“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). I think we can all agree that we are living in perilous times. Domestically, we have political parties that act like mortal enemies intent on destroying one another with no regard for the value of debate to find common ground. Gangs of unruly thugs roam the streets of our most prized cities, looting stores of millions of dollars’ worth of merchandise. We have boys who think they are girls and win that gender’s medals, girls who think they are boys and win no medals, and kids who think they are everything from a kitten to a unicorn.
Traditional marriages and families are frowned upon, and millions of innocent children are raised in dysfunctional homes, often without fathers to guide them. We also have an unprecedented influx of illegal immigrants that is straining all our resources, and the legalization of harmful drugs is exasperating homelessness and crime. On the international stage, things are no different. There is political unrest in Europe as migrants run riot through the streets of its greatest cities, burning whatever they can and demanding compensation for illegally crossing the border. Of course, there is the war between Russia and Ukraine, the war between Israel and Hamas, with Turkey, Hezbollah, and Iran itching to join, what seems to be an imminent invasion of Taiwan by China, and countless other minor conflicts around the globe. The world’s economies are floundering, wages are stagnant, inflation is causing interest rates to skyrocket, and many people are losing their cars and homes, unable to sustain the substantially higher payments.
Amidst all of this chaos, there are the “end time prophets” who look to the Israeli-Hamas conflict and claim the words of Luke 21:24 are a dark prophecy that is coming true right now, “They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.” Others believe that the present drying up of the Nile River is prophesied in Isaiah 19:5-6, “And the waters of the sea will be dried up, and the river will be dry and parched, 6. and its canals will become foul, and the branches of Egypt’s Nile will diminish and dry up, reeds and rushes will rot away.” They and others also point to Revelation 16:12, claiming that it is the fulfillment of a Bible prophecy for the Euphrates River drying up – “The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, to prepare the way for the kings from the east.”
And, then, there is the shrinking church. Fewer young people are identifying with the gospel message, and churches worldwide are seeing the result of that by the diminishing numbers of attendees. Unfortunately, the Lord’s church is not immune to that, and we are or should be, concerned about declining numbers as well. The weight of the world’s persecution is too much for some to bear, and for others, the world has convinced them that the lifestyle they seek should take precedence over obedience to the will of God. The predictable result is that they resist any form of religious moral instruction.
Take all of that, the weather-related disasters like floods, hurricanes, fires, earthquakes, and things of that nature, and the future looks pretty bleak. Whether we agree with the end-time prophets or not, everything that is happening in the world is making Christians and non-Christians alike nervous, to say the least. As tensions rise nationally and internationally at an unprecedented rate, one is left wondering what lies ahead for us. Are we one event, one button press away from a global catastrophe that spells, at best, a return to the stone dark ages or, at worst, the end of mankind? (TBC)
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