Epilogue
Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God remould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.
ROMANS 12:2 PHILLIPS
Subjects that were once taboo in polite conversation—mercy killing, the latest demands of the LBGTQ movement, and even “gender reassignment”—are now plastered in the headlines of popular magazines and websites. What was once off-limits is now out of the closet, and we have become inured to its shock value. Formerly unmentionable subjects now quickly find a way into lunchroom and carpool banter.
Without the absolutes of Scripture, peoples’ convictions about such subjects are fashioned by what seems right in their own eyes. Paul alluded to this when he wrote to Timothy, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Timothy 4:3).
And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Our own desires. Our willful determinations (“rights”) dressed up in politically correct language to give them a veneer of respectability.
That’s exactly what happened when physician-assisted suicide elbowed its way into our national dialogue. Something monstrous has become commonplace, blending with casual talk about the weather, football scores, and pop culture. All of its shock value has been drained away.
Left to our own uninformed senses, we quickly default to that which is most comfortable and convenient. Add suffering to that mix, and our society will quickly jettison all other considerations. We seem ready to sacrifice anything to be rid of pain and suffering—including our own lives. It especially hurts that people with disabilities—men and women who have endured much and exhibited great courage—have been charmed and anesthetized by the allure of so-called “death with dignity.”
Are we, in fact, being squeezed into the mold of the world around us? Or are we allowing God to daily remold our minds from within? Are the constantly evolving opinions and fashions of our contemporary world beginning to shape us—our thoughts, our opinions, our sensibilities? Or are we allowing God’s Word to challenge, refute, and replace those sentiments with eternal truths?
Please think about these things, my friend.
How do you reawaken shock value after it’s been diluted, rephrased, and painted over with soft pastels? I want people to become alarmed again—yes, aghast by the taking of another’s life. Or even our own life.
I think we should save our sharpest outrage for the way assisted suicide has been sanitized, softened, and reinterpreted by our politicians and popular culture. Death has been clothed in a crisp white lab coat and “reasonable, compassionate, progressive” language.
But it is still death.
Death before its time.
It is still wrong.
And it still grieves the Lord of life.
I’m reading in the book of Ezekiel as I pen these words, and seeing again how repugnant the taking of innocent life was to God. The Israelites had been drawn into child sacrifice, offering their babies in the fire to the hideous idol Moloch. It was a religion of convenience that pretty much said, “Here, god, you can have my child . . . as long as I can live the way I want to.”
Life isn’t always convenient. As I can testify, life can come with a great deal of suffering. But it is still life—a precious gift of the living God. And it is still His call when it begins and when it ends.
Don’t let the world—no matter how sweet-tongued and superficially rational it may sound—squeeze you into its own mold.
Molding God’s people is God’s job. And He does it from the inside out.