Satisfying the Desire for Eternity

There is something peculiarly attractive about someone who lives a genuinely holy life. Even as a child I was drawn to like certain people – people who, later in life, I recognised as having that remarkable Moses-like quality, whose face shone because he had been in the presence of the Lord (Exodus 34:35).

Even the world at large recognises and respects this sort of quality in – Jesus is admired by the majority, even of other religions, but not generally followed. For there is something in the heart of all men and women that wants to find a reflection of the eternity that God has placed in their hearts (Eccles.3:11). The previously unbelieving man, who wrote the BBC’s nativity drama last Christmas, said that when he read the words of Jesus he found them to be the most truthful things he had ever read!

Real holiness is attractive, even if it’s unpopular for everyone else! For the majority of people the price of holiness is too high, even though Scripture encourages us to believe that there is a direct correlation between holiness and happiness.

So, in these days, the western regions of the world, in particular, are rushing headlong into the much more popular political correctness of secular state jurisdictions, with no respect for godly morality or the boundaries that morality introduces. But there is still a spiritual vacuum in the heart of man, and the enemy is using that God-given desire for the spiritual things of life to lead people into manifold deceptions.

We see it in almost every magazine and newspaper under the sun, as the spiritual aspirations of many of our generation are absorbed in increasingly bizarre New-Age beliefs and activities, and in an anything-goes falseness, where everything’s OK if it’s OK for you! Satan has done what he’s always done well. He’s substituted a lie for the truth and persuaded people that believing the lie is good for them. It doesn’t matter what the lie is – as long as people are not discovering THE Truth, he’s happy for them to believe it.

But what happens when those who are thoroughly sick of the societal consequences of moral collapse – especially in the areas of relationships and sexuality – look for an alternative to the mess which has become the daily fodder of our tabloid newspapers and gossip magazines? It would be nice to think that they would be flocking back to the Church.

Last week one of our team had a routine visit from the representative of a local hearing clinic. As part of the conversation he told the young English lady what Ellel Ministries is all about. “Oh”, she replied, “I’m a Muslim.”  There then followed a good and very interesting conversation and she left with an Ellel Handbook!

This young lady is one of many. Another checked my passport at immigration the last time I flew back into England. Statistics tell us that in 2010 well over 100,000 British people converted to Islam. Their average age was 27-28 and the majority were women. A recent newspaper report on these findings stated that the majority of these found Islam attractive because it offered them a form of morality that is missing from our hedonistic and increasingly godless society.

They were wanting to satisfy that inner desire that was in their hearts – they were looking for a reflection of the eternity within. They wanted emotional and moral security, something that they felt the rigidity of Islam offered them.

Many, having run from the deceptions of the New Age or the extremes of amorality and immorality, have, sadly, now bought into another alternative for THE Truth.

How do we respond to situations like this?  Let me encourage you. In Elijah’s day there were still 7,000 who hadn’t bowed the knee to Baal! My personal intercession is not just to pray a general prayer for our nations, but to pray that God will stir up that secret army of believers in the nations – the modern day equivalent of Elijah’s 7,000 – to become the intercessors for their generation and the succeeding generations. It is not too late.

I’m praying that God will have them on their spiritual knees, humbling themselves before our holy God, crying out for mercy and that the tidal flow of people who are looking for real answers will start once again to flow back into the Body of Christ, and that the Body of Christ will rise up ‘like a mighty army’ and do battle in the heavenlies for the peoples of our nations.

Oh how I pray that the day may come when the peoples of our nations will once again discover that there is only one person who can satisfy the desire for eternity in the heart of man – and that is the Man who came into time from eternity. Only Jesus can redeem us out of the hand of the enemy, and set us free from believing the lies that the enemy has sown in the hearts of men and women.