The Importance of People

Of all the things God made, the greatest was man. That one powerful sentence in Genesis 1:26 is the fulcrum on which the earth is balanced “Let us make man in our image.” Could God have thought of anything more challenging than to recreate himself?

So maybe the most perplexing thing in the world is how little value humans place on human life. A human will kill another human for a pair of shoes or run a man off the road because he is late for a ball game. A man was arrested in Cincinnati today for killing the mother of his three-month child as she held the infant in her arms.

Americans will prevent the birth of 35,000 human beings this year by killing them. And the government has made it a systematic process funded by tax payer money.

And if a human won’t kill he will steal another man’s property and leave him for dead. Humans enslave other humans. Humans are even willing to impregnate and leave their offspring helpless. Humans sacrifice their offspring to the gods of politics.

Why do humans have so little respect for humans?

Isaiah prophesied a time when the life of a man would be valued. God told Isaiah to write “I will make a man more precious than fine gold;” (Isaiah 13:12). Imagine that! A time will come when the life of a man will be valuable to other men.

When Herbert Spencer coined the phrase “survival of the fittest” after reading Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of the Species” he introduced an entirely new way for man to look at other men. One of those men was Adolph Hitler who combined the works of Darwin and Karl Marx to carve out a new political party based on the idea that “things” are more valuable than man.

“The so-called Aryanization of firms was based on the Marxist idea that capital (resources and equipment) and labor…were the only vital ingredients of an enterprise, whereas the entrepreneur was an exploiter. An enterprise without entrepreneurial spirit and creativity, however, is nothing more than a pile of rubbish and old iron.” (George Gilder writing in The Israel Test)

Hitler believed based on Marxist writings, as well as those of Charles Darwin, that people were less important than things. The only good thing about a man was his physical makeup. The entrepreneurial “spirit” within a man was an evil thing. To be consistent with his Marist/Darwinian philosophy he should delouse Germany of that spirit.

Hitler’s mission was to remove the impurities from the world by removing physical weaknesses. The purest of Aryans were so far superior to all other humans that no other humans could compete with them. So when the 1936 Olympics were held in Germany and Jesse Owens won four gold medals Hitler thought it was unfair. When Jews were not allowed to compete with Aryans in business they became bankers and professors. So when they held the highest ranks in those professions Hitler claimed they had cheated. It was the natural right of the Aryans to win. When that did not happen government intervention was needed to punish the successful. Success was evil if anyone other than the one chosen by the state should emerge as victor. This was the foundation for the (Nazi) National Socialist Party.

The core concept of the Holy Bible is exactly opposite. One of the most fundamental teachings of the Bible is that Spirit rules over matter. Spirit existed before matter and everything physical was made by the Spirit. Matter should serve the Spirit.

When two blind men followed Jesus desiring to be healed, he asked them “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” When they said they were, he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith let it be done unto you.” (Matthew 9:29)

Our world has plenty of wealth and sufficient natural resources to provide for all our needs. What we lack is the Spirit of Faith.

There’s a YouTube video currently making the rounds that demonstrates the point. Nick Vujicic is a 24-year-old Australian who was born without arms or legs, just a vestigial left foot that allows him to bounce, move freely and navigate his customized wheelchair. His powerful, booming voice has kept people mesmerized for hours by his unflappable belief that he was God’s creation with a clear purpose. Such faith is changing the lives of young people around the world who are looking for something of substance to give life meaning.

Some things don’t change. From Abraham to the return of Jesus Christ, the clear and consistent message is “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the LORD of hosts.” (Zechariah 4:9)

Until next time,