Have you no shame?"

 

"Have you no shame?" How many times in your life have you either uttered that question or, at least, heard it asked of someone? Perhaps even of yourself. In these short few words you've probably deduced that my subject for today is "SHAME." Or, the lack of it in our society today.

What, with all the news reports lately, I'm beginning to believe that the answer to that question is, NO, there's not much "shame" in evidence these days in our society. Maybe I'm now considered "old fashioned" but it doesn't seem that it was that long ago that it was a great shame for an unmarried woman to be pregnant. Not to mention a high school girl.

It was a rare event when I was in high school for a girl to become pregnant and if she did, she was expelled from school and she was looked upon in disgrace by her classmates. There was a tremendous amount of shame attached to her and her family. Quite apparently that isn't so anymore as the schools (read "we") not only DO NOT remove them from school, they provide a nursery and day care facilities on campus for those unwed teenage mothers. To the school system, they are no different from any other student, thus no stigma or shame for their actions.

I'm sure that you heard on the news this past week about the 17 (at last count) girls in a Massachusetts high school who made a pact to get pregnant. The news pundits are all chiming in with their opinions as to why the girls did this and there are about as many different opinions as there are pundits. I feel that my opinion is just as good as their's so I'm going to give it to you.

In my humble opinion, the basic reason for society's apparent lack of shame is that it has removed itself so far from God and His Word that any thought of right or wrong has vanished from it's collective character. The Word of God has always been the basis for our knowledge of right and wrong as it has been the basis for most of our criminal & civil laws. If society leaves it's base of knowledge for knowing what is right or wrong, it adopts its own ideas of what's acceptable behavior. Thus, there is no shame if someone does something "wrong" because they have no knowledge of it being wrong.

Over the past three or four decades we've "enlightened" (digressed) ourselves to the societal position that just about any and all aberrant behavior is okay if we don't physically hurt anybody by it. Society just calls it a matter of "personal choice." Thus we have no shame or stigma attached to these pregnant high school girls, or of same-sex marriages, or of lewd and lascivious lifestyles of entertainers and other notables. Society has over the years removed "shame" from it's collective protocol because nobody cares about what people do. At least that's what I believe causes it.

I think that our society has just about reached the point ancient Israel had reached in Judges 17:6 where it tells us that "...every man did that which was right in his own eyes." We've got a society that does whatever it wants to do, morally speaking, and feels that it's right "in it's own eyes." And, further in my opinion, the various governmental entities, especially the schools, from kindergarten through college, have fostered this moral meltdown of society. As in; don't tell anyone that they are wrong, or that it's wrong to do something the way they want to do it, because we would then be "judgmental." It might warp their psyche or something.

The second "shoe" so to speak, is that, if we don't really punish anyone for a lot of criminal acts, why would there be any punishment for moral acts. And I'm not just talking about "governmental" punishment, I'm also referring to "parental" punishment. We now have several generations of parents who were raised in an ever-more permissive society that their children don't know what punishment is for aberrant behavior. Therefore, it must be okay. Remember the old saying: "What one generation tolerates, the next embraces."

Proverbs 1:7 is the key verse to the understanding of the book of Proverbs and also the key to understanding life in general. The citing of this verse to you helps to amplify what I've been opining on to this point. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction." When we take away the very basis of knowledge of right and wrong, what can we expect to occur?

Well, I can tell you what to expect and I base my words here on the source that society seems to have chosen to ignore. First, we run the risk of finding ourselves in the same condition Hosea lamented about in Hos. 4:6: "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge..." But the kicker to that is the words that follow: "because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee..."

I'd like to refer you to a "woe" chapter in God's Word. No, it's not the 23^rd chapter of Matthew which is commonly referred to in that vein, but rather the 5^th chapter of Isaiah. And I encourage you to read the whole chapter, however I'm going to cite a few of its verses to you here that relate to our subject. Read with me these verses and see if they don't apply to what we're seeing in our society today.

    Verse 18: "Woe (what sorrow) unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity (ropes of lies) and sin as it were with a cart rope. As if to say that they are dragging their wickedness around behind them like a cart. Like they're proud of their sins.

    Verse 20: "Woe (what sorrow) it is for those that say evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter. (NLT)

    Verse 21: "Woe (what sorrow) unto them that are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight.

In closing, do you know that man is the only one of God's creatures that is capable of blushing, of being ashamed? The only creature to have been endowed with a conscience? In my humble opinion, I'm afraid that we, as a society, have just about worn that mechanism out. "Have we no shame?" Not much anymore, I'm afraid.

Ron Covey