Perilous Times

Watch out! Dangers lurk everywhere——these are surely perilous times.  One of the great themes of scripture is to always be on guard.  The epistle of Jude forewarns us about scoffers who distort and resist God’s truth as we believers desire to seek it.  Twisting truths have become the norm.

If you are like me, we earnestly seek the Lord’s return.  He called on us as believers to be godly “salt and light” while on this earth. (Matt. 5:13).  While the promise of the Lord’s Second Coming is assured, we deal with the world as we live it now. 

We are assured though that God’s truth never changes…….no matter how humanity may warp and twist it.  Rejection of God’s word has been with us since the days of Noah, Abraham and Paul.  So rebellion against God in this once-Christian nation should come as no surprise.  Rather than anxiously hiding and waiting for the storm to pass, we are called to stay active and to use whatever abilities and opportunities we have to sow, water, and reap in fruitful service to Him.

However, we must ever be watchful of Satan using mankind for his own destructive ends.  He is able to manipulate man through an organized system of corrupted government, education, entertainment and even religious institutions.  In turn this is blinding people’s minds through lies and confusion. This fosters and enslaves people through the pleasures of sex, killing the innocent and intimidating believers through sanctioned harassment and persecution.  The Bible describes the “world” not merely as a concept but an entity used by Satan to manipulate people into submission to the same thinking as the masses. 

The world system is particularly intolerant of independent thinking, nonconforming opinions or any oppositional ideas.    Thus the world (Satan) is triumphant when someone surrenders and willingly conforms to the world’s pressure for sameness. Have we become like little robots in our thinking…preset and without questioning what the majority wants to tell us?  Resetting the minds and hearts of people is a tool used by Evil to bring about world crisis and confusion.   

The apostle Paul cautions Christians not to be deluded, ”tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. “ (Eph. 4:14)

There is an old Puritan prayer which reads: “Oh God, may thy dear Son preserve me from this present evil world, so that its smiles never allure, not its frowns terrify nor its vices defile, nor its errors delude me. “     
                                                            Amen to that