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Scripture for the day: Isaiah 51:12-13 I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you should be afraid of a man who will die, and of the son of a man who will be made like grass? And you forget the Lord your Maker, Who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth; you have feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he has prepared to destroy. And where is the fury of the oppressor?
Thought for the day: Every day we are bombarded with news, and advertisements, from the time we roll out of bed until we finally lay down once more, exhausted from the futile attempts we’ve made to keep up or to even stand fast. Just when we thought things couldn’t get any crazier, someone comes up with something even more bizarre than we could have imagined. The battle to normalize, even celebrate, what God has called an abomination seems to have been won, with child pornography being taught in public schools and celebrated across our nation. One wise man said, “What is tolerated in one generation will be celebrated in the next.” I don’t know the prophet’s name, but he or she was 100% correct, and we’re seeing the truth of it in the culture wars raging in our schools and throughout our society. Even Disney, that paragon of valuable children’s entertainment has joined the ranks of the depraved, promising to cast at least 50% of leading characters in their films and television programming as members of the gay community by this time next year. I think that if Walt Disney knew how far his empire had fallen, he would come out of his freezer and throw out the lot of them; alas, those days are gone and you can’t even trust what used to be the most family-friendly corporation in the world to maintain any standard of morality whatsoever.
I don’t want to spend all my waking hours lamenting the downfall of the moral structure of American society; I’m afraid I might not dare venture outside at all. However, when we look around us at the wars and rumors of wars taking place, the persecution of anything remotely resembling Christianity, and the proliferation of anti-Christ attitudes and actions in the world (and even in the Church) today, we could be forgiven for being discouraged. At the same time, we are invited, when these times of discouragement come, to look back. There have been times when the moral state of the world was worse than today and we’re still here, not because of what we’ve done but because of the mercy of the Lord our God.
When Isaiah was writing, the nation of Israel was being invaded by the Assyrians and was threatened with destruction on every hand. Isaiah took great pains to remind those who would listen that the fault lay with the people who had forsaken the covenant made between them and God on Sinai so many years before. He invites them to remember the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea when God delivered His people from Egypt. “In the same way,” he says, “the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads” (Isaiah 51:11).
We’re invited to remember the promise of Jesus when He said, “And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do” (Luke 12:4).
We’re also invited to look forward. No matter how much it seems the forces of anti-Christ are overwhelming the body of Believers, the outcome of the war has already been decided and the Lord will overcome. Period.
Now go take on your world. - Bill