Dear Editor, 
I have really been bothered lately about the condition of our society.
Everybody knows that there are plenty of hot-button issues stirring our social debates. Here’s what I’ve come to notice.
If we in the church were able to abolish abortion, homosexuality, pornography, premarital sex, adultery, gambling, consumption of alcohol and drugs, and reinstate prayer in school, post the Ten Commandments and get everyone to say Merry Christmas, there would still not be a single convert to Christ due to our successful work.
According to Scripture mankind has a fallen nature. The actions of fallen humanity produce the social ills that we are witnessing before us today. To clean up the external activity and not change the heart of the human being is a futile attempt to save our world.
The reason we have the heated social debates is some have had their eyes opened to God’s truth and many have not.
To try and convince a person with a fallen nature that his natural desires are wrong is like telling a fish he needs to get out of the water.
So, we in the church go around telling fallen humanity to get out of sin without giving them the transforming message that will change their inner person.
For a fish to get out of water and survive would take a total transformation of the species. Not a little by little evolutionary change but a total and complete, instantaneous transformation into a new creature.
A new creation that is able to live life outside the water and be filled with a new peace, joy and thanksgiving that He’s no longer in the water.
The normal human being, who has a fallen nature, who is living according to his flesh, desires sin.
In all actuality they are a slave to sin and cannot survive without it.
We in the church desire to drain their swimming pools without getting them to Christ who can transform them into new creatures. So, what we are witnessing is a fight for survival.
If you were a fish and someone drained your swimming pool you would fight also.
So, the natural spirited man wants to get rid of the church.
The spiritual man wants to get rid of the sin. What we in the church need to understand is we have been transformed into new creatures that have the ability to live in this world of sin without being a part of it.
We have been made new creations so that we can relay the life transforming message to those who have not been converted.
We weren’t called to drain the pool.
We were called to fish for men, introducing them to the one who can change their natural being into a holy being so that the pool of sin would no longer be needed.
Please think about what you have read here today.
We could be all geared up for the wrong mission. Changing our society may clean the pool we reside in, but a clean pool doesn’t create Christians. Only Christ creates Christians.
Pastor Thomas R. Swain,
First Church of God,
Great Bend