World events today can be more than just unsettling when you consider the personal impact of those at ground zero in a war zone, immediate family effected by the loss of a loved one during the recent pandemic, or the apparent insensitivity of much of society as children go hungry in areas of the world. Trying to make sense of catastrophic events and humanitarian inequities can drive people into depression and compel them to contemplate existential questions and the purpose of life. Coming to terms with our mortality is a process that involves soul searching and contemplation of how we fit into the cosmos.
Last week I wrote in this column that we live in a fallen world and the human condition is a fallen condition. Therefore, blaming God for our shortcomings and depravity is an incorrect response and reactive misinterpretation of the inherent failures the human race perpetually brings upon itself. Finding solace by reaching out to God in prayer and spending time in his word can alleviate stress levels and provide encouragement and strength when one feels downtrodden and weak. Understanding that the Lord has a plan for the world that is based upon our freedom of choice helps us to rationalize and comprehend the things we see on the news, our personal experiences and civilization as a whole.
In the twenty fourth chapter of Mathew’s gospel, Jesus is asked by his disciples what the end of the age will be like preceding his promised return. “Jesus answered: ‘Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginnings of birth pains.” Mathew 24:4-8.
Indeed, the disturbing news of war has been increasing with frequency and intensity for the last one hundred years. In fact, there have been more lives lost to war in the last century than in the previous nineteen combined. The twentieth century has been coined “the century of war” yet world powers remain undeterred in their pursuit of global and/or regional domination. As the world apprehensively witnesses the tragedy transpiring in Ukraine at this time, it can be a challenge to keep things in perspective.
Directly on the heels of the COVID 19 pandemic and amidst the supply chain disruptions currently driving inflation and shortages in food supplies the world economy must now attempt to navigate through skyrocketing fuel costs and financial uncertainty resulting from unprecedented sanctions against Russia. All the while, there is the incomprehensible possibility of an escalation in the conflict into involving NATO and erupting into world war three.
Additionally, society today has distanced itself from any connection to God and continues to promote secular values and ideologies that are materialistic, self-centered and feed the insatiable egoism prevalent in this generation. The apostle Paul wrote about this materialism and godlessness in the third chapter of his second letter to Timothy. “But mark this: 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. Have nothing to do with them.” 2 Timothy 3:1-5.
There is perhaps no stronger indictment of our current societal apostasy than Paul’s words in this passage of scripture. However, the moral degradation of humanity will continue and reach lower and lower thresholds as it spirals seemingly out of control until Jesus returns to put an end to it. Returning to the text in Mathew 24:10-14, Jesus continued, “At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”
In the midst of the turmoil and turbulence of this life, we must know and understand that God allows evil to exist so that we all have a choice. It is paramount to recognize that God’s word is true and that the gospel of Christ is authenticated by the blood of those who put their lives on the line to preserve it, of which Christ is the first fruit. Peter wrote, “We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” 2 Peter 1:16.
Over the last century and a half, the theory of evolution has been propagated as fact, spawning innumerable conjectures regarding the age of the universe, the age of the earth, the origin of life and the big bang theory, all in the name of science in an effort to explain God out of creation. The uncritical consumption of this information has resulted in the vast majority of the population believing in myths that science cannot prove or validate. Paul warns in 2 Timothy 4:3-4, “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”
In this generation of “fake news,” and “misinformation,” deception of the population has grown to the point where it is difficult to discern truth from half-truth, half-truth from lies and propaganda from reality. The quote, “repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth,” often misattributed to Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, encapsulates the notion that, “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Perhaps the most blatant application of this concept can be seen in the current differing narratives of the war in Ukraine. Two polar extremes are presented by those whose interests benefit one side or the other and truth is somewhere between the two. The same phenomenon was observed during the recent pandemic where the official narrative was promoted at the expense of the integrity of science (which welcomes the questioning of postulation) and all those challenging that narrative were censored by authorities. It seems that deception runs rampant these days and an undiscerning society gobbles it up and cannot accept the truth when it is revealed to them.
Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6. The prophetic nature of scripture authenticates the truth of the Bible. No other document exists that endeavors to predict events, often hundreds of years in advance and then subsequently records their fulfillment. For example, of the 356 Old Testament prophecies predicting the details of Jesus’s birth, life, death and resurrection, the probability of them being fulfilled by one man due to chance alone are so astronomically formidable, it is literally impossible that Jesus wasn’t who he claimed to be (kindly refer to The Historicity of Jesus, Nov. 24, 2020).
Mankind likes to discredit information that diminishes the notion that man is the master of his own destiny and science will ultimately solve the dilemmas faced by civilization in the future. By attempting to sweep failures and misdeeds under the proverbial rug, society hides the embarrassing and incriminating evidence that condemns all people as sinners apart from Christ. John’s gospel explains, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it might be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” Amen.
