MISCELLANEOUS

Are You Any Different?

Most of us have wondered what it would be like if we had been born at a different time in history. Some have wished that they had lived during medieval days. More than a few wish they had lived during the time of Jesus Christ, when He performed all those miracles. However, there is one troubling concern for anyone wishing to have lived during Jesus' day and age. Despite His multiple indisputable miracles, the people of Jesus’ day crucified Him. Thus the question: What would you have done if you were there? Would you have followed the crowd? Would you have been with the mob shouting, "Crucify Him, crucify Him"? Surely not! At least that is how most of us think. But are we really all that different from the people of the first century AD?

Our World: False accusations have long been a part of world politics. Now envision the ability to create false but utterly believable "evidence" to support those accusations.

It's startling to see how neo-Marxism and other ideologically driven forms of social activism can be permitted to destroy centuries of parental rights.

Border crisis, economic instability, social upheaval, deterioration in international relations... We are now living in an age of increasing chaotic leadership. In the Wall Street Journal, September 9, 2022, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has vowed his nation will never abandon nuclear weapons. His comments accompanied new North Korean legislation authorizing a nuclear strike and allowing for the future use of automated systems to launch such strikes.

Preparing for War? The question today is, where is our world headed now? One notable student of history, known as a realist, gave us the answer. This headline appeared on NBC News: "Ex-Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev: ‘World Is Preparing for War" (January 27, 2017). That was five years before Russia invaded Ukraine. Just as the world of the 1930s sleepwalked into the greatest conflict in mankind's history, so our nations are sleepwalking, one decision at a time, into catastrophe. The war against Ukraine was supposed to be quick and easy for Russia, just as Japan expected of its war against China. President Putin and his advisors were wrong. Less than two months after Putin's "special military operation" began, Ukraine sent Russia's naval flagship to the bottom of the Black Sea, prompting this dire headline: "'World War III has begun,' says Kremlin state media after sinking of Russian warship Moskva." The article went on to report: Olga Skabeyeva, one of Putin's top media figures… bizarrely claimed that the war in Ukraine had escalated into a war against Nato. "What it's escalated into can safely be called World War Three. That's entirely for sure. Now we are definitely fighting against NATO infrastructure, if not NATO itself. Was her assessment as "bizarre" as MSN reported? Not according to Pope Francis, who a month later gave a similar assessment of the situation. "World War III has been declared," Pope Francis said in a wide-ranging conversation with the editors of European Jesuit publications on May 19, 2022, referring to Russia's attack against Ukraine…. "The world is at war," he said. "For me, today, World War III has been declared. This is something that should give us pause for thought. What is happening to humanity that we have had three world wars in a century?" ("Pope Francis: 'World War III has been declared,'" America: The Jesuit Review, June 14, 2022). Was this an exaggeration? These two quotes are hardly the only ones voicing this view. Writing from Unherd.com, Rob Lownie reported on January 16, 2023: The third world war has already started, according to one of France's leading intellectuals, Emmanuel Todd. Speaking to Le Figaro few months ago, the anthropologist and historian claimed that… the West, too, has entered into an "existential" conflict. "It's obvious that the conflict, which started as a limited territorial war and escalated to a global economic confrontation between the whole of the West on the one hand and Russia and China on the other hand, has become a world war," Todd told the French newspaper ("Emmanuel Todd: World War III has already begun," The Post, January 16, 2023)

The apostle Peter wrote about Sodom in the context of God's judgment at the end of the age. Showing God's judgment as inevitable and unsparing, he writes, "And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly” (2 Peter 2:6-7).

Peter's words will see a final fulfillment upon humanity in the coming Day of the Lord when God's judgment is poured out on the earth in what is called the "bowls of the wrath of God" in Revelation: "Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and power was given him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory" (Revelation 16:1, 8-9).

Our current culture wars are returning us to the age of Sodom. Could the archaeologists uncovering of the site of this ancient city be a witness to us today that God did pour out His judgment then? Are we seeing evidence of God's past action in the world as a warning to listen carefully to a warning today to take God and the Bible seriously?