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Governmental gridlock and foul play, corrosive inflation, malicious cybercrime, eerie pandemics, Russian/Ukraine war, European energy shortages, global food insecurity, conflict over Taiwan, deep-seated racial tensions, nuclear proliferation, etc.
You name it — as Gilda Radner’s character on Saturday Night Live, Roseanne Rosannadanna, would say — it’s always somethin’!
This chaotic world refuses to calm down, even for a moment. Like the crazy-making game Whac-A-Mole, one crisis gets knocked down, and another one pops up. Where are the adults in the room? Who’s running this show?
The “Last Days,” they are here.
In 2 Timothy 3:1-9, 1,900 years ago, the Apostle Paul predicted: “… in the last days difficult times will come. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness although they have denied its power … always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
Well folks, from every biblical indication, we’re already in those “last days.” Thought leaders everywhere are doubting humanity’s ability to see past its own personal interests and peacefully collaborate for the betterment of all.
Nontheistic humanism’s “clothes” appear to be threadbare and impotent. As written in Romans 8:22, “For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.”
Many seek refuge in drugs, alcohol and countless addictions, including cyberworld obsession — but there is no hiding place, and the jarring gong of reality keeps intruding. We’re broken by sin and desperately in need of divine intervention.
But there’s a hitch: It’s no good passing more laws or electing new government leaders if the hearts of man remain the same. Top-down “solutions” never work. Nor do various forms of behavior modification.
It’s the new wine in old wineskins problem. Authentic change calls for people with new hearts who are joined together by the Holy Spirit and focused upon God’s will rather than their own. Again, from Romans 8:19-21, “… creation waits for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God … that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”
But until God’s ultimate plan for mankind unfolds, we must live in this transient, fallen world.
Speaking prophetically in 2 Timothy 3:13-17, the Apostle Paul exhorted his disciple, Timothy: “Evil people and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. You, however, continue in the things you have learned … to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man or woman of God may be fully capable, equipped for every good work.”
In a world that feels like sand beneath our feet, “the word of our God stands forever.”
The Apostle Paul warned in 2 Timothy 4:3-5, “For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and will turn aside to myths.”
These days the Bible is being attacked like never before, but don’t fall for it. It is God’s Word and provides a window directly into His heart.
In his book, Exploring the Scriptures, Bible scholar John Phillips put his case for the scriptures this way:
“A certain copy of the Constitution of the United States was once executed in superb penmanship by the hand of an artist. In some places the words are all cramped together, while in others they are spaced far apart.
“Looking at the manuscript closely, there seems to be little reason for such a spacing of the words. Standing back, however, and looking at the production from a distance, the artist’s purpose becomes clear. He not only wrote out the Constitution but also portrayed the face of George Washington, his cramped and spaced-out words forming lights and shadows on the page.”
Thus it is with the Bible. The creation of the stars is covered in Genesis 1 in five short words, “He made the stars also.” Yet the story of the tabernacle is spread over some 50 chapters of the Bible.
All we know of the life of Jesus between His birth and His baptism is covered in a single page of scripture. Yet page after page is devoted to genealogies that perhaps appear endless and pointless to us.
We ask, “Why such an uneven choice of subject matter?” The answer becomes clear when we take a survey look at the Bible. Woven into all the scripture is the perfect portrait of God’s beloved Son.
Jesus, “the Word made flesh” is scheduled to return to Earth in supreme power soon to fix all those “somethin’s” of Roseanne’s. Will you be ready?
— D.C. Collier is a Bible teacher, discipleship mentor and writer focused on Christian apologetics. A mechanical engineer and internet entrepreneur, he is the author of My Origin, My Destiny, a book focused on Christianity’s basic “value proposition.” Click here for more information, or contact him at don@peervalue.com. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.