You will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. (Matthew 24:6 NLT)It is a rough world, that is a fact. And it can be scary, especially when you see the influence of Christianity that has been so strong in America waning.
We have gotten so used to Christianity being dominant in our culture that when we see it going away, it is a bit frightening.
And it is frightening to our culture, too, even though they do not recognize it.
I have seen two violent altercations in a neighborhood McDonald’s on the news and YouTube lately. A group of teenagers beat up somebody else for some reason.
That seems to be symptomatic and representative of our culture at the same time. If you read the news much, you see incident after incident like that happening.
It is easy to say, God is gone! We are doomed!
But he isn’t and we are not. It is just that our culture no longer polices itself the way it used to. God is still here and he is still in charge. However, when people want to do what they want to do, he will allow it.
All we can do is to preach him and teach him and, as one old preacher said, if necessary use words. We can only live in such a way that two things happen. One is that people see his love and power in our lives and two, we put to shame those who do wrong.
Now admittedly, the kids who did these things are not really sorry. They are sorry they got caught and that everybody saw them, but on the other hand, they are also glad everybody saw them. It gave them a notoriety they could never have achieved in their miserable little lives otherwise.
Andy Warhol said that sooner or later, everybody gets their fifteen minutes of fame. Theirs is now. It will be gone and life will continue.
But these things will continue to happen and God will still be here.
Like Jesus said Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. Stuff is going to happen, Jesus says, but it is because that is the way people do. It is human nature. And when God is taken out of the equation, human nature rules. When it rules, things are bad.
But God is still in charge. And he will triumph in the end.
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