Ganglineuropathy

That’s a two dollar word if ever I heard one!

 

It’s the medical name for a rare condition that renders a person desensitized to touch and physical sensation, and therefore incapable of feeling pain. Now that might appear to be a boon when a migraine is tearing the inside of your head out, or an abscess has ruptured deep beneath a molar, but what about when you trip over, and you realize that the shattered bone sticking out of your wrist is yours, or the smell of burning flesh is the only thing that alerts you to fact that your hand is resting on the hot-plate of a stove…. 

While this condition is very uncommon- most doctors will never treat anyone with ganglineuropathy- there is a parallel condition that manifests itself every day, in myriad situations …ganglineuropathy of the soul!

Depraved humanity is insensible to sin. Our unsaved family and friends can be cut, bruised, beaten, whipped, burned, tortured, and whatever else there is to do them harm, they can drink or drug themselves into a stupor, and yet they go on embracing the very thing which is killing them. What’s their problem? Unawareness of that God-hating, little word-SIN! Unaware and uncaring that their sin is killing them

Humankind has the thirst to dink sin like water… “How much more hateful and filthy is man, who drinks iniquity like water? Job 15:16 MKJV

The unredeemed are likened to filthy rags in their self-righteousness, yet they would swear that their clothing is the finest amongst of their fellows.

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. Isaiah 64:6 NIV

So many people boast that they are not like others, openly “blowing their own trumpets” … “Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a tax-collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed within himself in this way: God, I thank You that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. I fast twice on the Sabbath, I give tithes of all that I possess. Luke 18:10-12 MKJV… when in reality their prayers should be like those of the “tax-collector… “And standing afar off, the tax-collector would not even lift up his eyes to Heaven, but struck on his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner!’ Luke 18:13 MKJV

When a person has no sense of sin they are immune to seeking a cure for that malady. How can you convince a sinner that they are one, when they feel nothing?

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is the health of the daughter of my people not recovered? Jeremiah 8:22

What would cause someone to continue to live a life of sin rather than turn to God?

Most people fail to turn to God because they live in denial. Sooner than acknowledge their sin, many in Jeremiah’s day claimed their innocence, never admitting they had done anything wrong. Rather than repent of their wickedness, they asked, “What have I done?” Jeremiah 8:6. Many people today suffer from insensitivity to sin because of their denial of any wrongdoing.

Sadly humanity’s propensity to sin will carry countless millions into a Christ-less eternity… “And men were burned with great heat. And they blasphemed the name of God, He having authority over these plagues. And they did not repent in order to give Him glory”. Revelation 16:9 MKJV

And they blasphemed the God of Heaven because of their pains and their sores. And they did not repent of their deeds. Revelation 16:11 MKJV