Is There Something Rotten in Our Cellar?

by Colleen Donahue

INFESTATION IN THE CELLAR

Hannah Whitehall Smith - the Quaker woman who wrote the classic book: "The Christian Secret of a Happy Life" -- tells a story about moving into a new home with her husband. An old sealed barrel happened to have been left in the cellar. It was heavy and tight shut. Hannah wanted to open it and get it out of the house but the difficulty of it made her hesitate, procrastinate and finally forget it was there.

Hannah was enjoying her new home and loved to keep it spotless. But some months after moving in she began to find moths --- moths in the furniture, moths in the closets, moths were appearing everywhere. She cleaned the carpets, cleaned the drapes, and cleaned the stuffed furniture. Nothing helped.

Finally she prayed and God brought to her mind the sealed barrel in the basement. Without delay she headed down the stairs with a crow bar and pried the cover off. Out flew tens of thousands of moths to infest the house. Her beautiful home on the outside had a proliferating infestation in the cellar.

COULD AMERICA HAVE AN INFESTATION IN THE CELLAR?

On the surface the country is humming along. Unemployment is down, and business has picked up in the past few years. But according to recent reports suicide rates are up. Legalized drugs and opioid addictions are at epidemic levels. Both are tearing lives apart, families apart and eventually they will tear the country apart.

Going on in the cellar are deals being made with the Saudi's whose prince ordered the gruesome death of Jamal Khashoggi -- a Saudi journalist living in America. The rationale? -- We need the relationship because it benefits us economically and tactically. We are receiving benefits at the expense of mortal sin and turning a blind eye to it.

Our charge by God to take care of this earth is being undermined on a daily basis with protective environmental regulations being rolled back and a new push to drill for oil in the last great frontier of Alaska.

There are many things lurking in the cellar of America that will eventually destroy us from within. We have an obligation to walk in truth for our own lives but also to speak to the issues going on in our cellar by voting in leaders with the courage to address the proliferating evils lurking there. The first step is recognizing that they are there.

We live in deception to think that when the outside looks good the inside is good. Can the saying, "There's something rotten in the state of Denmark" now be said of us?