During my current devotional time I am studying the Book of Ephesians using a commentary by James Montgomery Boice. In yesterday's reading I came across an interesting comment. He noted that many people do not accept the idea that our problems are primarily spiritual in nature. These individuals believe that the church should focus its attention on real issues such as poverty, oppression, hunger and injustice. Boice, and I, agree that these are problems that need to be addressed, but each of us wonders if they are the root problems or simply symptoms of the real problems. Boice wrote, "If the real problems of the world are merely material and visual, how is it that they have not been solved or eliminated long ago?" Great question!
We can put men on the moon, build computers that fit into our phones, create cars that can drive themselves and design technology that were the topics of science fiction only a few decades ago. Yet, we cannot find a way to stop hunger or bring an end to racial prejudice. We can't fix an educational system that too often graduates people who can't read their diplomas. Violence in our cities continues to escalate, and all we can do is watch it on TV and shake our heads.
It's not that people have not tried to solve these kinds of issues. Billions of dollars have been spent on eliminating hunger and poverty, and all we have is a nation further in debt and more hungry, poor people. Similar efforts have gone into solving these other problems, but nothing has worked. Maybe this indicates that our real problems are not merely material and visual. Maybe there is something at the core of these problems that we are not attacking. If I try to pull up a weed out of my garden and it breaks off, guess what? In a few days that weed will reappear because I didn't remove the root. We've been focusing on the visual symptoms of a problem that runs much deeper, and until we address the root of the problems they will continue to be there impacting the lives of people.
There is a spiritual dimension to our problems that most people don't see and ignore. The section of Ephesians I was studying today talked about the rulers, authorities, powers of this dark world and spiritual forces of evil. This is where our real battle lies. Mankind was created to enjoy a relationship with God, but many have been blinded to that truth. Just as the serpent tempted Adam and Eve away from their relationship with God, these spiritual forces lure people away from God as well. Adam and Eve were tempted by being promised if they ate of the fruit they would be like God, knowing good and evil. We are still being tempted today with the same lie, getting the same result that Adam and Eve got, separation from God.
It's important that the church address these social concerns because these issues harm persons created in the image of God. But, it's even more important that we address the spiritual factors that create these concerns. There is a reason there is so much effort to keep the church out of the public square. It's fine when we gather in our buildings to worship, but people get very nervous when we try to bring our values and beliefs into the public square. The crowd begins to yell about the separation of church and state and lawyers threaten to sue all in an attempt to silence the church, to keep us from speaking about the root causes of society's problems.
The simple reason these social issues haven't been resolved before now is because at the root of each of them there are spiritual forces at work. Government can't touch them and neither can all the well-meaning people who want to. Only God can remove the root. We need revival in our land, and revival will only come when God's people humble themselves, confesses their sins and prays.
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