The Slide

Judges 19:30 All who saw it said, “Nothing like this has ever happened or been seen from the day when the sons of Israel came up from the land of Egypt to this day. Consider it, take counsel and speak up!”(NASB95)

Judges 19 is perhaps one of the oddest, most disgusting chapters in the entire Bible.  It is a story of infidelity, homosexuality, rape, and murder.  It is only comprehensible as you read the context.  In chapter 18 we see the tribe of Dan gladly bringing foreign gods and their priests into their camp.  Into chapter 19 then, in the tribe of Benjamin, we see the slide of society into moral degradation, to the point that the people come together in shame, saying “nothing like this has ever happened” in Israel.

When a society looses its spiritual compass, its moral compass will be lost as well.  Without spiritual values, there is no objective basis for moral values.  This is the reason that our society now suffers from rampant crime, sexual perversion, and other sure signs of advanced moral decay.  When the Ten Commandments become nothing more than a historical reference, society is in the advanced stages of the slide into moral degradation.

Do you know the Ten Commandments?  Could you easily name each of the Ten?  Could your children do the same?

If our society does not regain spiritual values, soon we will be saying (if we are not already) “nothing like this has ever happened” in America.  Moral sewage will permeate all of life.

Lord, you know what man is, that he is filled with wickedness.  Grant us the desire and the will to walk with You.  Without You we are on our way to moral degradation.  Amen. 

Clear Information

“…Jerusalem will be trampled by the Gentiles   until the times of the Gentiles  are fulfilled. Then there will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars;  and there will be anguish on the earth..”  Luke 21:24-25

Everyone wants to know what is going to happen in the future.  How will the world end?

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

-Robert Frost

Though we may not know the times, we do have an amazing volume of information about the end of the world. 

We are currently in “the times of the Gentiles” spoken of by Jesus (and by Paul in Romans 11:25).  Soon, however, these times will be “fulfilled”, and the last years of history will begin, years in which there will be “anguish on the earth”. 

There is a way of escape!  The Bible is clear that Christian believers will not experience “the wrath to come.”  The rapture is the “blessed hope” for the believer.  If you are not a believer, there is no hope outside repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. 

Are you ready?

Father, thank you for the blessed hope I have in Christ.  He is my ark that shelters me from the flood, the blood of the unblemished lamb that saves me from the destroyer. Amen.