The Age in Which We Live

“They don’t look well coached,” I said to myself as I watched one of my favorite basketball teams fumble around and for about 3/4 of the game seem headed to defeat, against what was obviously a well coached but inferior talented team. My team did finally win the game, but they had an overall look like they were going to pull some dumb act near the end and lose it after all. So, what do I care and who made me to be a big critic? Haven’t been called to criticize any games yet, but I do care. 

In this post-covid, NIL, transfer protocoled world of collegiate athletics, there is a multitude of transfers and 5th and even 6th year eligibility allowances. College kids have gone from mostly 18-19 year olds to 22-23 year olds with loads of experience. Yet, the teams are seldom looking like well-coached kids! That’s cause they’re not. But, I don’t think it’s all the coaches; It is the age and experiences of these players. The players won’t just receive the instructions as a younger kid would. Because of NIL (name, image, likeness) belonging specifically to themselves, they’re just not as “hungry” to get out of college and have to make it as a pro.

For many years now, I’ve been in favor of college scholarship players being able to make or receive some money as they played. There have been many players on full scholarship to play their sport, but had no money from home and were reduced to poverty amongst the campus crowd, leaving them unable to socialize or just do normal student activities because they had no way of “earning” any money on their own. But, the “pandora’s box” has been opened and somehow NIL looks so lucrative that some players hang around until reason says they should be out in the work-a-day world instead of depriving good freshmen college student athletes their scholarship chances.

But the world of college sports will evolve even more to the “paid” player milieu, once they and their future sports agent figures out how to milk the cash cows. Athletic Directors will probably become more business oriented than academia (some would say they already are) and guidance counsellors will become liaison officers between the individual athletes and their pursuers. 

Isn’t it interesting the manner in which massive changes in our living environs just seem to come about? A child declaring emancipation, or declaring a change in their very nature, the insistence being foisted toward us just to accept something as radical as gender change or at least not see it as abhorrent; these things are radical, not a new normal. Oh, my.

“… some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils 

Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats,”

and also,

“For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,

Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,

Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

The above two quotations are from the two books (1 Tim.4 & 2 Tim.3) of the Bible which were written as instructions to teachers, for the fear of people who once were listening to true guidance would wind up leaving truth and ascribing to a fictitious manner of life. They are extremely heretical descriptions of what would happen to, yes, even believers in the “last days” before the next biblically prophesied event. How far do you think we are from it? To answer this question start by asking “where is truth?” and very carefully notice the answers you receive. Then, “examine yourself,” as the bible I’ve quoted above instructs us all to do.

The perfidious manner which has come upon us has a root cause, or should I say a root mind, the mind of someone not often spoken of in today’s world, even in religious circles for fear of criticism. Well, yes, if you speak of Satan’s influence in the world around us today you are often excoriated to denouncement! “No one will listen to you any more,” a friend once told me. Satan—also known by some as the devil, even some as Lucifer, fewer yet know him as being “a liar and the father of it,”—he doesn’t like being exposed. But, he’s there, and he has an innumerable squad of minions carrying forth his every evil thought. 

I personally characterize the evil one as centered on these three diabolical traits: he never sleeps, he does not care who he hurts, and he’s smarter than us. He’s not to be honored for his powers, but he is to be feared. We’re instructed continually in the 27 books of the New Testament on how to “not be ignorant of his devices.” In other words, we should learn how to recognize them. How many things come our way which we don’t see them as coming from this evil source? I suspect it is a daily bombardment. 

But our defense begins with this admonition: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”—that is a secured future standing. Follow this up with “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” Keeping in mind if we can study by “rightly dividing,” we could slip into “wrongly dividing,” too. How do you think we wound up with all these denominations?

Thanks for reading, The Elder