Violent terrorists behead, rape, crucify, and barbarically murder everyone who disagrees with them.
Weather disasters seem to increase, leading some to speculate about global warming and others to talk about God's judgment.
Children murder children and do so at younger and younger ages.
Increasingly, public school students are forbidden any kind of expression of Christian faith.
It is now considered "hate speech" to call homosexuality a sin.
It seems more popular to "come out" as having a same-sex orientation than it is to "come out" as serious about following Jesus Christ.
In more and more public settings, students and others are compelled to say or do nothing to offend Muslims.
Things like abortion and sex outside of marriage are considered morally okay.
The Problem
We can continue with examples like this. Whenever I have visited public schools because of an event or meeting on my daughter, I have noticed that there is nothing that could be construed as moral or religious in the literature or anywhere in hall ways or classrooms. The same holds true in any public building. Yet these very same public facilities discourage any expression that deviates from political correctness. That includes even moral or religious expression. Yes, we in the West ought to be very grateful that we are not suffering the severe, physical persecution, oppression, violence, even death, that Christians and other religious minorities so often suffer in closed countries and hostile areas all over the world. Yet we have our enemies that we cannot see or feel, but that are just as real and that prove just as devastating to individuals, marriages, and society in general. I refer to things like consumerism, materialism, traditionalism, humanism, relativism, individualism, and secularism. Internalizing things like this affect how we see the world, each other and ourselves. And they affect the way we see and relate to Almighty God.
An Example
There is one specific example. It is the evolution and changes in how much of our culture, including in much of the Church in the West, have come to see homosexuality. Now I know that many, many people love to point out that "Jesus Christ "said nothing" about homosexuality. Yet there were many other sins that He never mentioned by name, such as pedophilia, domestic violence, child abuse, drug abuse, human trafficking, and so on. Yet we never would argue that Jesus condones those acts! Homosexuality is mentioned in other parts of the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 6: 9, we read "Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders (emphasis mine)... will inherit the Kingdom of God." (NIV). The first chapter of the Epistle of Romans tells us that the acceptance of homosexuality, among other acts, signals God's judgment on a culture. "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion" (Romans 1:26-27, NIV). Now I know that people with same sex orientations are now considered as a protected minority group, and homosexuality an "alternative lifestyle." Also accepted as normal, and even good, are abortion and sex outside of marriage "as long as we love each other." The acceptance of things once considered immoral and called sins in the Bible, is the result of something called relativism. Relativism is the idea that there are no absolute right and wrong, only what we want to define as our own morality. It is a slippery slope, as anything can, like marriage and the family, be redefined. In the meantime, as we seek to maintain political correctness, much of the rest of the world outside the West fight physical enemies like war, violence, hunger, extreme poverty, oppression, and religious persecution. There is a profound disconnect between how they see things and how we see them.
Is There Anything To the End Times Predictions?
As many people in the Christian community survey the current social and moral climate, they declare that we are living in "the end times." They take note of the increase in terrorism against religious minorities, especially Christians. They take note of how we have redefined marriage and the family and have made abortion a "reproductive right" of women and rather than a matter of protecting the unborn. They see morality constantly sliding downhill in the West, even as persecution in the rest of the world waxes worse and worse and threatens to come to our shores. The Bible does tell us that in the Last days, evil people will "wax worse and worse." This seems to be happening. But in every age, people have believed that they were living "in the end times." I do not think that we can declare with certainty that we are living in the Last times. We should be concerned about these things because we should be concerned about people, but I don't think we can say we are indeed living in the end times. Remember that it is said: "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3: 8-9, NIV).
Are you one of those whom God is waiting for?
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