A Sobering View

Living in the midst of the moral decay that sometimes seems to define the 21st Century West it is easy, even for the most earnest Christian, to sometimes feel overwhelmed by the apparently irreversible catastrophe that was and is the fall of man. It seems increasingly difficult to perceive the final triumph of righteousness as we read the news of the day and witness the not so slow death of Western Christendom. This is made all the more difficult when we look at the Church herself and, for that matter, ourselves and see how we have often individually become more complicit than resistant to the degradation of the Judeo-Christian worldview in the wider culture.

We can lose heart at this moment in history if we are not careful; finding that trust in the transcendent truth of the redemption becomes harder every time another previously “given” moral assumption in our culture is rejected in favor of manifest ungodliness. It is not easy living in these last days, when the birth pangs heralding our Lord’s return are mixed in our consciousness with the prideful declarations of those who more and more revel in calling good, evil and evil, good. It is further appalling when we witness what Revelation prophesies about the apostasy of the end becoming more and more obvious in the decay of basic biblical values in the Church today.

How, we may wonder, will things ever be made right?

The fact of the matter is that things will not be “made right” in the sense of a comprehensive reclamation of our society in this dispensation. Certainly some kind of wide-spread revival in places like Europe and America remains possible even if it feels unlikely. It must remain possible as long as the God of the impossible tarries in bringing down the curtain on human history. But the kind of profound and permanent societal redemption that we long for in our best moments is one that can only come with the Second Advent of the Son of God….and it is time that those of us who claim to believe the Bible from cover to cover accept that. It is also time we realize that while God will never abandon His bride, the Church, it seems likely to be in the form of a remnant as far as those who profess to belong to the Lamb of God in our era. When Jesus Christ asked the question “Will I find faith when I return?” it is hard not to sense that he was referring to this generation, or one of its immediate successors.

You might think this unduly pessimistic, and the author must admit that a recent legal decision about what constitutes marriage in a U.S. state bordering his own hasn’t helped his attitude, but I think it not unbiblical to look at the signs of the times and come to sobering conclusions. Things are getting worse, much worse (in the Western world anyway) and it does us no good to hold to a sort of Pollyanna naiveté about this fact.

That said it must always be remembered that the sovereign God of the Universe will have His way in the end. It is also important to realize that, while our world today is anything but Heaven, our Lord is still here and still working His redemptive will even now. Despite the heretical teachings of a recent notorious American “Christian” media personality God has not abandoned his Church nor closed the books on human redemption. That book will not be closed until the truly biblical Day of Judgment comes visibly for all humankind.

In the meantime there is yet grace for those who Jesus Christ died for. There is still time to respond to his call to redemption from the sin that has left the human race spiritually dead. The time may indeed be growing short for what Hal Lindsey once called “The Late, Great Planet Earth”, but the pierced hands of the Son of Man remain open to all who call on His Name in sincerity of heart.

For both the Christian who feels the influence of the decay of his or her society, and the non-Christian who embodies it, hope remains, even as time grows short. Now is the time for the former to cry out to God for renewed trust, and the latter to cry out for salvation.