Since 1972, these United States have been an almost silent witness to around 55 million murders! Most recently in the news are homosexual marriage licenses. For the past 40-50 years, society ( culture ) in this great nation have taken a decidedly down-hill turn. This is barely to mention even the wars & rumors of war that the U.S. Inc. has embroiled its subjects in!
Society in these United States & Western Culture in general has become so corrupt that I'm sure our Founding Fathers are rolling over in their metaphorical graves ( 'You've fallen a long way, baby!' )! 'If only we could restore the Constitution', you hear some people say. Well, we had/have the Constitution & look where we are in spite/because of it! One of our most famous Founding Fathers, John Adams, said, 'Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other'; sounds something like the apostle Paul when he wrote 'we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully' ( I Timothy 1:8 ).
It's really no wonder that the majority of Christians out there are looking for the soon return of Jesus; one, they hope for Him to rescue us from the corruption that surrounds us & threatens to overwhelm us & two, they believe, to varying degrees, that He will literally burn up/destroy all sin & wickedness, turning this earth/world into a veritable utopia! It's almost difficult to blame them for holding on to this hope & it's impossible to deny that the situation calls for something that drastic. As believers in a Fulfilled Eschatology, we here at Covenant Community Church know that Jesus returned, as He promised, 'in the clouds' of judgment in the first century, with the destruction of Jerusalem & the Temple, thus bringing an end to the apostate Jews reign of terror & ushering in the Parousia, or lasting Presence of the Almighty Creator God!
Since then, the Parousia has been realized & is realized every day, what hope do we have? If Jesus has already come, then why is the culture in such a mess, why is society around us so corrupt? Is there any hope left if Jesus has already made His Presence known?!
'Covenant Community Church; a Redemptive Society'! That's the first thing you will see when you visit our website, Truth In Living. Many Christians seem to have forgotten or have failed to realize why we are here on this earth; we are not here to decide among ourselves who will be making the up-ward trip to Heaven & who will descend to a burning Hell ( in fact, the traditional Heaven & Hell barely even register in the equation- Heaven is the Blessed Presence of God & Hell, well, Hell was the grave in the days of Israel under that first covenant, or 'Israel in Exile' ) The Creator God brought His People, much like Israel of old, into Covenant with Him in order that they might be a nation of priests to all those ( the culture/society ) around them in order that we might transform them into the People of the Presence, rather than we conforming to the corrupt culture around us!
Jesus promised that 'If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him' ( John 14:23 ): we have the Power! We have the Strength that we need & more, so why does the culture around us look & act the way it does? We can really only blame ourselves! If more than a handful of Christians had stood their ground back in 1972, over 55 million babies might be 'over the hill' right now! If those same Christians & more had done more than protest & martyr themselves for those poor helpless unborn, the abortion industry may have faded from view long ago! Abortion is just one fateful aspect of the Corruption we witness on a daily basis in society at large; I leave you, the reader, to discern the rest!
What then are we to do? The task seems all but insurmountable! Well, many have tried the way of politics; we can simply pass more legislation, legislation that would make it illegal to murder the unborn, legislation that would put the brakes on the porn industry, etc., etc. That solution no doubt has some merit; it has worked in the past, enjoying various degrees of success, but as John Adams foresaw, that only goes so far, it only works well for 'a moral and religious people'!
The Solution then, is to redeem society! 'How do we do that?' you might ask; well, first of all, we transform ( to the best of our several abilities ) the society/culture around us, rather than conforming to it, becoming in the process as corrupt as they. Secondly & maybe most importantly, we should be a 'culture within a culture'; we should be, as so many Christians are fond of saying, 'in the world but not of the world'. This is our home, don't get me wrong, this is our Father's world, but we have been saved from the corruption that plagues those around us who do not know the Creator God! In order to form a more perfect society ( culture ), We, the People of the Creator God & Kings & Priests ourselves, MUST, to the best of our ability, live at peace with ALL men & women, bringing them to the knowledge ( not just acquaintance ) of our God & Father!
In years past, Christianity has witnessed, to varying degrees of success, the conversion of whole cultures through the means of preaching & even at the point of a sword ( or spear ); we cannot deny that the Kingdom of Heaven has experienced expansion through these means! Even today, here in America, we may bear witness to the power of these influences & the effect they still present; however, the fact remains that society or the culture in general has been corrupted. There remains one sure way to cure these evils & that is 'Truth In Living'!
Charles Haddon Shank
No comments:
Post a Comment