WHY IS IT that everyone knows it is ABSOLUTELY necessary that you put gasoline--not water, into our gasoline tanks? Why is it that we know it is ABSOLUTELY necessary to pour oil into our automobile engines instead of honey or molasses? Why is it that it has been determined an ABSOLUTE recommendation to use an aspirin and not a salt tablet or a lasix tablet to relieve a common headache?
We learn that certain circumstances involve ABSOLUTES -- this is WHY each one of the above three scenarios are so obvious to even the non-mechanical or non-professional people in our society. It has been discovered that "grease and water" do not mix. That simple discovery has been flip-flopped into a working principle in the printing industry and offset printing is the end result. In fact it was probably hundreds of years ago that the principle "grease and water do not mix" was put to practice in lithography, the forerunner of modern offset printing. An image was made using an "oily substance" and when water was washed over the stone it was discovered water did not stick to the image area and eventually an entire system of printing was developed because of this learned process.

BUT WHEN WE bring up the subject of ABSOLUTES in the application of spiritual truths as found in the Bible, all of a sudden absolutes are not either reasonable or understandable! We DO what we WANT TO DO. That is "country wisdom" I heard years ago and it is as true as "night follows day or morning follows the night." What is it we want to DO? Well, first of all, "we" do not like to be told what to do and when the Scripture plainly tells us we are sinners, the "thing" one has to do, if you do not want to accept this fact, is to do away with the source of this information! Discredit it in some way, but definitely do away with such information. Those who strive to destroy Christianity are attempting to prove there is no God, and it took a Russian novelist named Dostoevsky to see through this and conclude, "If there is no God then anything is permissible." Is this what our founding fathers wanted? We must shout "NO!!!" But those critics of any spiritual values consistently try to smudge, obscure and obfuscate the facts of the lives and sacred honor of many of our founding fathers by calling up incidents of weakness in those men.

A recent TV movie was made about one of our presidents and a purported relationship he had with one of his female slaves. A black preacher in Columbus, Ohio, boldly preached that this was nothing but sin in one of our president's lives and he was just as quick to say it was nothing less than sensationalism and not facts of faith being weighed but sheer dollars for tickets lining the pockets of Hollywood! That was the motive behind such an alleged historical story--true or not. Even though Ben Ames Williams wrote this in 1947, it is STILL TRUE today in the year 2,000: "When lies are repeated often enough, even wise men begin to accept them."

Unfortunately we are seeing ABSOLUTES in values, virtues and faith being traded in exchange for a casual community. Call it free speech, self expression, individualism, personal rights or whatever you choose, let's face it, it is a blatant attack on ABSOLUTES in life as demonstrated in God's Word. When we fail to armor ourselves with the Sword of the Spirit--the Word of God, we can only expect to fail--regardless of "how good it sounds". But the promise Christians can believe: "My word will not return to me void." (See Isaiah 55:11) God will accomplish His purpose--whether everyone or anyone "helps" or not! So, if our lives do not demonstrate good morals and virtuous living--even when we claim to be God's children, the Message (or Gospel) will stand or fall in our life time on the basis of how we live. And to repeat myself, "If we don't do it, God will find a people who will!"

"Some men succeed by what they know; some by what they do; and a few by what they are." Elbert G. Hubbard, The Note Book, 1927.