Our nation's desperate need

How desperately modern Britain needs to hear, not a trendy human rights message, not some anaemic social gospel, not a creed based on the secular psychology of self-esteem, but an old-fashioned call to repentance. Our society is in an absolute mess, precisely because it has abandoned its Christian foundations. We are in a mess, quite simply, because of sin. One particular example of how society is deteriorating is the problem of indiscipline in our schools. It is no secret, as the national press testifies, that many pupils now behave with an insolence which would have been unthinkable, say, forty years ago. The root cause of this problem is that children have been encouraged to think in terms of their rights, rather than their responsibilities.There is now a tendency to view the teacher as someone who can be sued, rather than as a figure of authority who must be respected.

This failure to acknowledge superior authority is ultimately a spiritual problem, and it is a problem which effects people of all ages. Failure to believe in God is a refusal to accept the true authority under which we are all called to live. As we observe the various problems in society, we must realise that the ultimate source of them is the one fundamental fact of the sin of man, rebelling against the authority of his Maker. There is a pride and a sinfulness in the human heart, which must be radically dealt with. We shall never solve society's problems by throwing Government money at them. The need of the hour is for individuals to repent of their sin, and to come to Jesus Christ, who, out of love for us, warned us, "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish" (Luke 13:3).