Apathy

    I try to think of a title each day which will pique the interest of readers; to encourage those who glance to actually stop and read. I think of titles such as "Innocent Man Killed By Mistake" or perhaps, "Family Raise a Surrogate Child To Be Murdered By A Mob." Another one of which I considered was "I Saw What You Did Last Summer." That's not how I do things, therefore, I write about "Apathy." That is not caring about that infant in a religious sect, an innocent person murdered, nor even what someone spied you doing last summer, and the many seasons before!
     Apathy is a non-caring attitude about something which is exciting to caring people: "from Greek apatheia, from apathēs ‘without feeling’, from a- ‘without’ + pathos ‘suffering’." With poetic justice those without caring will someday be eternally suffering. Christians, ironically, consider those people who are uncaring as pathetic; we hold them in contempt because their "suffering" is merely lacking.
     The "world," in the Bible, is the influences of sinful people; it is everything institutionalized and in chaos outside the Church. "Church" is capitalized because it means the spiritual true church without walls or boundaries. It is the corporate spiritual relationship of those who are truly born again; those who are of one accord in the worship of the triune God. Thus, "world" is all those influences outside the "Church."
     Whereas the Church has no walls, the world does. They can't see the bars but the discerning can! The people of the world are in servitude to the law of sin, and as such are in bondage. The Church is the invisible institution of free men and women: "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). There is a relationship between truth and freedom; no one should want to live for a fantasy. It is not the Church which lives a fantasy but those who deny the supra-natural which exists but they are apathetic to it. They are in chains to the beliefs of the world (Mark 5:4), and just because people cannot see the chains, makes bondage to the world no less real.
     I don't want to be in chains so my chains were broken. Truth broke my chains. I am no longer enslaved to the world but truth has set me free! Pilate asked Jesus, "What is truth?" to which Jesus replied, "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice" (John 18:37).  He was the infant who was born to die in your place. Truth, according to Jesus, is whatever he says. The most grandiose thing God said was, "ego eimi" (I AM), which Is God - the Great I AM. Jesus said that forty-eight times to make a point; it is one those who care should take seriously!
     The second most grand thing Jesus said, "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again" (John 3:7). Remember that "innocent man killed" title that I was considering? Believing that and caring about one man dying instead of you and me, is becoming born again. In order to be born again, people can never be apathetic. They must want to live forever and seek the one Way to make that happen: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6). Those who care about themselves, care about eternal life. Paraphrasing Jesus, they must trust that only God can defeat death by sacrificing His only Son. Jesus painted a picture of that; Moses lifting up a pole with a lifeless serpent on it, representing the Serpent's crucifixion. Jesus's death on his pole - the cross - was vicariously killing Satan, ironically on his "tree."
     God designed mankind to care about themselves. No one is truly apathetic to dying; they merely fail to look at death's door. That is apathy; the death angel does await whether you see or acknowledge him or not! Wisdom is taking measures to meet death, who guides you to the path to eternity. Then even the apathetic will lunge for the true path to eternal life, but will be restrained; the angel will point the broad way to eternal destruction (Mat 7:13). As a Christian, I cared about that!
     There are three possible outcomes to death: (1) annihilation as you cease to exist, (2) eternal death, meaning perishing in torment forever, or (3) eternal life with joy for eternity. The apathetic seems to think that the first is his way, but it is only eternal death or life, and you all must care enough to choose wisely!
     No one is truly apathetic, they merely deceive themselves, or deny the truth so long that their hearts become hardened. That is incontrovertible apathy, called reprobation in scripture; that is no longer having feeling enough to even care about eternal existence one way or the other. Reprobates are damned because they haven't cared enough for themselves to even consider loving God or others as the way to eternal life.
     Each sin people sin is an act of apathy. They fail to care that Jesus died for sin to be remised. His death dumped sin into Hell. Sin was dumped on the Serpent as Jesus died, and Truth released the dead in Christ from their graves: "And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,  And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many" Mat 27:52-53). That event signified resurrection! My book, The Skull of Adam, follows some of those saints - Adam and John the Baptist - as they confront others within Jerusalem.
     Caring people want to be freed from their graves. Even apathetic people care... they just put caring out of their minds. Those who are apathetic live in a cloud of fiction in real life just as the Serpent deceived them: "Ye shall not surely die" (Gen 3:4). Apathetic people think they never will! However, Adam thought God meant right now - physical death, but death is forever dying in Hell.
     Adam was apathetic to truth. If he had perceived truth, death would have been defied right then. He didn't and death became real. Later, Adam died a physical death. Eating of the forbidden tree finally took its toll! The "sting of death" is its crescendo. At the moment Adam sinned, he began to die as his cells began to die one by one. He cared! The Word (Jesus) covered Adam's sins; he still physically died, but will never spiritually die because of God's grace. He knew right them that he would have to create a new perfect Son, and crucify Him to crucify the Serpent in his tree! Adam, after sinning, was remorseful; he cared!
     Holy Scripture is all about caring for Jesus; that he died in our place. "Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain," I believe, is to not take his called Name - Jesus - without purpose. Disobeying the Third Commandment is a command, then, against apathy, caring not that Jesus died in your place.