Cleaning Up the Mess
The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (deceitful riches, money, possessions, or whatever is trusted in – The Amplified Bible). – Matthew 6:22-24 NKJV.
“Mackerel in the Moonlight” is the title of a book published in 2004. There is also a book, “Mackerel by Moonlight” published in 1998; both books are about corruption in politics. I heard about the book while I was watching a news program at the time and the newscasters were wondering why it was called that; the weatherman said it sounded better than, “Flounder in the Floodlight!” The statement “Mackerel in the Moonlight” was once used by a politician in describing corruption. He used it that way because a Mackerel laying on the shore in the moonlight would appear to be glimmering and shiny, but upon closer examination you would find that it was rotting and smelled.
We look around at this world we live in, and we can see many of those Mackerels in the Moonlight. There are a vast number of those Mackerels in the political world with so many politicians willing say anything and do anything to be elected without any intention of actually doing what they have promised. However, it is not just the political world that abounds with Mackerels, because nearly every area of life from business to personal has a share of Mackerels in the Moonlight.
One psychological study I read about claimed that living in the American society caused mental illness. It was based upon studying people who moved from Mexico to the United States. Our way of life in the United States appears to be great, but there are some of the Mackerels lying around. There is so much of the material world that is available for purchase. To keep up with your neighbors you need to have a new car or two. Your clothes need to look nice, and it may be that you will need a new house to keep up with your friends. The pressure is on! You need to make more and more to buy more and more. And, if you can’t make more and more then you feel worse and worse.
Jesus brings this to a very personal level when He says, “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” If your conscience goes bad you will become like a rotting, stinking fish. Because when our master is “mammon” we continually choose whatever it takes to get more of what the world has to offer. As a result, our “light” grows dimmer and dimmer until we become like that proverbial, “Mackerel in the Moonlight.” You may look good on the outside to your friends and neighbors, but inside if your master is “mammon” you will become a rotten, stinking mess.
If you read this, and know that God is speaking to you about your life, the good news is that it is not too late to change. Your “light” has not become too dim to be convicted of your need for a new master, and now is the time to change. Put God first (Matthew 6:33) in your life, and make Him your master in every area of your life, because that is the only way to clean up the mess. It is also the only way for a country with a mackerel problem to be cleaned up.
(When you have a moral mess on your hands the only way to clean it up is to put God first.)