He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
John 1:10
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The Bible tells us in a variety of ways of an ancient curse that lingers with us to this very hour – the willingness of human society to be completely absorbed in a godless world!
It is still the supreme sin of unregenerate man that, even though Jesus Christ is come into the world, he cannot feel his all–pervading presence, he cannot see the true light, and he cannot hear his voice of love and entreaty.
We have become a “profane” society – absorbed and intent with nothing more than the material and physical aspects of this earthly life. Men and women glory in the fact that they are now able to live in unaccustomed luxury and expensive homes; that they can trade in shiny and costly automobiles on shinier and more costly automobiles every year; and that the tailored suits and silk and satin dresses represent an expenditure never before possible in the society of common working people.
This is the curse that lies upon modern man – he is insensible and blind and deaf in his eagerness to forget that there is a God, in his strange belief that materialism and humanism constitute the “good life.”
My fellow man, do you not know that your great sin is this: the all–pervading and eternal Presence is here, and you cannot feel him?
Are you not aware that there is a great and true Light which brightly shines – and you cannot see it?
Have you not heard within your being a tender Voice whispering of the eternal value of your soul – and yet you have said, “I have heard nothing”?
This is, in essence, the charge that John levels at humankind: Jesus Christ, the Word of God, was in the world, and world failed to recognize him.
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A.W.Tozer