The non-Christian does everything he can not to think of the world beyond. That is the whole meaning of the pleasure mania of today. It is just a great conspiracy and effort to stop thinking, and especially to avoid thinking of death and the world to come. That is typical of the non-Christian; there is nothing he so hates as talking about death and eternity.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “Studies in the Sermon on the Mount,” volume 1, p.140
6 comments:
It's actually sad because they are afraid... which is expected. Because Scripture says he who has the power of death is Satan, Hebrews 2:14...
Ok, let's just put it here, God will be clearer than me:
14 Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,
15 and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.
-Carolyn
Glenn,
Do you think this is as true now as when Lloyd-Jones wrote it?
There seems to be a love of death in a lot of people. And this combined with a deep belief in reincarnation.
Alec
Alec,
While we do have some seeming to love death, I think overall people still hate to think about death and want to prolong their lives as much as possible.
Maybe it's the difference between interest in and love of evil things (including death) and thinking of one's own actual mortality?
I work with a lot of young people and a lot of atheists and new-agers. The thought quite prevalent with them is that when you're dead it's over, so have fun now because there's no here after.
And they take comfort in this, they almost chant Alester Crowley's law of Thelema "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" not even knowing what it is, because they've been raised on "Do your own thing" Anything that gets in the way of that is to be ignored, eliminated, and ridiculed.
Hi Doug,
We used to get that a lot in our street ministry, and still have occasional conversations of similar vein. Yet they speak of death really with detachment, because when you ask what they think happens they are never serious, rather they talk of being "worm food," etc. Some young people would say that death is too far off for them to ever worry about it -- another way of avoiding talking about it. When you remind them that their life could end any moment by heart attack, car accident, terror bombing, etc, they just don't want to address that possibility.
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