Captivity to Modern Curses

Our world's astounding technical and scientific progress, coupled with spreading global prosperity over recent decades, masks enormous suffering in the world.
Today's mixture of burgeoning progress and explosive suffering is as deceptive to humanity as it was to the ancient Egyptians.

But it isn't hidden to God. "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption" (Galatians 6:7-8). Our modern world is not so far removed from ancient Egypt, which awed the world at the time of the Exodus. However, although it maintained an outwardly dazzling veneer, the inner society was corrupt and degenerate. Eventually they felt the consequences when God virtually destroyed Egyptian society to free His people from enslavement. Egypt finally reaped the fruits of their actions.

We humans are notoriously short-sighted. Just because we don't personally and immediately feel the consequences of our actions, we somehow think we can do as we please without suffering long-term ill effects (see Ecclesiastes 8:11). We don't realize how such thinking leads us to be enslaved to untold suffering, misery and anguish.

Consider some examples of how human choices, decisions and actions hold us enslaved to enormous suffering.

• By rebelling against God's laws regarding the divine purposes for marriage, the United States has a divorce rate of nearly 50 percent, the highest in the world. Enslaved to emotions, feelings and desires, many have no strength of character to control themselves. Increasing numbers of men and women simply cannot live in sustained, long-term loving relationships.

• Mental depression continues to afflict an ever-larger portion of the population. Youth suicide is the second cause of death among young Americans, trailing only accidents.

• Slavery to the deceptive pleasures of promiscuity has led to the abortion of some 30 million American babies, mostly white middle class, over the last 30 years since Roe vs. Wade legalized abortion. It also has created a looming shortage of young workers to support an aging population which many predict will cause an economic crisis. For a generation, America has literally been killing its own firstborn.

• The American addiction to irresponsible sex and divorce is now the leading cause of the nation's growing poverty among women and children. Studies have also shown that children brought up in homes headed by single mothers are twice as likely to engage in criminal behavior as those brought up in two-parent homes.

• Sexually transmissible diseases now account for five of the 10 diseases most commonly reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Centers estimate that one in five teens and adults—some 45 million Americans—are infected with genital herpes, an as-yet incurable venereal disease. In addition to health and social costs, these diseases cost taxpayers $10 billion annually in direct costs such as Medicaid payments and indirect costs from higher health premiums.

• Worldwide, an estimated 34 million people are infected with the AIDS virus, spread largely through sexual promiscuity. Some 16,000 contract AIDS every day—a tenth of them infants infected with the virus during childbirth. Globally AIDS has now taken some 20 million lives.

• The illegal-drug industry is now so massive that, according to UN estimates, it generates $400 billion to $1 trillion in revenues and accounts for 8 percent of global trade. Drug abuse exacts an enormous financial toll on American society, costing an average of $300 per person annually in added medical costs, criminal activity and declines in productivity. The United States has an estimated 12.8 million drug abusers, equaling 6.1 percent of the population.

• American addiction to violence, drugs and theft, in entertainment and lifestyle, also holds the nation captive. Prisons can barely be built fast enough to house America's 1.8 million prisoners, a fourfold increase in 20 years. Each imprisoned felon costs American taxpayers an average of $20,000 per year—excluding the billions of dollars spent annually for police and other law enforcement and the massive U.S. court system.

• In the last decade, the American people and state governments have become addicted to gambling. In a stunning reversal of 350 years of thrift and public morality, much of the American population now hopes to get something for nothing through a get-rich-quick explosion of government-sponsored lotteries, gambling casinos, and gaming resorts.

• Tragically, the United States' legal system based on universal rule of law has been severely challenged by the lying and morality scandal at the highest level of government. If, as a result of the American people's sins and leadership, there is a meltdown of the American constitutional system which has served as the model for the world for the last two centuries, what may be result is a dictatorship not unlike the administration of Pharaoh—or chaos, or both.

God will not be mocked! GN

-- Howard Davis