Why People must Be Restrained by Samuel H Johnson

My topic is Why People must Be Restrained. 

Wow. That’s a mouthful  “People must Be Restrained” Restrain means to be Muted, to be Confined, to be Controlled, to be Boxed in, to Set limitations. Someone would probably ask - Bro Sam, Why would you say that People must Be Restrained? After all, this sounds like a violation of my rights. 

On the surface, it may sound like a violation but we must dig deeper. What is the state of humankind today? How are people behaving? How are they treating family, neighbors? strangers? People in the community? How is the behavior of politicians? Business Leaders? Religious leaders? 

Look around and we can agree that sin and rebellion is on the rise in our society. We see crimes at every level of our society today, from top to bottom. Political leaders are in a ruthless binge for power, lying and cheating is becoming normal in politics and business. We see laws implemented that support sinful practices. There is an open attempt to destroy democracy as we know it in America. It’s normal to see when a political party gets into power, it forgets all the ideals they were promoting – equality, concern for the poor and oppressed, justice, fairness for all etc. And it does not matter what ideology they claim to follow. Crimes like tax cheating, murder, robbery, domestic violence are at an all-time high despite charlatans who try to manipulate the statistics to fit their ideology. Family stability is diminishing, being redefined to fit what people feel. Truth and facts are despised for feelings. I even heard someone said that “feelings are more important than the truth.” 

All this reminds me of the recurring statement in the book of Judges in the Bible. It says, “Everyone did what was right in their own eyes” In other words Truth is relative. It’s the me, myself, and I philosophy. It’s the height of selfishness. And, because of this mentality our country, our world is headed for chaos and destruction. 

What is really happening? People put themselves at the center of their morality, their philosophy, their outlook, and their worldview. They just know that they are good. They are fine when others accept them or agree with them; regardless of truth or facts. But if you disagree with them, then that’s judging. But objectively, 

that is idolatry, self-worship. What people fail to realize or accept is that there is no one that is good, no one that is righteous. Only God is good, only God is righteous! Humans will inevitably destroy themselves and the world, if left to do whatever they feel, whatever they want. This is why humans must be restrained, and I will give the reasons later

In the Book of Genesis 6 Verse 5, God had to implement a global flood and save eight people to start humanity again. Why? Verse 5  “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” Let me repeat that clause “every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” Yes, evil continually. That’s the heart of man; we are not born good. We are all born with a sin nature, a proclivity to rebel, a tendency to sin, to do wrong, to be selfish. In Genesis 19, God destroyed two cities, Sodom, and Gomorrah, because of blatant sin and iniquity. Yes, the heart of man is desperately wicked and that is why all humans need to be born again, born from above, because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the sin of all humanity. 

So, God had to set systems in place to restrain humans, so He can complete His plan of redemption before humans destroy themselves and the planet. First, God gave every human a conscience. We all have a sense to distinguish between right and wrong. But many people have dumb-down their conscience, defy and deny the warnings of their conscience when they sin, rebel and do wrong. We hear some people being described as having a cold heart, a hard heart, or no conscience. God gave us that conscience as a warning against evil and sin but most of us rebel. God also gave humans parents, a father, and a mother to restrain us from doing wrong from an early age. He also gave us the law, government, and the church to restrain our human proclivity to sin, our human tendency to do wrong. This indeed is a serious matter, the necessity of restraining humanity. We will look at each restraint next time. We will look at why God gave us parents, the law, government, and the church. So look for the next blog.

Remember that you always need to Hear and Do the Right Thing. Knowledge is powerful, but the wisdom of God is the principal thing.