Wednesday, April 17, 2013

The Times We Live In


There have always been evil men. Since the beginning of creation when Cain slew his brother Abel and watched the life seep out of him, violent men have committed violent acts, often without rhyme or reason.

Most of us never come close to the viciousness of the evil some men are capable of. We live our lives in relative safety, sheltered to a certain degree, yet once in a while something gruesome and bloody takes center stage and once again we are reminded of the times we are living in.

Try as we might to ignore the realities taking shape around us, it has become nigh to impossible not to acknowledge that our perceived safety is just an illusion. More and more, we are seeing the evil lash out, whether by randomly stabbing individuals on a college campus, gunning down innocent children in a school, or detonating bombs meant to maim and kill all within their blast radius regardless of age, gender, or nationality.

True evil, the evil that is being manifest in this country as of late is an equal opportunity destroyer. Try as it might to hide under the umbrella of religious zealotry, the face of evil is easily recognizable if we would only have the strength of character to see it for what it is, and call it by its name.

The defining paradox of our age is that we have marginalized, condescended, and trivialized the only hope we have to stem the tide of evil, believing there would be no negative effects to our abandonment of God. The further one draws from the message of Jesus, the further one gets from the truth of God’s Word, the darker and more prone to evil the heart becomes.

A society protects what it values, and the fact that so many nowadays have no qualms or resentments about taking a human life, proves we no longer value the concept of life as a people.

I fear that we’ve always thought of as isolated incidents and something out of the ordinary will become the norm as long as we continue to treat the preciousness of life with contempt and disdain.

Soon enough we will be in a perpetual state of shellshock, no longer able to process or react in an appropriate manner to the things happening around us.

We will try – as we always do – to rationalize recent events, and find another explanation for their occurrence than the one staring us in the face. We will dig in our heels as a people and harden our hearts and shake our fists and reassure ourselves that these things aren’t happening because we abandoned God, but because the world hates us for our freedom. Look around. The freedom you once had is no longer the freedom you have presently, and with each passing day we are being corralled, and forced into the mold our betters believe we ought to be.

We knew these days were coming. Jesus warned of them, Paul warned of them, even Old Testament prophets warned of them. So if these times have caught us unaware, it was not for lack of trying to warn us on God’s part. We read what Jesus said about the last days, but in the back of our minds we always think it’s talking about another time, off into the future. A time perhaps our great grandchildren will have to contend with, but certainly not us.

We’ve gotten used to all of this. We’ve grown comfortable and made a permanent residence out of what was to be a temporary stay, willfully choosing to ignore the gnawing feeling that this isn’t home try as we might to make it seem so.

The times are not changing. The times have already changed. We can sense it and feel it and see it, and no matter how much we try to pacify this constant feeling of unease, it just won’t go away.

In times such as these we either draw closer to God, or allow fear to paralyze us. We either learn to trust Him unequivocally, or we allow hopelessness to sink its claws into our hearts.

One thing is certain: indifference is no longer an option, nor is pretending we are not living in the times we are living in.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

3 comments:

j said...

Mike,
I pose the same question today as I did yesterday in our Men's Bible Study in Wisconsin. With everything going on in the U.S.A. when are the non Christians going to start turning to the Lord? We Christians can see that the world is not going to get better because God says so in his word. 2 Timothy 3:1. Maybe it's time we Christians start seeking out the unsaved people to make sure they will get saved. God is pouring out his wrath on the U.S.A. because we are turning our back on him.
Yesterday our study was on Psalms 112. Some of the scriptures in Psalms 112 that stuck out to me was verse 1,4,5,7,and verse 10.

Barbara said...

Things like the Boston bombing are depressing, but if there is nothing you can do, you have to just leave it in God's hands. You can ask him what is there for you to do about it. You can't rationalize it or worry about it, it is just evil. There has always been evil in the world and there will be till the end.

Ecclesiastes says there is nothing new under the sun. There are signs of the impending end of the present age, but the same forces are pretty much at work as ever. You are either on God's team or the world's team. You do have to pick a side if you want to be on God's side.

The world will take anyone who doesn't know, isn't sure, doesn't really care, will get to it later, and that sort. Then when the judgements step up, they will be caught so off guard, they won't have time to react and protect themselves. God is protecting and guiding his own, quietly and behind the scenes.

I would rather trust him than what man can come up with to solve problems. Whoever did the bombings in Boston, the fact is that innocent people minding their own business got blown up over someone else's cause. We should concern ourselves with Christ's cause, and let him handle the rest.

Anonymous said...

I have found within the walls of every church that I have went to, heresies as you speak of. I want my children to know of God and the only way that I feel I can do that is to teach them from home. I know that you receive many messages telling you that you are wrong, but everything that you state can directly be correlated with scripture and I know that you speak the true word of God. Your blog has become a staple along with my bible in and how to prepare for the things to come. I pray for you daily and appreciate everything that you post. Your words give me hope and courage to face the things to come. God has blessed you and I am so greatful that I have found your blog and your website. May God continue to bless you in your work and give you the words and the knowledge and the many blessings to continue to do what you do. God Speed!