Daily Meditation

Rejecting Kingdoms of This World

Ligonier Ministries

Augustine stood by the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. He had heard of the hordes of barbarians that were moving as a juggernaut against Rome and the empire. The reports were ominous and foreboding, lending little reason for hope of the survival of the Roman culture.

Augustine said a prayer in three parts. In the first part, he implored God to save the empire. In the second part, he asked for grace to accept the destruction of civilization as he knew it, if that should be the will of Providence. In the third part, he asked that in either case he might be permitted soon to die and enter his eternal rest.

Permanence and security cannot be found in the structures of man. Concrete crumbles. Glass shatters. Steel melts. When God says “No!” the cities and kingdoms of men come to ruin. God simply will not tolerate man’s quest for autonomy—his lust for idols of his own making. No city, no nation, no culture can survive the judgment of God.

Coram Deo

Spend some time in prayer today for your city, state, and nation.

Passages for Further Study

Revelation 11:15
Psalm 145:11
Psalm 145:13

The Emergence of Autonomous Man

Being The Master of One's Own Fate

Around the 1970's the construct of man as an autonomous being was coming into fashionable vogue.  Gradually, bit by bit, the notion of man as autonomous appeared to be winning the battle.

There is a philosophical connection now clearly emerging between the author of Invictus (early 20th century) and the alphabet soup now needed to describe over 75 semi-official genders running rampant in the wild by the time 2015 rolled around. 

Here is William Henley, author of Invictus:

Out of the night that covers me, 
  Black as the Pit from pole to pole, 
I thank whatever gods may be 
  For my unconquerable soul. 
 
In the fell clutch of circumstance
  I have not winced nor cried aloud. 
Under the bludgeonings of chance 
  My head is bloody, but unbowed. 
 
Beyond this place of wrath and tears 
  Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years 
  Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. 
 
It matters not how strait the gate, 
  How charged with punishments the scroll, 
I am the master of my fate:
  I am the captain of my soul.

Compare this with the "my gender identity is what I choose it to be" brigade.  Whatever else it may be, genderism is an attempt at individual autonomy so extreme and severe is requires denying one's genetic structure and makeup in favour of an extreme form of autonomous voluntarism: "I am whomever I decide to be".

These gender constructs, you understand, are of recent vintage--only just recently "discovered", as it were.  But that's no matter.  It is the latest iteration of a philosophy of human autonomy that has been around a long time.

Not only is this being pushed energetically by sexual gurus, it is being cheered on by professional groups, doctors, researchers, sociologists, and ivy league "experts".  They are able to operate in a fact free, make-believe world.  The only downside is the horrific cost being born by those young people who get caught up in the latest push for autonomy.

The deep irony in all of this is the more autonomous gender is pushed, the more it relies upon and thrives within a social context rampant with "me-too-ism" and peer pressure.