More Americans now commit suicide than die in car accidents. “People are despairing in America,” writes Joseph Farah, “more than ever before.”
It would be easy, notes Farah, to blame the suicide epidemic on the economy. But, that’s not how he sees it. People may be struggling financially, but they’re not ending their lives because they lack food and shelter or toys and gadgets.
“I believe the trend reflects a deep and growing spiritual emptiness in a culture that is more depraved than ever before,” writes Farah. “Too many people just don’t find any meaning in life.”
We should all, as Farah advices, “think about it.” He continues:
We are told from the youngest age in state-run schools that human beings are merely the result of billions of years of evolution from lower life forms and random mutations. There is no God who loves us and to whom we are accountable. There are no laws higher than those that government imposes on us – no sin. No ultimate, objective moral code. In fact, human beings are a blight on the planet. It would be better off without us – or at least with a lot fewer of us polluting the air with carbon dioxide and overheating the earth.
. . . Prayer and Bible reading are prohibited, but explicit instruction on how to have promiscuous sex without consequences is mandated.
Abortion is subsidized, while adoption is prohibitively expensive in the unlikely event you can find a child to adopt.
Increasingly, the state is sticking its nose into what we eat, what we say, how we raise our children – even what we believe.
Government is fine with pornography. But purity and abstinence are discouraged.
In other words, right is wrong, up is down, black is white, left is right. And we sit here and wonder why people are killing themselves.
When government replaces God in the lives of people, their lives become empty. They become subjects of the state, rather than citizens endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights – among those being life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
When government becomes the ultimate authority in our lives and practices lawlessness, disregarding routinely the Constitution from which it derives its limited authority, I would suggest to you this is a much bigger cause for despair and powerlessness.
There is a solution to this problem. But it’s not a top-down answer. It’s a bottom-up solution. Americans need to get right with God.
They need to find out what He requires of them, why He created them, and how much He loves them.
They need to have a genuine repentance for having turned away from Him and whored after false gods and pursuits.
If Americans did this, they wouldn’t be taking their own lives in record numbers.
Thank you, Joseph Farah. It is a privilege to reprint a portion of your column. May it be used to spark dialogue in families, neighborhoods, schools, places of business, law offices, and congregations.
Joseph Farah is a nationally syndicated columnist.
I excerpted from his commentary,
“What happens when government replaces God”
which appeared in October 1 edition of The Washington Times
Ezerwoman's Blog 
Can A Person Truly Change?
Posted in Commentaries of others, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, tagged consequences of sin, depression, despair, drug abuse, hope, human dignity, Jesus Christ, liar, new life, prison, satan, sin, thief on February 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Yes.
Evidence of change is all around me. For some, change has come with maturity or wisdom gained from experience. Some literally kicked and screamed all the way to a new place in their life where change took them by surprise. Some are being changed through pain and suffering. Others are changing, but only after falling into the darkness of bitter despair.
Travis is one of them. Travis had fallen so deeply into the pit that he could never pull himself out. I believe that Jesus literally reached down into that pit to lift Travis upward. The circumstances in which Travis finds himself are grave. He is serving 20 years in a federal penitentiary without parole. Travis is in a place of shame but, face to face with his Savior, true freedom and dignity are being restored.
What follows is a letter from Travis:
Travis is suffering the terrible consequences of his addiction and sinful ways. He is separated from his family and shamed by incarceration. Although his faith has grown, he is taunted by unbelievers. He has explained to me that despair comes often to visit, yet the mercies of God really are new every morning.
Those mercies recently came through a fellow prisoner. Travis was feeling especially low at Christmastime when, unexpectedly, he crossed paths with a man he had met early in his imprisonment. Travis had befriended that man and encouraged him with words of hope. The man apparently never forgot Travis and, in a moment of darkness, the man reappeared as a ray of light with reciprocal words of encouragement. “You made a difference,” the man told him. “You helped me get through a tough time.” Travis was reminded that Jesus knows just what we need when we need it most.
Travis is painfully aware that Satan, in partnership with his own sinful nature, is a powerful force. Alone, Travis cannot defeat the liar and thief. But, another force is working in Travis’ life. It is the force of love. Forgiveness. Hope and new life. Satan wants to steal Travis’ soul, but Jesus Christ died for that soul. He has already won for Travis the victory over sin and death. Victory is hard to see through the veil of depression and discouragement; even so, I believe that the Holy Spirit has been at work in Travis adjusting his perspective and restoring the dignity of his personhood.
Perhaps prison is the Potter’s wheel where Travis is being carefully shaped as a vessel for noble service. I really do believe that Travis sees himself a different man than when he stood haughtily before the federal judge. As a different man, he will find himself at odds with the world.
In that world, Satan will continue to press on Travis. Satan doesn’t want change. He wants Travis captive to his sinful nature. He wants him haughty. Dependent on self, yet burdened by failure. But, in Christ, Travis is no longer bound to old sins and failures. In Christ, Satan holds no lasting power over Travis.
Travis told me,
Is change possible? God says it is.
“Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Put away falsehood, speak the truth with your neighbor . . . give no opportunity to the devil . . . Let all bitterness and wrath and anger . . . be put away from you . . .” (Ephesians 4:22-32).
Because change is possible, Travis can live as the beloved son of God in Christ that he is. He can leave the filthiness and foolish talk and crude joking behind. He was in darkness, but now he is in the light of the Lord. He can try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Expose deception. Be filled with the Spirit. Give thanks. (Ephesians 5:1-21).
Yes, echoes Travis,
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