By Degrees

by David Gibson

When I started working in the college cafeteria, two things bothered me: the heat of the freshly washed dishes I stacked, and the high-decibel noise of the kitchen. Soon my hands adjusted to the heat, and my ears to the racket. I got used to it.

Getting used to evil?

As our society is daily bombarded with increasing profanity, violence, and sensual entertainment, have we become desensitized? Sins that were once deplored in our society are now not simply tolerated, but even promoted with abandon. What once shocked is now “the new norm.”

“Were they ashamed because of the abomination they have done?
They were not even ashamed at all;
They did not even know how to blush” (Jeremiah 6:15).

A blush-proof society is ripe for judgment.

Little by Little

Gradual exposure by degrees is one of Satan’s most effective ploys (I Corinthians 15:33).

For all his faults, at least Lot was “oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds)” (II Peter 2:7-8). Lot never acclimated to the society around him.

Have we?