screen through every show; it’s Jan 6th and talk of “insurrectionists” hiding in our midst; it’s claims of an environmental apocalypse; and it’s Fauci (and Bill Gates) predicting new strains of the China virus—all to manipulate you still further.

I am convinced that cowardice is, above all, the result of a godless secularism. Think about it: if you believe that this life is all you get, that there is no reward or punishment in a life hereafter, then why risk it? Why put it on the line for anyone or anything? But if you believe, as I do with my whole being, that this life is a dress rehearsal for the next, then you understand that your life has purpose that goes well beyond mere self-preservation. My Lord and my God modeled for me self-sacrifice to the point of His own life which He gave as a ransom for many. The student should model than his master.

Don’t hold your life too dearly. Indeed, you should hold a great many things to be more important than your life. My point isn’t that you should risk it willy-nilly BASE jumping or living in the wild among grizzly bears. The Lord wouldn’t have you foolishly throw your life away. But He might call on you to sacrifice it. Let that sink in. Even self-preservation should be for the sake of others, perhaps your wife and children.

Here’s a little stat for you to illustrate my point: of those who died on the Titanic, 80% were men. Of those who survived, 73% were women and children. Wow! That’s courage. That’s honorable manhood. What a desecration James Cameron’s film is to the memory of those courageous people who said, “I choose to die that others might live.” Greater love hath no man than this!

On his deathbed, King David’s charge to Solomon, his son and heir, was, “Show thyself a man.” Of all that is lacking in our society, men of courage, of conviction, must be near the top. These days too many men won’t risk their comfort or social status to stand against an ever-growing evil, much less their wealth or their lives.

That must change or the world is lost.

Rant over.