The World Is Dead. What Should We Then Do?

Christians have discussed the coming of rampant unrighteousness in Western culture as though we were somehow righteous before. I daresay we haven't remembered the unrighteousness of our history.

But the discussion typically goes something like this: "The Church hasn't been doing what the Church is supposed to do. Therefore the country has gotten bad."

Some observations:

1. It's up to the Church to be faithful, but it's not up to the Church to produce results. The results are up to God.
2. The Church largely hasn't been faithful. We have indulged in poor theology and our focus has been on behavior over and against the pursuit of truth. We have promoted Therapeutic Moralistic Deism instead of the Gospel.
3. The Church has been increasingly faithful in some quarters. The fruits of the unfaithful quarters have resulted in rebellion against the fruit of the faithful quarters.
4. This means that there has been a schism in the Church as what is dead becomes repugnant to what is alive and what is dead is naturally poisonous to what is alive.
5. This means that what is dead will blame what is alive for the schism. I'll gladly plead guilty to that. We have all left God. If returning to him means being separated in some significant way from what we once were, then I'll take that charge as a good thing, giving glory to God, while impelling my accusers to join me.
6. We have been lulled into being a relatively dead and ineffective church by our own prosperity. The blessings of God have become a curse. The fault is our own as we have not stewarded his blessings according to his wishes. Rather, we have been lulled to sleep by the comfort we have been afforded only to awaken at this late hour bloated and obese, unable to respond quickly as though to a house burning around us, our blessings aflame. Should we seek to rebuild the house only to return to our slumber?

What should we then do? Dr. Doug Groothuis has some good observations to that question:

Towers

Twelve years ago people climbed into real planes and crashed into real buildings. People lost their lives.

The purpose for this action was to provoke a response and illustrate the power of the God of Islam over the world. The belief of the perpetrators is that we flout unrighteous freedom. Their contention is that we are all subject to the commands of Allah.

That message doesn’t sound too far from the Christian message. Sin against God is indeed the unrighteous flouting of freedom from the commands of God. Many atheists have noted this similarity and have concluded that Christianity is as dangerous as Islam. Many point to the Crusades as evidence of the similarity in the danger of the message. That’s only evidence of a lack of sophisticated thought enough distinguish between historic political European Christendom and the true Body of Christ as it bears the gospel of peace.

But let us not make the same error. The American experiment was an attempt to build a nation free of the errors of Christendom by marrying a Christian worldview with a novel iteration of the Greco-Roman republic. Our success has been marginal, but the system is failing. It quickly morphed into just another kind of Christendom. Instead of self-sacrificing for each other, we sacrifice each other for our own benefit, and we wonder why we aren’t acting like a Christian nation anymore.

Our false towers of institutionalized morality have fallen. People are losing their lives spiritually because we have relied on government for a good country instead of relying on the proclamation of the gospel for changed lives.

Our towers were attacked precisely because we haven’t relied on the proclamation of the gospel. Those who are dead in their sins are angry with those of us who have trusted Christ for our lives and are dead to our sins. They have attacked our false political towers to demonstrate the power of their god of self-worth and self-determination over and against those of us who trust Christ.

Let us not forget the towers that fell twelve years ago. Let it serve as a reminder that we have a fallen world to serve, not to help them uphold the sins that separate them from Christ, but to shine the light into the darkness of their sin to highlight the need they have for Christ so that they might believe. It is the gospel that makes us free and not political victory.

Pray For Our Men and Women in the Armed Forces

Today, as we remember the men and women who gave their lives in the service of our country, I want to acknowledge that their sacrifice is a mirror of the One who gave himself to pay the penalty for our sin against God. Just as Jesus reconciled us with God, the hope of the deaths of these men and women has been that of eventual peace.

War will be with us until Jesus returns. Therefore, we can expect the deaths of men and women in the Armed Forces of the United States to continue. Peace might ensue for a time, but another enemy will seek our demise and we must be prepared to defend ourselves.

However, in a post-Christian nation, many of these who will give their lives after the pattern of Christ do not know Christ. Their deaths will not result in their personal peace with God. Pray for these men and women who will yet go to war, make the greatest sacrifice, and be recognized with honor by us to know their eternal Savior and rest peacefully with him forever.