Seventy-five years on the planet gives me perspective on the nation’s decline into darkness. I have seen the denigration of almost everything in our society.
Take music. Secular love songs from 60-70 years ago were about the pains and joys of the heart. Now they are of the “lusts of the flesh.”
Economics? Our dollar is worthless. The dollar used to be a 90% silver coin containing about an ounce of silver. It was real money. That same silver dollar is worth $30 in today’s paper currency. That silver dollar would buy 20 candy bars or 20 bottles of Coca-Cola. For my dad a silver dollar would buy three gallons of gasoline with a silver dime in change. My dad paid me one silver dollar for sweeping up hair at his barber shop on Saturdays back in 1955 when I was eight years old. Imagine a little kid running around with precious metal in his pocket and an American dream in his heart.
Now things look grim as the Federal Reserve Bank has absolutely ruined our economy. I share this to give you some perspective on how low we have been brought and how serious our current financial disaster is.
Back in the 1950’s, we Americans were still living by the standards of Protestant, Puritan values. But the darker influences had by then been let out of Pandora’s box. The lustful rhythms of the nations stirred a specter of passion. Most young women were chaste, held in check by the fear of society’s shunning of them for having babies out of wedlock. When a girl got pregnant out of wedlock, she simply disappeared, hurried off in shame to a willing aunt hundreds of miles away. There the girl would have her baby in seclusion and often give it up for adoption. Today she will parade her new fatherless baby up and down the high school halls. Dating was going to the movies back then. And if a boy got too fresh, he would have to face her World War II veteran father. [We were truly scared of those fathers]. But now, dating is a euphemism for having sex.
Today, the world has lost all restraints to bad behavior. Decorum is dead. Dignity is an orphan under a bridge. We see a society where thieves boldly ransack and steal armloads of merchandise while “security guards” passively look on. In the 50’s the thief would have been wrestled to the ground, arrested and prosecuted for grand larceny.
But age gives us perspective. I remember as a lad, I heard old-timers talking about how society was going downhill because of the federal government’s policies. They were right.
“Something wicked this way comes,” said the poet. No, it is already here. Conservatives on the right say that we can rise up and change this scary downward slide, that we can restore our society to what the Founding Fathers envisioned. That is a nice dream. But that ship has sailed. The cat is out of the bag, and no one will be able to put him back in again.
Why do I say that? I know that it sounds pessimistic. It is because of this: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves [not God], covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers… (I Tim. 3:1-7; II Pet. 2; Jude 1). The apostles warn us of our day, a day of spiritual darkness, “perilous times.” Spoiler alert: It is going to get much worse, a la the Great Tribulation. And we Christians are going to be in the big middle of it. But that’s another story that I have written at length about [rapture | Search Results | Immortality Road (wordpress.com)].
The leaders of the countries of this world have caused this denigration of which we speak. “For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed” (Isa. 9:16).
But that is not true of God’s offspring. We have been restored, for we have “been with Him from the beginning.” Consequently, we know that “all things are of God.” We know that He is in charge. His law of harvest is in effect and cannot be broken. Whatever a nation sows, that shall it also reap. Pride goes before a fall. Through much hubris nations are brought to their knees. And so it is with the USA and all the other nations of the world.
Our Father’s Plan
The time of the end is upon us. And it is all part of the plan–that we would become so frustrated with the ways of the world, that we would finally seek our Creator. “For the creation [us] was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Romans 8:20-21 NIV).
It is God who has subjected us to frustration. It is His doing. He allowed us to be bound in the chains of sin. We were held captive by our dark and selfish actions that brought the demise of our earthly bodies. And we were frustrated by having to live in clay vessels that grow old, die, and decay. But now we realize that we have returned to Him and have embraced His hope for us. His hope is that we will receive everlasting life. And now we see that all of creation is waiting for Christ’s return to this earth, when He will bestow upon us a new, glorious, spiritual body, which will enable us to serve the King throughout all ages (8:19).
It is our great and glorious privilege, therefore, to serve Him in His government, the Kingdom of God, which is coming very soon to fill the earth with his righteous judgment. For He is the Answer to all questions, the Solver of all problems, and the Teacher of all parables. He is Yahshua, the King of kings, our Creator (Col. 1:16). And “of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end…” (Isa. 9:2-7).
We are blessed to serve Him together. Spread the word. Kenneth Wayne Hancock