"With one of the highest GDPs per capita at $55,815 in 2019, only 9% of respondents in Sweden agreed that God is necessary to be moral and have good values." .. Pew research analysts Christine Tamir, Aidan Connaughton and Ariana Monique Salazar

During the last-half of 2019, Pew Research polled a broad spectrum of 38,426 people in 34 countries and determined that the clear majority of those respondents no longer consider God to be necessary in their lives to order to live a good and moral life.

In particular, 54% of the United States respondents expressed the same opinion. How anyone can judge "a good and moral" life without the absolutes of the Lord's Word as the measuring line is beyond me, however, I would like to re-visit the times of the old ones of Israel with a poem to somewhat define what could easily be the accountability in today's times for one who dismisses both the sovereignty of God and the salvation that is through His Son.

Of The Presence Divine - a poem

"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, .." Romans 1:20 NKJV

Did certain of the old ones
look to the stars in the heavens
and see a work divine?
The wonderous handcraft
of a single Supreme Being?

And as they felt the increasing heat
of the winter sun as it swung
back toward the spring,
did they see a Divine Plan
within the span of the seasons?

Or when they inhaled
the sweet smell of rain
that awakens both blade and blossom,
did they see a Divine Provision?

As they pondered the wonder
of the breath of all life,
or that of a seed unfolding into an oak,
did they feel that a Divine Presence
was incremental in all things?

If they did, they would be moved to respond
with praise and song for their Creator.
but if they did not,
they were at enmity with their Creator,
without excuse.

From those days of old, so long ago,
until these days of the Church Age,
things have not changed.
Half of the world sees a Divine Presence*
in all of the things they experience,
while the other half sees nothing but themselves.

Hebrew text: Qoneh shamayim wa’arets - (God as being Possessor or Creator of heaven and earth") - Genesis 14:19 KJV

Rik Charbonneaux is a retired NE Iowan who loves all of God's Word and all of His creatures.