Question: How do you eat an elephant?
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| Artwork courtesy of Sean Gallo @ https://seangallo.com |
Answer: One small bite at a time over a long period of time.
If a person had to eat an elephant in one big bite or all at one sitting it couldn’t be done. If you take small enough bites over a long period of time you could eat an entire elephant without even knowing it. This is exactly the tactic the devil uses to change a culture for the worse. He knows that if he were to introduce his plan all at once it would be outright rejected even by the most ungodly of us as being too extreme. But, if he introduces his plan in gradual steps people would accept it with little effort.
After gastric bypass surgery the stomach is left very small. A person having this surgery can only eat small amounts of food. With the drastic decrease in caloric intake the person loses weight quickly. This surgery only addresses the symptom, the added weight the person has. It does not address the real problem which is the fact that the person has an eating disorder where they eat more than they need. If the root cause of the problem is not addressed the surgery will only provide a temporary solution to the problem. The person will begin to eat just a little bit more, not enough to kill them but enough to stretch the stomach just a little. Now the person’s stomach can hold more so they eat a little more stretching the stomach just a little bit more again. Given enough time the stomach will return to its original size and the person will gain the weight they lost back and more.
Satan wishes to corrupt society and turn it away from God. He wants us to eat the elephant. He convinces the culture to push the limit of what is acceptable. Stretch that line just a little. When we have accepted and even embraced the change he gets us to stretch it some more. Given enough time something that was once considered morally reprehensible can become the norm to the point of being considered a human right. Take abortion as an example. At one point in our history no one would have supported killing an innocent baby growing in the womb. Now in our backward time it is considered a choice and even a woman’s reproductive right to do this horrid abomination.
How many people, even the avid prochoicers, would be on board with this if Satan had just come out at the beginning and said, “Sacrifice your children to me! Eat that elephant!” No way Jack. But when spoon fed one small bite over forty plus years half our population has eaten that elephant. A stomach once stretched can never return to its original size without drastic, long lasting change.
Not all change is bad. Any change that more deeply recognizes and respects a person’s dignity is indeed good and required. Any change that goes against the natural design God intended should be strongly fought and always resisted.
Don’t eat the elephant.