Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live during what the Scripture calls “the Last Days”? Well, you may know more about this than you think.
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #33 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.
Maybe every generation facing some dark development of history thought it was facing what Scripture calls the Last Days. I don’t know because I didn’t live during those times.
I do know people honestly considered whether the End Times was upon them when the sadly named “War to End All Wars,” WWI, stagnated in the muddy trenches of Western Europe. I know, too, that more than a few people seriously believed Adolph Hitler was the Anti-Christ himself, heralding events leading to the end of the Age.
But what about now, 2022? Are we actually living in the Last Days?
I’ve noted before in this space that my 90-year-old Mother thinks we are living in the Last Days, and I’ve begun to agree with her. She knows, and I know, that the Bible warns us about setting dates, but it also gives us a heads up on the conditions human beings will experience during the Last Days.
Think of 2 Tim. 3:1-5: “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power.”
Does that sound like the early 21st Century?
Or how about Romans 1, where the Apostle Paul tells us why humanity behaves the way we do in the latter days, and why we need salvation:
- suppress the truth by our wickedness,
- since creation God’s invisible qualities clearly seen, so people are without excuse,
- thinking became futile and foolish hearts were darkened.
- claimed to be wise, but became fools,
- sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
- exchanged the truth about God for a lie,
- women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.
- filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice, gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful,
- disobey their parents,
- have no understanding, no fidelity, no love,no mercy,
- invent ways of doing evil.
Again in 2 Tim. 3:12-13,
- everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
- evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse.
Luke 21:
- nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
- great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
- when you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near.
- nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.
- people will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.
So, the Last Days is not a cakewalk. Things go from bad to worse, and it feels like this has accelerated in the past few years. But again, I don’t want to suggest I have an insider knowledge of God’s timetable, nor that we are living in the Tribulation Period, which will be much worse than we’ve so far witnessed.
But still, social conditions are worsening.
Once people embrace the idea there is no God to whom we are accountable and no truth standard to live by, which American culture has done, we’re left with moral and behavioral chaos. That’s what we see today.
- Increasingly rootless, anxious, alienated, sometimes rage-filled youth, resulting in a long list of personal and social pathologies, including mass shootings,
- not just a growing bias against but direct harassment, possibly persecution, of the Christian Church,
- sin and moral choices are medicalized, and the resulting emotional ripple effects are labeled mental illness,
- more pestilence, like pandemics, more wars, like Ukraine, more economic pain, including inflation, unemployment, lack of resources, supply chain problems.
Now what is the Christian response to all this genuine doom and gloom?
- Do we withdraw and hide? Live in our own churchy cocoon?
- Do we attack, attempting to slay the dragon, the Prince of the Power of the Air, Luther himself, and all his minions?
- Or do we sally forth with knowledge of the Sovereign God, the Word, and what he says about the end of history, then live out our life proclaiming the Lordship of Christ in all of life?
I like option #3, know the Word, proclaim the Lordship of Christ in all of life.
How do we do this?
- Well, we understand and share that we don’t have all the answers, but we have the answer, so, we place our hope in Christ, not politics, not political parties, not ideology, not politicians, which means we studiously avoid what a lot of conservative Christians seem to have done in recent years.
- We speak the truth in love, with gentleness and respect (2 Pet. 3:15). And we recognize that people around us, including family and friends, may not always want to hear the truth, and thus associate those who speak truth with something intolerant, holier than thou, or unloving.
- We demonstrate an attitude not of despair but of optimistic realism– recognizing the reality of sin in a fallen world but acknowledging that our Sovereign God is there, and he is not silent.
- We live not in fear but in hope – not a vain wish, like I hope my team wins this Saturday, but real hope in an event—the Parousia—already accomplished on the Cross and the empty tomb two millennia ago.
We live as unto the Lord. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Gal. 6:9).
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.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2022
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