Firsts

 It’s always jarring when something happens for the first time. Not so much to us as individuals, like the first time you got to drive a car or ride a bike without training wheels, but globally. Even though there’s a first time for everything, it’s not always a positive experience. Even after decades, we remember the first time a nuclear bomb was used, the first terrorist attack to fail, the first attack to succeed, the first time an airplane went missing, and countless other firsts that we remember.

I don’t peruse the news much anymore. There isn’t anything there that interests me because what passes for news really isn’t. It’s more akin to the propaganda of the old Communist regimes, and since I’ve never been a fan, I’d rather avoid it.

But how do you know it’s propaganda? If you’ve lived in it, you remember the flavor, how it’s presented, what it tastes like, and know what it is. But as a rule of thumb, if what you’re reading is trying to steer you in a certain direction, building a narrative and pointing you toward it, insisting this is the only acceptable way to interpret the facts, it’s propaganda.

If the headline reads ‘Man Shot On His Way to Work,’ that’s reporting the news. It’s an event that took place. If, however, the article reads, ‘Lack of Gun Control Claims Another Life,’ it’s propaganda. If you know what to look for, you can train yourself to spot it from the title alone. You don’t have to read six hundred words by someone whose pronouns are they/them to figure out their reporting is slanted and that they have an agenda.

“But everyone has an agenda; what’s the difference between yours and theirs?”

The biggest difference is that they deny having one. They insist they are pure as the driven snow, and they’re just reporting the facts, ma’am. I’ve never shied away from telling you I’m on team Jesus. I don’t try to slyly push you toward a narrative; I point the way and say, “There’s Jesus, I love Him, He loves you, and you can know Him.”

What you choose to do with the information I impart is solely up to you. I can’t sneak you into heaven; I don’t have a special password or hand signal, nor do I know a side door I can sneak you through. Jesus said the only way to the Father is through Him; two thousand years later, no one has made a cogent argument as to why Jesus was mistaken. Oprah doesn’t count. That she lets words spill out of her mouth about different paths does not make for a cogent argument.

Hot on the heels of the biggest difference, the second difference between me and them is that I don’t lie to you. I tell you of my agenda up front, and I tell you the truth besides. Propagandists don’t do either. Not only do they insist there is no hidden motive, but that everything they tell you is factually accurate. They tell lies with a straight face and repeat them often because they believe excessive repetition will make a lie the truth. No, men can’t get pregnant, guns don’t kill people, and abortion is murder. See how easy that was? One sentence, and you can alienate pretty much everyone except your dog and your grandma if she is still alive.

Even though I no longer consume the news as heartily as I used to, I did see a headline the other day that is contextually fitting regarding the things Jesus said we would see as the end nears. For the first time on record, storms have reached top-tier category-five strength in every tropical ocean basin in the same year.

We’re also seeing earthquakes in various places, some of which haven’t had active fault lines in many a year. Although it’s easy to blame cow flatulence on all these things, it’s not as simple as all that. If anything will bring about the end of the world, it won’t be cow flatulence, eating meat, or hair spray.

At the root of trying to find someone or something to blame for what we’ve been seeing is man’s unwillingness to acknowledge God’s sovereignty and foreknowledge about how this will all end.

If they can blame the cows or the 80’s rockers, greasers, and bouffants for the cataclysmic events taking place, then they won’t have to contend with the reality that the Word of God saw all of this coming, and this is just the start. If these were birth pains, the contractions would be so far apart you wouldn’t even pack a bag yet. You’d still have time to get dinner in the oven, do a load of laundry, and dust the blinds. It’s a nesting thing.

We are going to be witness to a lot of firsts in the coming months because the closer one gets to the end, the closer apart the contractions. They will also get more painful the closer we get, and the length of time they last will increase. This is why I keep repeating frequency and intensity when it comes to what we’ve coined natural disasters because it’s a natural progression. There is nothing man can do to stop it, but because coming to terms with it will mean we are not the masters of our destinies, we’ll keep trying.

God didn’t forewarn us of what the last days would look like to scare us or make us fearful. On the contrary, He warned us that we might know the true measure of His omnipotence and omniscience. If God knows the future, He knows how best to hide you under the shadow of His wing. If God knows the future, He knows how to best keep you. Walk in obedience, and though a thousand fall to your side and ten thousand at your right hand, it will not come near you. God’s promises to His children are not hyperbolic or exaggerated for effect. They are a factual representation of what will be. If you trust Him, you have nothing to fear. If you walk in His ways, you will rejoice in His providence.

Psalm 91:7-8, “A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you. Only with your eyes shall you look, and see the reward of the wicked.”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.