Rex M Rogers - Discerning What Is Best

Discerning What Is Best
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Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 22 February 2023

Is the revival that seems once again to have started on Christian university campuses real, genuine, God-ordained, and will it ultimately make a spiritual impact?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #71 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Revival on college and university campuses are not new to American history. But in the current post-Christian culture one no longer expects it.

That said, revival services started this month at Asbury University, Wilmore, Kentucky. “Impromptu nonstop prayer meeting over the past week, drawing visitors from across the country, attracting millions of views on social media and fueling talk of a nationwide religious revival.”

Scripture reading, public prayers, confessions, arms raised, worship singing, some students being saved by making professions of faith in Christ.

“Personal testimonies have gone viral on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, racking up millions of views and inspiring carloads of visitors to descend on Wilmore, population 6,000, to share in what some are calling a movement.”

The movement has spread to other Christian institutions of higher learning: “Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee; Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio; Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg, Kentucky.” Also, revival has now been reported at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama and Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Kentucky.

“What is happening resembles the famous Asbury Revival of 1970…That revival shut down classes for a week, then went on for two more weeks with nightly services. Hundreds of students went out to share what happened with other schools. But what many don’t realize is that Asbury has an even more extensive history with revivals—including one that took place as early as 1905 and another as recent as 2006, when a student chapel led to four days of continuous worship, prayer and praise.”

The fact of these revivals seems to fly in the face of recent predictions suggesting Christian colleges and universities may soon be a thing of the past.

John Hawthorne, a retired Christian college sociology professor and administrator, said, “Denominations won’t budge, so colleges will need to lead the way. “Otherwise, they might not survive, because students are used to values far different from churches’ teachings.”

’Today’s college freshman was born in 2004, the year Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage,’ Hawthorne said, suggesting there might not be enough conservative students in the future for some of the universities to survive.

“The majority of Christian colleges and universities list “sexual orientation” in their nondiscrimination statements, and half also include “gender identity” – far more than did so in 2013,” according to Jonathan Coley, a sociologist at Oklahoma State University who maintains a Christian higher education database of policies toward LGBTQ students.

“At some evangelical schools, the argument has now moved from fighting over student's sexual and gender equality to fighting for LGBTQ diversity in faculty and staff hiring.”

“This year, Eastern University, located in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, and affiliated with American Baptist Churches USA, amended its policies to allow for the hiring of faculty in same-sex marriages.”

So, in this view, Christian colleges and universities who don’t “get on the right side of history” and alter or jettison their biblical beliefs about human sexuality are likely to fade into the sunset very soon. Meanwhile, God may have other things in mind.

“People and media have been converging on the (Asbury) campus to try and understand what is happening; what is God doing?...Among those who have attended, who are believers, there seems to be little doubt the hand of the Holy Spirit is at work. The revival began without any famous Christian leader or band being involved. It was not pre-promoted.”

William M. Wilson, president of Oral Roberts University, said, “The revival is helping fill a spiritual void among members of Generation Z.” In his view, “these young people are feeling in their life this spiritual vacuum, somewhat of an emptiness in the society they’re in and a real need for hope.”

“The mental health crisis in this generation is significant. The uncertainty of the times, the feeling of lostness, in a world of 8 billion people, who are they, in the midst of it, the desire for purpose. I think,” the ORU president said, “all of these are driving a generation to look beyond themselves for the answer.”

In 1 John 4, the Scripture says, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.”

So, we need to ask questions even as we pray in hope regarding these revivals:

Is this revival consistent with the Word of God?
Will students’ humility be sustained?
Is Jesus Christ exalted?
Does this revival involve confession and repentance, obedience, salvation by faith in Christ, open confession of love for Christ?

Will God move this revival to public universities?

At Asbury, students are arriving from other universities: the University of Kentucky, Purdue University, Indiana Wesleyan University, Ohio Christian University, Transylvania University, Midway University, Georgetown College, Mt. Vernon Nazarene University, and many others.

After witnessing the revival for himself, an Asbury Theological Seminary theology professor said, “There is no pressure or hype. There is no manipulation. There is no high-pitched emotional fervor.

To the contrary, it has so far been mostly calm and serene. The mix of hope and joy and peace is indescribably strong and indeed almost palpable—a vivid and incredibly powerful sense of shalom. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is undeniably powerful but also so gentle.”

I do not know what God is doing at Asbury or these other universities, but I do believe God is working, that he is doing something powerful and far-reaching.

I pray that the Lord will send his Spirit upon the land beginning perhaps with the most spiritually bereft of places in America—not Hollywood or Broadway, not Bourbon Street—but the college and university campus.

Students coming of age in America have been sold a bill of goods. Our culture has taught youth to reject God, absolute truth, morality, even biological science. Instead, they’ve been taught skepticism and cynicism, that nothing deserves their faith, that nothing and no one is worthy of their trust, certainly not patriotism and not the USA. And sadly, a lot of adults have given youth good cause for their cynicism.

Youth are taught in school, in their music, in their celebrity worship, in their sexual confusion that nothing matters, that there is no purpose, just uncertainty, angst, disquietude.

And nothing has been put in place of this deconstruction of timeless verities. All young people have is nihilism – the idea life is absurd and meaningless.

Is it any wonder that there is an epidemic of mental health issues among America’s young people?

Nihilism—a philosophy that is irrational, false, wicked, and the face of death, destroys everything it touches, and now it is destroying the nation’s next generation, making them believe life—their lives—are meaningless.

Then the Spirit of God moves among some of his children, speaking in a whisper (I Kings 19:11-12). Perhaps God is whispering at Asbury University and other Christian colleges and universities eager to hear.

If the Lord sends revival across the youth generation, he will change the future of not only their lives but their families, the culture, and the country.

I encourage you to follow these revivals. Pray the Spirit of God will move. Pray God bless America.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 21 February 2023

Women and some men are posting on social media images and videos of themselves, which is predictable, but have you noticed their justifications and rationales for doing so?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #70 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Any number of trends can be identified on social media because it is a dynamic environment.

There may be good trends, of course, because human beings created in the image of God are capable of making right moral choices and doing noble things.

But human beings are also fallen, meaning we have a sin nature and are capable, in fact active, on a daily basis of making bad or wrong moral choices and doing ignoble things. That’s where some disturbing social media trends emerge relative to something now called “body image.”

When I say “social media” here, I am not alluding to pornographic subscription sites but to Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and a few others that are readily accessible to the public including children.

It’s interesting to note the number of so-called “online influencers,” mostly women, who regularly post scantily clad pictures of themselves and seek to justify their actions by claiming they are affirming “body positivity.”

They argue that they are doing something wonderful and meaningful in the name of “female empowerment,” but basically what they are doing is demeaning themselves in order to get likes, fans, followers, and in some cases, financial reward.

I’ve mentioned before that older, now no longer top tier entertainers, work to stay relevant in social media. Since their talent is no longer in demand or perhaps they are past their creative zenith, the only way many women celebrities can get attention is to post near naked or suggestive pictures of themselves.

Some do this as a business proposition in order to market what they are wearing, like bikinis or casual wear, while others do so because it’s all they’ve got to—what was that—“stay relevant.”

To attempt to justify what they are doing and raise it to some perceived lofty level, some aging models or celebrities talk about “authenticity.” They claim they must post these pictures to be “true to themselves.” This is their “identity,” and they say everyone should “love yourself” or “find your true self.”

Some claim they post au naturel images because, somehow, this is good for their “mental health.” They say they have “overcome self-judgement” and that one should be comfortable “loving yourself in your own skin.” Some claim they are fighting the good fight against the emotional struggle of “body dysmorphia.” Others just get right to the point and declare they are “sex positive.” The new vocabulary and rationales offered for what was once considered scandalous and prurient behavior are endless.

The Women’s Liberation movement of the 1970s plowed new ground for women in society, making headway opening professional doors, lobbying for equal pay for equal work, and promoting equality for women in general. Unfortunately, radical feminists took this movement and ran with it, some ending up in an untenable hate-all-men outlook. But there are still some now seasoned warriors who just want women to be given equal opportunities in society.

More recently, the long overdue MeToo movement called powerful, immoral men to account. Some, like the infamous Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, were demonstrated to be predators and rightly sent to prison, though sadly, Cosby’s sentence was later overturned.

Others, caddish men who took advantage of their power and prestige to prey on women, men like Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Bill O’Reilly, had enough money to settle the allegations against them but still lost their high-profile media positions.

Then, MeToo began to run aground with slogans like “believe the woman,” a comment that seems just and indeed helps correct old patterns wherein women were summarily dismissed, but in actuality, “believe the woman” as an absolute elevates demography above evidence-based truth.

Result is, we have a confused public understanding of male-female relationships and social media only adds to the confusion.

Among the younger set, Generation Z now in college, as of July 2021, university athletes are now able to make financial arrangements based upon their NIL, meaning Name, Image, Likeness. This new pot of gold suddenly available to university athletes means the best known, most talented, and of course the best looking, can make a lot of NIL money. Many NIL arrangements are endorsement contracts with clothing manufacturers or other legitimate businesses. I’m not suggesting there is anything is wrong with the free enterprise of athletes making income.

But I think unregulated NIL opportunities, the transfer portal making it possible for any recruit to switch schools in a moment, and the wide-open university athletic conferences, now jockeying for television money, means collegiate sports is in for a confusing time that almost inevitably is going to result in some kind of scandal.

Remember, the love of money is the root of all evil.

Some female university athletes are already making hay based on their looks, and their willingness to post titillating videos. By far, the lead example of this is Louisiana State University gymnast, Olivia Dunne, who is now reputedly making seven figures per year for her posts.

No question she is a talented and accomplished athlete with several gymnastic accomplishments.

But increasingly, Olivia Dunne and her peers are providing their huge followings on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram with content that pushes past simple storylines or marketing clothing into what critics say is playing into the “objectifying women” scenarios that the Women’s Liberation and MeToo Movements railed against.

In fact, older women who fought those earlier social battles, some of whom are avowed feminists, argue today’s young women are taking a backward step, undoing much of what women fought for in the 70s, including the major achievement of Title IX that prohibited sex based discrimination in school athletic programs.

The interesting comeback from the young, online influences is that while men may objectify women, the online influencer women say they are not responsible for what men think or how they behave. In other words, they push back, saying we can do whatever we want, and we have no accountability to anyone.

Maybe it all depends? It’s true, a woman cannot control how a man thinks, or if he thinks improper thoughts, it’s not her doing. On the other hand, if the woman, particularly these online influencers, post provocative, semi-clad pictures and videos intended to attract followings, can they really claim they have no responsibility? Such an argument seems a long way from the honorable women described in Proverbs 31.

This said, men also use social media to make money based upon sex appeal. They “run the gamut from gamers and fitness influencers to singers, pranksters, and even doctors.”

None of this should be surprising. Human beings tend to pervert anything we get our hands, or rather our hearts, on, including now social media. Why would we expect anything different from the world?

We should, though, be able to expect different behavior from Christians. We should not spend time on sites designed by online influencers to entice, to tempt, to draw us in. We should not emulate the world by employing the same provocative poses in images and videos—something I’ve seen younger Christians do on Facebook and other social media platforms.

Rather, we should work to proclaim the Lordship of Christ in all of life, including our social media activity. This is a worthy kind of online influence.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 15 February 2023

Have you noticed an increase in on air over-the-edge language or behavior, like television and cinema’s fascination with the F-word or sexual situations in commercials, or outright obscene or pornographic displays in cultural discourse? We are a culture in moral free fall.

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #69 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

The Grammy Awards, dating to 1959, are the music industry’s annual recognition of outstanding achievements in the music arts. They are considered by many to be a television spectacle featuring the best and increasingly the most outrageous in music artists.

This year in 2023, “award nominees Sam Smith and Kim Petras performed their duet titled…"Unholy," complete with ominous red lighting and dancers writhing amid flames. Smith was dressed like Satan in a red cape and top hat with horns. He tweeted photos of himself during rehearsal saying, "This is going to be SPECIAL." To which CBS, the network broadcasting the show, responded with the tweet, "You can say that again. We are ready to worship!”

Sam Smith first came out as gay, then genderqueer, an umbrella term meaning not solely male or female, and most recently as non-binary preferring to be addressed as they/them. Fellow artist Kim Petras is transgender, having had gender-confirmation surgery when he/she was just 16 years old. Petras made appearances as “the world’s youngest transsexual.”

Petras said of the Grammy performance, “I think a lot of people, honestly, have kind of labeled what I stand for and what Sam stands for as religiously not cool, and I personally grew up wondering about religion and wanting to be a part of it but slowly realizing it didn’t want me to be a part of it,” she said, per Variety. “So it’s a take on not being able to choose religion. And not being able to live the way that people might want you to live, because as a trans person I’m already not kind of wanted in religion. So we were doing a take on that and I was kind of hellkeeper Kim.”

The Sam Smith/Kim Petras emphasis on Satanism came just two years after rappers Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion “performed,” (I use that word advisedly) with a risqué presentation of the song “WAP” at the 2021 Grammy Awards.

“In the lyrics, Cardi B and Megan discuss how they want to be pleased by men, specifically referencing numerous sexual practices.” The song’s title, WAP, is an acronym representing a phrase so graphic and crude I’ve chosen not to say it on this podcast.

During the performance on network television, Cardi B channeled her stripper past with some pole dancing. Both musicians strutted, writhed, twerked, and grinded together on a huge bed in Barbarella-esque skimpy outfits. Media reporting on the event spoke of female empowerment, sexual pride, and a sex-positive message. Apparently, sex-positive is the new way of describing bacchanalia.

Musicians and entertainers in general have always been on the edge if not over it in terms of rude, crude, and lewd. This goes back thousands of years in multiple cultures. What’s new now is the degree to which these kinds of celebrations of debauchery are presented and promoted on television, and the degree to which the entertainers themselves are looked upon as some kind of avant garde role models or bold and brave defenders of personal liberties.

There was a time when I was a kid that cartoons, for example, the old cartoons, reached up, so to speak, to high culture. They made funny and harmless entertainment for children in the context of Mozart or Shakespeare, or the best of Americana. Now, beginning somewhere in the 1960s, cartoons or children’s entertainment in general has been on a decades-long slide toward presentation of what is debased and morally questionable.

Articles are regularly written that attack or at least judge conservatives in general or Christians in particular as Puritans or prudes, because they often object to the content presented in television shows, movies, or as illustrated above, awards shows.

Such articles argue the culture wars are a figment of conservatives or Christians; imagination, that nothing really is going wrong, and no one on the right side of history should object to an anything goes approach. The reason these articles say the culture wars do not exist is because the authors don’t have a moral compass that recognizes wrong or is willing to embrace any standard short of licentiousness. The Grammys are just one example.

Such moral chaos is the stock in trade of many contemporary so-called artists, online influencers, or celebrities. As they age, and perhaps as what talent they have begins to diminish or is no longer marketable, the artists or celebrities seem willing to do about anything to get themselves covered online, to in their minds stay relevant.

Madonna is one example, a one-time rock star who now spends most of her time making outrageous comments and, sadly, disfiguring herself with plastic surgery.

Britney Spears is another younger version of Madonna. Britney is a one-time youthful pop star who is approaching middle age, is not producing marketable music, and who to stay in the limelight spends much of her time post pictures of herself with limited even no clothing, just strategic coverage. Even her children have tried to get her to stop this embarrassing and demeaning display.

There is such a thing as the culture wars. Yes, some people have acted in overwrought fashion and brought ridicule toward those who simply believe in family values. But it is easy to demonstrate the moral decline of contemporary culture and discourse.

Politicians, not just celebrities, and television commercials now regularly use four letter words, build their message around sexual inuendo, flash partial nudity or vulgar hand gestures.

Celebrities in my youth, like Johnny Carson or Jerry Lewis, were certainly familiar with lewd behavior or language, but cultural norms at the time kept them in check on air. Not so now.

“The real problems in our world are not the result of bad political policies or poor education or inequitable income distribution. The problem in our world is that there are forces of wickedness in heavenly places, and sinners are held captive by them to do their will. And that means the single solution to all of the problems in our world is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that human solutions to spiritual problems are utterly useless.”

So, Christians, we know the truth, and it is our task to make it known. Don’t give in or give up. Speak the truth in love.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 14 February 2023

Sometimes things occur that are too gut-wrenching to contemplate. Yet we must, and we wonder why God allowed such tragedy. Is God unaware of human trials? Does he not care? If God is good, why is there evil and suffering?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #68 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Gunmen surprise worshippers and seize a Baghdad church during an evening Sunday service. Before it is over more than 60 people, including the priest, are killed when government security forces storm the church to free the more than 100 Iraqi Catholics who’d been captured. Eventually, the eight assailants involved are also killed.

Sept. 11, 2001, jets were intentionally guided into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and the World Trade Center Twin Towers in Manhattan, causing both 110-story skyscrapers to collapse. Another attacking jet was stopped by brave passengers and the jet never reaches its target, crashing in a Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania cornfield, killing all on board, villains, innocents, and heroes alike. In the 9/11 attack, all told, 2,977 innocent non-hijackers die.

Feb. 6, 2023, two massive earthquakes registering 7.8 on the Richter Scale, followed by as many as 50 aftershocks of considerable force, erupt in southeastern Türkiye and across the border in northwestern Syria. At this writing, more than 36,000 are dead with authorities estimating this figure could double before the recovery is concluded.

Crises happen periodically in a fallen world. They often occur quickly and without warning, and they are times of danger, confusion, suffering, harm, destruction, and death.

Crises can be personal—injury, illness, disease, loss of loved ones, environmental—hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, storms, tornadoes, social—unrest, violence, pandemics, famine, impoverishment, displacement, religious—moral failure of leaders, division, political—conflicts, wars.

In times of crises, human beings ask existential questions: Does God exist? Is God there? Is he angry, punishing or judging us? Does he know me? Does he care? If he is a good God, why does he allow this crisis?

Even Christians ask these questions, so imagine what non-Christians or non-religious people ask with no faith to back-stop them?

So, as Christians, how should we understand these events and how should we respond to them?

One way is to think about them in terms tragedy and theodicy.

Tragedy is a conversational word that means disaster, sadness, or unexpected developments that victimize human happiness, wellbeing, and even lives.

Theodicy means a vindication of divine justice in allowing evil, suffering, or tragedies to exist.

Theodicy, the idea that God has a reason for tragedies, the idea that God allows or, even more discomforting, directs tragedies is not always easy to understand.

Yet if we believe in the God of the Bible we must acknowledge his sovereignty, omniscience, and omnipotence. He is in control. He knows all things. Nothing is a surprise or an accident to him. He is all-powerful, so nothing happens outside of his will or influence. Not 9/11, not senseless brutality against innocent churchgoers, not our illness or disease.

In the wake of earthquakes or tsunamis taking the lives of tens of thousands, including children, the idea that God could have thwarted these so-called “natural” disasters is a difficult theological pill to swallow. In the face of wars that decimate entire populations of people, the idea that God could have stopped the carnage seems to beg the question of God’s purported love and compassion for people.

In the aftershock of senseless violence and unnecessary death, the thought that God could have prevented the tragedy tests our faith.

In the face of such events, some people question God’s existence, some his goodness. Some, like Job’s wife, simply want to curse God and die.

Yet in the Book of Job, the oldest scriptural writings, God does not answer all of Job’s questions. God reminds Job, and us, that he, God, is great. That he is good. That he is just. That he is love. God is big—bigger than our circumstances, bigger than suicide bombers, terrorists, or disease, bigger even than death.

Theodicy, in the end, requires faith—faith in God whose goal is to reconcile us with him, even through tragedies. This, in turn, requires a right understanding of theology. To interpret the world and its volatile events we must know who God is, what comprises his character, and what he wills for the world in which we live.

Tragedy is abrupt and often life altering. Theodicy can meet our rational need to know why and our emotional need for comfort. Theology provides us with understanding of a God who is not mean, not petty or vindictive, not arbitrary, or not clueless, but a God who is love, righteous, and peace.

I don’t know why those Iraqi worshippers were made victims of this tragedy. But I don’t believe in bad luck, the fates, or false pagan deities or ideologies. I believe in the God of the Bible who will bring all things to account.

We should pray for the Iraqi families devasted by evil. We should pray for family and friends who lost loved ones in 9/11 and who yet today feel that grief. We should pray for the people of Türkiye and Syria who face not only feelings of desolation in the loss of tens of thousands of their own but years of emotional and spiritual trauma and a long-term need for healing.

Like Job, not all our questions will be answered, even in a well-developed theodicy of how God works through suffering.

But the most important questions have already been answered – let me say that again – the most important questions have already been answered – in the book of Psalms or 1 Peter or other Scriptures proclaiming the good, great, and glorious character, works, and promises of an omniscient, omnipotent, loving Heavenly Father who knows the number of hairs on our heads.

We may not always know Why, but we know the God who knows Why.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 07 February 2023

Have you ever been afraid? How should Christians respond in the face of fear?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #67 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

If you have never been afraid, you probably have not yet lived long enough.

Being afraid is not necessarily weakness or inability to take action. It is an emotion God built into us to help protect us, like responding with Fear, Fight, or Flight.

While not all of us have felt afraid due to outside influences, like riots, wars, hurricanes, or famine, if we’re old enough, we’ve probably felt concern morphed into fear at the announcement of a loved one’s serious illness or disease.

The reason we experience threats to our well-being that elicits fear is that we live in a fallen world. Since the Garden of Eden, the perfect Creation has labored under the impact of human sin and degradation and what’s called the Fall and the Curse. When Adam and Eve sinned, the fell from grace. They no longer were perfect as God had created them, but they became dead in their sins, and every human being since has been born in sin, is dead in our sin, and remains so until we accept Christ’s sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection – we are forgiven and redeemed. This is the Good News of the Gospel.

Yet still we live in a sin-cursed fallen world wherein the consequences of sin remain. These consequences include so-called “acts of God,” those weather events like tsunamis and volcanoes and earthquakes over which humanity has no control, and also the frailty of our bodies. Because of the curse, it is required of all human beings that once they die (Heb 9:27). So, living in a fallen world, our bodies age, decline, are subject to injury, contract illnesses or life-threatening disease. In the face of all this and more, we can be afraid.

But the Psalmist reminded us, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise—in God I trust and am not afraid" (Ps. 56:3-4).

“I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears” (Ps 34:4).

In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul said, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6-7).

Can you even imagine what that phrase, “transcends all understanding,” even means? No, we cannot, because that’s the point, the peace God offers us in the face of anxiety is beyond our comprehension.

Back to the Psalmist David. I sometimes think David would fit right into the social media age in which we live because he understood how to express his feelings and was not bashful about letting it all hang out when he was afraid, or whatever other emotion that plagued him. He told God everything.

But then David did not stay there. He did not seek to “know himself” or “trust his feelings” or “follow his heart” because he knew they were already an anxiety-filled mess. No, he looked outside himself.David looked to the Sovereign Lord of the Universe. After David had listed his fears, and talked about the “agony in his bones” or “drowning,” “crying in his bed,” then David rehearsed God’s character and promises:

God “delivered from fear,” he said. If I am downcast, God is my hope. When David’s heart was faint, he said God is his rock, his fortress, never shaken.

I don’t think this recipe for deliverance from fear or anxiety is a one-time pill, good for what ails you forevermore. No, rehearsing God’s character, his past works, his promises, this we must do over and over again, each time fear threatens to overwhelm us.

We pray, we talk to God. He promises to hear and answer our prayers.

David said of the Lord: “Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures through all generations.The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does” (Ps 145:13).

I’ve been afraid a few times in my life. As I grow older, I’ve experienced other fears, sometimes for those I love, not for me. If God allows me to live, I anticipate I will experience fears again.

But praise be to God, he will never leave me or forsake me.

The lyrics of the hymn, “Because He Lives,” captures the biblical truth:

“Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,
Because He lives, all fear is gone;
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living just because He lives.”

It is a great comfort to know that our Heavenly Father is always there watching over us.

“The Lord will keep you from all harm—he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore” (Ps 121:7-8).

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 30 January 2023

When you listen to the news, most of it negative, have you ever wondered what’s causing all this chaos?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #66 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

How does decline in Christian influence upon culture, in numbers of believers, in theological or worldview understanding of Christian teachings, of a Judeo-Christian moral consensus work itself out in everyday life?

How does this decline evidence itself in culture in ways beyond declining church attendance or increasing biblical illiteracy?

Depending upon the memory of who’s doing the analysis, the dates vary, but there’s general agreement that a dramatic shift in American culture has been taking place for some time. It’s a shift from a culture widely based upon a Judeo-Christian consensus about what public morality and mores should be to one based upon a largely de-Christianized or post-Christian understanding of life.

How does this shift manifest itself?

If an increasing number of Americans do not believe in the Sovereign God of the Bible and his moral will expressed in the Word of truth – I did not say, do not believe in God, just they do not believe in God as he reveals himself in his Word – If an increasing number do not embrace a Creator God, do not understand responsibility and accountability, and believe they create their own truth, these values will most assuredly result in different choices and a different way of of life than what used to be considered good, optimistic and uplifting, right and righteous, humble, and productive.

Today, we are experiencing increases in every form of human problem, especially emotional, e.g., traumatized youth, anxious or anxiety-ridden celebrities, psychological issues, for example increase rage and mass shooters, and a laundry list of what’s now called mental illness.

These developments are not happening because 21^st Century residents are less intelligent or less educated than their forebears. These developments are occurring because human beings have rejected or are rejecting patterns of life God said would allow the human race to flourish.

Ignoring God and moral absolutes results not just in an increase in “Nones” – the people who check surveys saying they have “no religious affiliation” = but an increase in every form of social pathology.

What we are witnessing in America in recent years is not just a blip, some political anomaly, but the consequence of ongoing value choices in which, as a culture, we embrace death instead of life, despair rather than hope, selfish aggrandizement in place of selflessness.

This shift toward a non-Christian worldview also helps explain rapid increases in these categories of behavior:

Gambling viewed as harmless entertainment.
Pornography, like prostitution, now considered a victimless crime.
Debt accepted as almost an entitlement, because in contemporary outlook, debt does not matter.
Promotion of self-actualization as the highest good in life. Only what please me matters, an idea carried with grave effect into familial, marital, and sexual relationships.
The idea that mental illness, often vaguely defined, and not human choices and certainly not sin, is the source of human problems.
The Hollywood idea that marriage is socially unnecessary.
Maybe even the wholesale embrace of the idea climate change is the greatest existential threat to human existence.
The sad Sodom and Gomorrah confusion now vested in attitudes toward human sexuality, so-called sexual “orientation,” and abortion on demand.
Woke philosophy, or should I say nonsense, that in a very short time has infected virtually every part of American culture.
The constant renewal of racism wherein everything is reduced to discrimination, hate, prejudice, and victimhood.

All of these viewpoints are rooted in non-Christian assumptions about God, humanity, life, and culture. The more we pursue our newfound irrational and unbiblical values, the less free, less humane, and less prosperous our culture becomes. We are losing, nay we are jettisoning, the blessing of American commitment to life and liberty.

Where once Emma Lazarus’s poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty was a beacon of hope to the world –

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

– now, for many, it sounds like a false promise. Not because America does not still teem with opportunities, but because political ideology has twisted our outlook on immigrants, once a source of strength and new ideas, now viewed as votes to keep politicians in power.

Immigrants given open borders across which to traffic children, hustle fentanyl and other narcotics, only reinforces America’s opioid crisis.

Immigrants as human beings in want deserve better than to be used by both political parties. They deserve to be invited to participate in a legal process of naturalization, vetted such that the criminals among them are held out, and assisted so they can find a place to put down roots where they can pursue the American dream.

Add to this the sexualization of children that is now so widespread and growing, so heinous, that even listing what is occurring can make you sick.

How can a culture allow this? It does so because we’ve become convinced that for sex anything goes, that anything short of licentiousness is somehow an affront to freedom and well-being. We are a culture that is upside down.

So, for Christians who still have faith in the Sovereign God of the universe, who still believe and attempt to obey the principles of the Word of God, the task is now a tall order in a pluralistic, secularized culture running amok.

But God is not mocked. He is not gone or absent. He has not forgotten us. Our assignment is not simply to believe the truth but to live it.

This is our moment to shine Christ’s light in this dark world. It is our moment to share the ultimate tipping point, the Good News that faith in Christ can transform anyone into a New Creation.

That’s a message of hope for addicts, convicts, the sexually confused, those trapped in unforgiveness or followers of false ideas, religions, or isms that offer no way out. Becoming a New Creation in Christ is there for all, from the Thief on the Cross to the drug-controlled, psychotic killer in the world’s worst prison. If they are still breathing, there is no one beyond the reach of the Holy Spirit of God.

And Christians know this. We have the message of reconciliation. What a mission. What a Great Commission. All in all, it’s a great time to be alive.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.