By: Louis Rushmore, Editor
Merriam-Webster defines “death,” in part, as: “1a: A permanent cessation of all vital functions…5:a The passing or destruction of something inanimate.” The same source provides some synonyms for “death,” “demise, doom, curtains, casualty, extermination, ending, killing, expiration and ruin.” “The Death of the Lady” herein corresponds to the cessation of vital function and the destruction of something inanimate and intangible, and yet, something manifested. This “death” relates to the demise, doom, ending, expiration and ruin of something precious in the sight of God. The word “lady” includes this meaning: “3:b A woman of refinement and gentle manners…” Synonyms for “lady” include, “madame, maiden, woman, girl, miss and damsel.”
There was time gone before when a lady was a woman who exhibited ladylike traits of blushing modesty, feminine reserve and moral discretion. While there have always been societal black sheep who skirted around common decency, hardly can a lady be found in our modern age. The image of a lady has for the most part simply died—dissolved and disappeared in our time. The death of the lady manifests itself variously today.
First, it is understandable that little girls, young women and older ones, too, may choose to wear slacks and similar clothes according to their activities and personal preferences. However, regularly wearing trousers of some sort may rob girls and women of the experience of preserving their modesty when wearing dresses or more revealing clothing. By and large, little girls have no sense of respectability when sitting, lying down, etc. when wearing a skirt, a dress or such clothing. Evidently, mothers—who themselves may not have been taught as children—are not teaching their girls to value and to preserve chaste decorum.
Secondly, attitudes of the modern female—any responsible age—have forsaken moral values of previous generations. Those attitudes are reflected in scantily clad, skin-baring clothes (i.e., sundresses, halter and tube tops, string and thong bikinis, breast-revealing swim tops, and nude profiles). In more recent years, leggings and tights that hug every curve and crevice with a thin layer of material are seen everywhere. It’s even become the thing to dispense with one’s undergarments so that nothing is left to the imagination, being only tinted some with a color. Apparently, most of womanhood today cannot blush. “‘Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed; Nor did they know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; At the time I punish them, They shall be cast down,’ says the Lord” (Jeremiah 6:15 NKJV).
Thirdly, moral values are not at all what they used to be and certainly not what God via the Holy Spirit conveyed to mankind in the Bible. Everyone living in the Gospel Age—now and since Acts 2 with the beginning of the church—ought to resort to the New Testament of Jesus Christ to learn and to practice biblical, God-approved morality. Yet, these days, premarital and extramarital sex is commonly engaged with no sense of remorse. It’s not that people generally are falling out of the morality wagon, but they were never in that wagon with which to begin. Mankind has arrived at the description of our time in the word “amorality.” Merriam-Webster’s first definition of “amoral” reads, “having or showing no concern about whether behavior is morally right or wrong.”
However, the inspired apostle Paul described in his epistles and enumerated kinds of sinful immorality (Romans 1:21–32; Ephesians 5:3–7; Colossians 3:5–9; 1 Timothy 1:9–10; 1 Peter 4:3).
Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19–21)
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11)
The apostle John recorded the words of Jesus in Revelation 21:8 and 22:15 whereby He condemned the same type of sinful behavior.
Among manifestations of defective moral values are pregnancies via unwed parents where neither of them feels the least sense of shame. Many women openly speak of “baby daddies,” often a different male partner for as many babies as they may have.
“The Death of the Lady” is complete! The “Roaring Twenties” of the 1920s began the decline of Victorian moral culture; youths were attributed with this evolution of moral decline. The 1960s and the 1970s saw the Cultural Revolution unfold with free sex, increased divorce rates, the legalization of abortion and the Supreme Court banning school prayer and removing God from the classroom. Traditional Christian ethics or morality was and has been increasingly banned from public demonstration. Similarly, religious groups in America began and continue to be more secularized and less appreciative of the Holy Scriptures. For decades, now, higher education has been entirely wrested from conservative and traditional moorings and thrust into the political and secular left. Western culture suffers from progressive and moral collapse!
There is only one rescue plan for mankind from impending doom when this life concludes. It’s called by some the plan or the scheme of redemption that appears upon the pages of inspiration—the Bible, and especially the New Testament. It’s well past time to get back to the Bible—Almighty God’s—man’s Creator’s operators’ manual for mankind. Only there will anyone find the way back to God and His morality, as well as to make preparation to meet God in the Judgment. “…Prepare to meet your God…” (Amos 4:12). An eternal separation is coming. “And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46).
