We have as a people experienced a lot in America over the past forty years or so....with gross corruption and crimes....and terrorist attacks both domestic and foreign. Socialism and anarchism and even communism have made inroads in a nation that is set to celebrate a 250 year anniversary. Our culture just totally collapsed. Billionaires are everywhere....not only a new ruling class....but in essence a new governmental class. It appears that the printing press and the entire Industrial Revolution will be dwarfed in its societal changing effects by the horror of all horrors in artificial intelligence....of which we are loving because it occupies our no longer exercised minds. All is truly lost....not only in America but in the entire world.
There are no award ceremonies that make any sense anymore for they are all political. Sport no longer has anything to do with character building....for money and greed has taken over everything....from paying college athletes....to hundred-million dollar contracts for professionals. Whereas sport once only flirted with idolatry....from a Christian perspective....it is now our own Areopagus....with monuments to our own pantheon of gods.
Debate is gone....for how can one debate when truth is no longer of any consequence? Conversation has been replaced by pep rallies. The image has entirely replaced the word....except when the word is used in attacking others effectively using the word.
The evangelical church is not even a shell of what it once was only forty years ago. The gospel is almost gone.....replaced by political issues....and the preaching lacks conviction....and mortification....nor does it prostrate itself before the holiness of God. No one has to be born again anymore. We don't have time to be born again when....as we have prioritized....that we need to make our country great again....but in reality we do not even know what the word 'great' might mean.
God has taken all of our leaders....and left us utterly leaderless....both in the church and in the government. We have no shepherd on a national level....such as was Billy Graham....to warn us....no Sproul or MacArthur....or even Phil Robertson. Christian bookstores are gone....that were once a wonderful brick & mortar town crier....heavenly libraries....replaced by crass podcasts of ministries that winter in warmer climates. If there is anything solid and edifying left on Christian television....it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack to find. Christian music no longer has the lyrics that cause us to think and then lead us to worship....as they are now replaced by the harmonic mesmerizing that has us worshiping....in essence....ourselves. Our youth flock to passion extravaganzas when not passion political conventions.
There is no rule of law today. The man in the White House has lived his entire life above the law....one step ahead of the law....yet today he can look us in the eye....(well he never really looks us in the eye....as he is always looking into a teleprompter).....and tell us as he purges all those who utterly refuse to bow down to him....that no one is above the law! And amazingly....we believe it....which in itself has to be part of the great delusion that God's Word warned us about!
Forty years ago in the church we would quote 1 Peter 4:17...."For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God..." We knew it was coming. We thought it would be in other parts of the church....the liberal church....but it has turned out to be us....right smack dab in the middle of evangelicalism! We warned of false prophets back then....forty years ago....it was almost common conversation....but as it turns out....we were the ones who fell hook....line....and sinker for the biggest of the false prophets!
Ultimately....as it all turns out....Jesus is near....look out your window into the sky....it is that close....and not only do we not know that....but we don't even care....nor would we really want that....for we are more interested in the second half of the football season....the playoffs and bowl games.....than the Second Coming of the one who all of the mighty angels of heaven....cannot stop praising!
Please listen to the warning given by John MacArthur in the video below.
The above graphic is used today....but the below graphic is what was originally used over forty years ago.
