Suicidal Empathy

Suicidal Empathy

Written by Dale Ebel

A guy wrote me responding to my last teaching, “Keeping our Liberty,” saying he bought several books and is giving them out. Will you do the same?

Hang on gang, this teaching is for the courageous!

My definition of the title of this article, “Suicidal Empathy,” is this: under a false understanding of empathy, we as Americans are allowing indiscriminate immigration, in many cases because of a false understanding of compassion for those less fortunate. The result: we are, in essence, committing national suicide.

The flap cover for the book How France Was Lost, by Jenn-Marie Legarders, gives this rather sobering introduction:

Europeans already know in their bones but are forbidden to say out loud that France’s unconditional immigration policy and its phantom model of integration have fractured a civilization—the window for democratic recovery is closing fast, if it has not closed already.

The word empathy is not in the Bible, but the closest meaning in Scripture would be “compassion.” Empathy in the dictionary means “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.”

The Greek and Hebrew words for “compassion” mean to feel sympathy, to pity someone in need. To feel for someone is different from actually doing something for someone to ease their pain or predicament. Regarding immigration, we can sympathize with someone, but to break the law of the land—illegal immigration—is to misapply compassion or empathy, especially when it comes to national policy. The first role of government is to protect its citizens, not to jeopardize our security (Romans 13:1-8).

On an individual basis, I have empathy and compassion almost every week for someone, but I do not help everyone—that is impossible for any of us to do. Do we have the capacity to help everyone? Do we expect any nation to take care of the whole world? This is a form of globalism, which in practical terms is impossible to practice by its own definition.

You will find a very helpful article I wrote a few years ago about how God desires there to be individual nations; in fact, there will be individual nations in the final New Heavens and New Earth! Pretty wonderfully illuminating if you ask me 😀 Below is the article I am referencing.

May 18, 2022, “Is World Unity a Biblical Idea?”

I’ve added two more articles also from page 7 of www.daleebel.org. I’d enjoy your biblical comments after you read one or two.

May 2, 2022, “I’ve Been Thinking About Unity” May 11, 2022, “Biblical Unity in the Case for Biblical Disunity”

A Rather Odd Command

[Deuteronomy 30:19-20 ESV] 19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore, choose life, that you and your offspring may live, 20 loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for He is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

This commandment to choose life rather than death must have struck many readers throughout history, including me, as strange—if given the choice between life and death, who would choose death? Who would choose curses over blessing? The great lesson here is that virtually everything in life is a choice. To name a few: marriage is a choice, having children is a choice, happiness is a choice.

God is telling us that life is a choice: we must choose to live. It is largely instinctive for individuals to choose life, but Moses’s admonition is to the nation (his use of the word “you” is plural). Whether a nation lives or dies is often a choice, and many modern nations have not chosen to live. Half the nations of the world have decreasing populations because they are not reproducing at even a replacement rate, let alone a growth rate—and this is directly related to their increasing secularism (the lack of practicing a religion) and to the indiscriminate empathy expressed through unbridled immigration. The more secular a society becomes, the fewer children it has. The countries with left-leaning policies are, in essence, the prime countries in decline.

Religious individuals in these countries have far more children than secular individuals. The present immigration challenge is that the overwhelming number of Muslims entering these countries have a birth rate two to three times greater than that of the population they are immigrating to.

My article listed below will be helpful if you wish to learn more about this vital subject. Please look for my article on my blog, www.daleebel.org, page 10, “Leaving a Carbon Footprint?” dated April 6, 2019. An amazing book by Mark Steyn, America Alone, is far-reaching regarding population trends on a global level.

Essentially, if you want to know the future of any country, you don’t have to look any further than demographics.

For America, a rather easy solution regarding immigration:

1. Only allow legal immigrants who can support, and are willing to support, themselves.
2. They must learn our language and come under the authority of our Constitution.
3. Elect leaders who believe in closing our borders to illegal immigrants.

A Couple of Astonishing Verses

[Lamentations 4:12-13 NLT] 12 Not a king in all the earth—no one in all the world—would have believed that an enemy could march through the gates of Jerusalem. 13 Yet it happened because of the sins of her prophets and the sins of her priests, who defiled the city by shedding innocent blood.

My brief explanation of the verses above

In Lamentations 4:11-16, God is punishing Jerusalem because the religious leaders were not teaching all aspects of the Torah and were not warning or rebuking either themselves or God’s covenant people. Jerusalem’s judgment is in the context of the “Day of the Lord,” a period of severe judgment by God with hope of restoration if the people repent (Deuteronomy 30:8-9). When judgment takes place, the innocent are not exonerated or saved. Generally, as the leaders go, so goes the nation. This is why it is crucial for America to select leaders with courage and candidates with as much of a biblical moral compass as possible.

The leading trait of an elected individual in Exodus 18:21 is COURAGE!

[Exodus 18:21 KJV] 21 Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place [such] over them, [to be] rulers of thousands, [and] rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:

The Hebrew word for “able” is “hayil,” and it means “men of valor,” which conveys bravery, courage, and fearlessness!

Babylon served as God’s instrument in carrying out the task of judgment. Jerusalem had stood despite invasions by Egypt and Assyria, so it must have been a surprise to those who heard that it had fallen. Lamentations 4:13 describes the failure of the prophets of God to warn and rebuke the people, because they failed to teach them God’s words, specifically the Torah. By teaching and understanding the Pentateuch, the people would have seen the blessings and the curses for their behaviors. They could have avoided the wrath of God by making wise choices according to the Word of God.

[Lamentations 4:6 ESV] 6 For the chastisement of the daughter of my people has been greater than the punishment of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, and no hands were wrung for her.

The city of Sodom, destroyed by burning sulfur from heaven because of its wickedness, became a symbol of God’s ultimate judgment. Yet the guilt of Jerusalem was even greater than that of Sodom! Jeremiah wasn’t comparing sins but acknowledging that Sodom had few of the advantages and blessings that the people of Jerusalem had enjoyed from God. Jerusalem was turning away despite the city’s countless God-given benefits.

I believe there is what I call primary judgment and progressing judgment.

Primary Judgment

This is judgment directly from God. Judgment by Yahweh-M’Kaddesh (the God who is Holy) can be demonstrated by catastrophic ecological occurrences, floods, famines, and invasions from foreign powers. Be careful, America—Are we aware that Islam is in our midst!

Progressing  Judgments are usually the consequences of our unwise decisions. Examples include:

1. the selection of misguided and foolish leaders who accept deviant lifestyles, and the acceptance of culturally sanctioned personal behaviors that have gone awry, such as:
2. abortion
3. gluttony
4. associating with bad company
5. practicing immorality
6. wrong choices, like excessive drinking of alcohol, misuse of drugs, and wrong dietary practices

In many cases, God simply lets us experience the consequences of our own choices by breaking God’s and Christ’s commands. It is really not that mystifying.

Friends, draw your own conclusions—but I believe we are experiencing the progressing  judgment of God in America.

Like I’ve said over the years, it’s time to say 

“America, Bless God,” instead of only “God Bless America!”

Yahweh-Jireh (the God who Provides) has blessed (rewarded) America! He has provided the huge benefits of liberty and freedom, based on the Judeo-Christian ethic of our founding fathers and our founding documents. He has given us freedom in Christ and is willing to forgive us when we repent. I don’t need to sugarcoat it—we, including me, most of the time simply need to obey. Oh, by the way, most of these righteous behaviors are listed in the magnificent Torah. They are not legalistic commands but liberating, life-giving instructions! 💪

Friends, this is massively sobering and convicting.

Not only does a man’s morality dictate his ideology/theology, but a man’s ideology/theology also dictates his moral behavior. 

What is true of individuals is also true of nations.

Ah, the Role of Pastors

[Jeremiah 5:30-31 ESV] 30 An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: 31 the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule at their direction; my people love to have it so, but what will you do when the end comes?

From the verses above, we discover that the prophets and the priests were neglecting their responsibility to accurately teach the Word (Torah) of God. As a former pastor, I include pastors as God’s present-day priests. Rather than one correcting the other, they reinforced each other. And rather than challenging the prophets, priests, and present-day pastors, the people also reinforced their sins of biblical neglect. Many congregations crave such false and watered-down teaching, but it is destroying us if we continue to accept these incomplete messages. Come on, gang, we are the paying customers. Expect accurate Biblical teaching from your leaders.

Erosion Is Gradual, But When It Has Run Its Course, It Springs Like a Trap

False ideologies impacting our country and thus accelerating suicide:

• Indiscriminate immigration
• All truth is relative
• Woke ideologies like: a. Black Lives Matter b. transgenderism c. homosexuality
• Envy, not emulation, of the rich—the belief that “you didn’t make your millions, you stole them”
• Socialism, which eventually leads to communism
• False explanations of America’s Judeo-Christian roots. We might not believe that America was established on the Judeo-Christian ethic, but we at least need to be honest about it. Any unbiased reader of the actual history of America will understand the foundations of this great Republic.
• Culturally adjusted sermons in evangelical churches that reject the whole counsel of God, including the Book of the Covenant (OT)
• Empathy gone awry under the banner of the “New Tolerance” and a wrong definition of love

Here is what you can do with this information:

1. Send this to your friends and ask for their biblical response to the content.
2. Study the Scriptures and the context referenced throughout this teaching.
3. Read the four articles I wrote and share your biblical thoughts with others and with me.
4. Vote for candidates and the political parties that espouse policies to keep the borders closed to illegal immigrants.
5. Use the Names of God while talking to others. I will provide a list if you would like.
6. Ask your pastor to read this and ask for their response. Many people are doing this.

Attempting to move the needle toward righteousness with you!

In Christ,

Dale