Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.(Proverbs 1:20-23)
It is my belief that to those who have ears to hear, God himself is crying out to our generation through the ongoing stream of news stories that flow across the national consciousness day after day.Because the time is short, the volume is turned up, Lady Wisdom is quite literally crying out…but what is her message?
I believe that the Penn State fiasco provides more than one warning to us all from the Lord ;
1) In the battle between good and evil, neutrality is impossible– A non decision is a decision, not standing against evil, is in fact standing for evil. When an assistant coach at Penn State walked in on the sexual assault of a young boy, rather than immediately intervene to rescue the 10-year-old, he left the room!
No doubt he wishes he had done differently now. Perhaps a thousand times over he is kicking himself for his inaction, and will for the rest of his life. But he chose rather to call a supervisor, who reported the incident to someone else, leaving the perpetrator to victimize who knows how many others?
Evil is to be withstood, children are to be protected, those who oppress and victimize them are to be exposed! This is what Wisdom is no doubt crying out about! There can be no neutral position regarding evil.
2) Homosexuality is a treacherous, predatory evil- Penn State has the distinction of being the first major university to host a homosexual fraternity, and is ranked as being one of the most homosexual friendly campuses in the nation, as this Collegian article attests,
For the 10th year in a row, Penn State received a five-star rating — the highest score possible — on the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender-Friendly Campus Climate Index.
Because it is an unnatural vice, homosexuality is predatory, especially of the young and vulnerable. There have been ample demonstrations of this in our lifetime, although the willful blindness of our progressive elites in politics, education and the media seek to deny by suppression, homosexuals are a danger to children.
Shouldn’t the destruction of the modern Catholic church have been our warning? In our lifetime , homosexuals have infiltrated and destroyed One of the largest and oldest religious institutions in the western world!* Penn State is a smaller scale version of what happened with the Roman church, including the cover-ups by the hierarchy
.3) Sports have become idolatrous in our day- Within days of the scandal breaking out, longstanding coach Joe Paterno was fired, (unbelievably, the University retained as wide recievers coach the very aide who witnessed the assault and did nothing, as the interim head coach!). When the Students heard that coach Paterno had been fired, they rioted in the streets overturning vehicles and starting fires!
They didn’t riot because they were outraged by the sexual assaults on children, nor for the subsequent cover-ups, rather they rioted because coach Paterno is a “legend” and they felt he was being made a scapegoat.Do you see the near complete moral blindness?Its not just Penn State, Americans have made millionaires and celebrities out of athletes who, had they not been able to pass or catch a football, would probably be serving time somewhere for the various assaults, sexual and otherwise that is almost a routine part of some of our athletes “college career”. Some college coaches bring on a crime wave into their university towns, just by their recruiting of young athletes!I like Sport as well as anyone, but if the Penn State saga tells us anything, (if we have ears to hear) it is that athletics have replaced God for too many of us. Why was the open knowledge that little children had been violated, allowed to go unchecked? The vaunted show had to go on!
4)* We are living in the last days-
And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.(Luke 17:26-30)
Jesus warned that the last days leading up to the final judgment of mankind, would be like the days of Noah and of Lot. The days of Noah were characterized by a population explosion, advances in technology, agriculture and the arts,(see Genesis 4:19-26, 6:1-11) and violence.
But the Penn State fiasco is just one example of what it was like in the days of Lot, for all the sordid ingredients are there.The appalling, predatory degeneracy, the willingness to tolerate and even cover up the oppression of innocense,(we are told in scripture,’The cry out of Sodom rose up into the Lord’s ears’), the spectacle of young adults violently demonstrating in the streets.
5)* Finally I believe Wisdom is crying out that hypocrisy is shortsighted for there is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed, nothing secret that shall not be brought to the Light… The lesson to be learned from Penn State is not that they were bad people to be loathed and hated because of the exposure. It is that God is soon going to expose all sin, for our God is a God of Holiness and Truth, who hates pretense.The best thing to do is to confess your sin now, to be willing to be known before God(and man) for who you really are, and to run for refuge to the Ark God has prepared for us, Jesus Christ, the Saviour and Lord.
* By no means do I endorse the Roman church, I have serious theological issues with it. However I know that the vast majority of Catholics abhor what homosexuals have done to disgrace it.
Pastor Bill Randles Blog 
Bill,
I’m here in western Pa and following the Penn St. story. Just a quick correction. The interim coach was not a direct witness, that was the receivers coach, Mike McQuerey. His job is probably in jeopardy because of having not done something to stop what he saw. He has received multiple death threats. That can be found at this link. http://www.newsday.com/sports/college/college-football/mike-mcqueary-won-t-coach-for-penn-state-on-saturday-due-to-threats-1.3313938
Thanks for the correction, I was told that McQuerey was going to be the interim coach until the death threats forced him to step down. THanks for the clarification.
I see this as not much from “DId God really say…” that homosexuality is a sin? Did He really say that we are all good at heart and that sin is not real?
Satan asked Eve if she heard the voice of God say do not eat of that tree, of course she could not answer so she needed to ask Adam but she questioned that and listened to Satan.
Our society as turned from asking God to listening to doubt.
Eve already knew from Adam that she should not eat of the forbidden fruit.Today God wants us to put all doubts to rest immediately as they arise.This kind of faith pleases him more than the faith experienced in times of exaltation.
Many things can become an idol. Sadly, athletics (at all levels) is an idol to millions. Stealing time and emotional energy that can and should be much better spent. In the big picture of life, athletic prowess amounts to dust in the balance. I encourage all believers to spend less and less time watching and playing sports and more time in activities that have the potential of impacting someone’s eternity. Sportianity is not Christianity.
Well said!!
I have found it necessary to “encourage” if not actively urge our adult children to join my wife and I in leaving an Assemblies of God church where they had grown up because the Pastor stated openly and emphatically that he did “not care about Bible doctrine I only care about my anointing.” He was not interested in Preaching because that was not his thing and that people should go and hear some heretic like Benny Hinn if they wanted preaching. My son was finally convinced to follow us and leave this church and his friends when he heard this Pastor say from the Pulpit, in fact, that the worst sin you can commit is to question “the anointed ones.”
This Pastor has lead the church we falsely believed to be a bible believing christian church into another Apostate church more akin to new age teachings and philosophies than biblical christianity. Many so called leaders have also insisted that we NOT judge the moral failings of other so called leaders in the church.
Why do we require a higher moral standard amongst our sporting and political heroes than we do from our church leaders?
The price genuine bible believing christians pay for such a stand for righteousness is a certain amount of ALONENESS in the sense that former church friends and even family tend to shun you if you have the courage to take such a principled stand.
I have to say that the void created by our loss of this church environment and the associated obviously false friendships established therein has been filled in the short term at least by sport.
We admire the genuine athletic ability and prowess of our sporting heroes and consider their onfield accomplishments to be much more genuine and acceptable than that of these outrageous heretics masquerading as church leaders in these last days and demanding blind allegiance to unbiblical antibiblical and superbiblical teachings and blatantly leading people into deception, apostasy and forfeiture of true christian faith.
In this context where would we be without football and other sports and the plethora of athletic stardom that sport makes available to us.
This is interesting because my wife and I were discussing this the other night. Having someone in my family who has experienced sexual abuse, my reaction to this story shocked even me. While my wife took the side of the innocent child, I focused on the fact that this is the way college athletics handle these things, as incredibly wrong as it is.
Look at a recent case at the University of Iowa where two football players raped a coed, and the football administration did little about it. The players left the team after it was apparent they had done something wrong. But what was the first line of defense? Take it to a coach, who didn’t do much. The case did eventually go to court where one player got off and the other got a slap on the wrist.
The way Americans worship sports these days, it is not suprising. Truly we live in the last days when a coed can get raped by two football players and almost get away with it. So it is a logical progression that an assistant coach could sodomize a young boy, and have coaches turn the other way. The way the students rioted and why they rioted is truly a symbol of the last days.
Joe Paterno was a good coach up until this all broke loose. Now he will be remembered as the coach who allowed a young boy to be victimized in his own facility on his watch. He was the one who could have done more about it, but instead let it go.
Christians have a way of killing their wounded rather than saving them
TOO LATE NOW!!!!!!
Is homosexuality a choice or genetically inherited?
Why do we require a higher moral standard amongst our sporting and political heroes than we do from our church leaders?
We do require a higher standard from our clergy.In light of that who would want to be a cleric?
For your information Glynn any such standard is certainly not being applied in the apostate churches which dominate the religious scene. The clergy is getting away with “murder.” (metaphorically speaking, of course).