Watch for the Signs of the Last Days

“My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.” (Hosea 4:6)

When I was a child, I often worried about the world coming to an end.

I know it’s unusual for children to have such thoughts, but you have to remember that my childhood saw the death of an American president, who had only recently weathered the Cuban Missile Crisis. In fact, the explosion of television news brought all this drama right into our living room. It was a scary time for me.

I can still remember those B-52’s endlessly flying over our North Carolina home one night during the Cuban Missile Crisis, not to mention the look of concern on my dad’s face. Something big was happening that Walter Cronkite had apparently missed. We didn’t know it then, but history reveals today just how close we came to nuclear war.

Things seemed so bad and I just couldn’t see how they could get any worse. My dad, in an effort to comfort me, told me that one of the signs of Christ’s return would be a great light shining from the east to the west. He was referring to Matthew 24:27, which says, “For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” “Until you see that light, son,” he assured me, “you don’t have anything to worry about!”

Jesus said, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.” (Matthew 24:42) We may not know the day and hour of Christ’s return, but God expects us to recognize the season.

The Apostle Paul warned us that the “last days” would be unbearable. As far as I’m concerned, those “days” have already arrived. Just as the prophets predicted, we live in a world where wrong is now right and right is wrong. For example, in a graduation prayer case in Santa Fe, Texas, a federal judge declared: “The court will allow that prayer to be a typical non-denominational prayer…The prayer must not refer to a specific deity by name…[such as] Jesus…” Adding insult to injury, he went on to say, “And make no mistake, the Court is going to have a United States marshal in attendance at the graduation. If any student offends this Court, that student will face up to six months incarceration…Anybody who violates these orders…is going to wish that he or she had died as a child when this court gets through with it.”

Indeed, right has become wrong when school children can be sent to jail for the mere mention of the name Jesus in public.

Some time ago, Paul Harvey quoted a prayer and said that he had more requests for it than almost any other he had used. Pastor Joe Wright offered it before the Kansas State Legislature:

“Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek our direction and guidance. We know your Word says woe to those who call evil good but that’s exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values. We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of your Word in the name of moral pluralism. We have worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism. We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle. We have exploited the poor and called it a lottery. We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. In the name of choice, we have killed our unborn. In the name of right to life, we have killed abortionists. We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building esteem. We have abused power and called political savvy. We have coveted our neighbor’s possessions and called it taxes. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment. Search us, O God, and know our hearts today. Try us and show us any wicked way in us. Cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent here by the people of Kansas and who have been ordained by you to govern this great state. Grant them your wisdom to rule and may their decisions direct us to the center of your will. I ask in the name of your Son, the living Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.”

I couldn’t have said it better. Amen.

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