By Ada Brownell
I went back to
college to complete my degree when I was in my early 40s and from my vantage
point of maturity I watched high school
graduates enter the university with strong differing views about religion,
politics, morals, and life. They looked different, acted differently, their
speech was unique, but when they completed their education they were like
little toy marching soldiers, looking alike, acting similarly, using similar
vocabulary. Moreover, for the most part their views of religion, politics,
morals, and life made them seem as if they’d had their brains reprogrammed to
the beliefs of their professors.
Their parents’ and
the church’s teachings were shoved aside.
These students’ lives were changed by what they were taught
to think and believe. Yet, the young people would swear they chose to change
their own way of thinking.
I was taught Logic in psychology and other classes. I
suppose there is some truth to using those techniques, but also a whole lot of
error. Often people who try to prove their point through argument start with a
premise statement that can’t be proved.
For instance, evolution is taught as fact, but there is no solid
evidence for it. It takes as much faith as believing in an Almighty, all-knowing,
all-powerful God who is everywhere.
My idea is that argument doesn’t prove anything except who
is the best at debate!
In my estimation, the only thing that can be trusted to be
true is God’s Word, the Bible. After all, textbooks have to be replaced frequently
because the information in them is outdated or discovered to be wrong.
We should guard our minds because future is tied to what we believe.
Propaganda and brainwashing literally changed the Soviet Union and Communist
China.
Propaganda affects the way you live and who you are. But
more important, so does the Word of God—the Bible. How?
The Apostle Paul said: “So I say, live by the Spirit, and
you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature….The acts of the sinful
nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and
witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition,
dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you,
as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of
God.-- “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:16—22).
In prohibition days when liquor couldn’t be sold legally in
the United States, a couple of women preachers set up their tent in a small
country city and began to pray for an outpouring of God’s Spirit.
“Who is the wickedest man in town?” they asked.
People said the local bootlegger qualified. So the women
raised their voices to God to save the man’s soul. Instead of accepting Jesus
as Savior, the liquor maker was furious at his wife for attending the services,
where she became a Christian. When she got home one night, he said, “I’m going
to kill those preachers.”
Nevertheless, people filled the tent as the women
evangelists sang, preached, and offered prayer for the sick.
A lady who had been ill for some time went forward for prayer
and was instantly healed. She was the bootlegger’s wife.
The next night the fellow sat in the tent on
one of the home-made benches and knelt in the sawdust at the end of the
service, weeping at first and then getting pretty loud and excited about the
joyful gift he received.
His name was Ennis Surratt, the father of one of our
long-time pastors, Hubert Surratt, who pastored then in Lakewood, Colo.
What Ennis believed definitely changed him.
©Ada Brownell April 2014
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