This video made me really think about how we, as believers, must grasp the eternal perspective of God in order to minister to our own children and prepare them with an eternal perspective and a kingdom mentality for the future. Check it out. It's 6 minutes long. You'll have to copy and paste the link. Love, Dian.
Watched the video. It is quite staggering as you said.
Gives some eye opening statistics of what is going on in the world.
It asks, 'Did you know?', and at the end says 'Now you know'
I thought, well, what do I do with what I now know?
Well, it's something to ponder.
God bless.
This video made me really think about how we, as believers, must grasp the eternal perspective of God in order to minister to our own children and prepare them with an eternal perspective and a kingdom mentality for the future.
Hi Spitfire!
I think the stats about China and India reveal a pitfall in American culture...which is greatly influenced by an evangelical culture...which is essentially phobic of the future and as a result is a culture that is becoming unable to respond confidently and rationally to challenges and dangers.
Yesterday at work, a group of Christians were having a brief conversation about the recent correction in the stock market and credit industries. For a couple of minutes we were able to talk about the issues cognitively, but, being evangelicals, our conversation soon devolved into an emotional group hug about how it's all just too mysterious, America is doomed, and soon we'll be in prison camps waiting for Jesus to return.
Later that day I visit Sermon Index, and at least 50% of the threads are expressing the same sentitment...with unassailable prophetic authority no less.
And if you visit your secular shopping mall media stores, it's not hard to find that endtimes has become pop culture...even among non Christians.
Now I do believe Jesus is coming back...but I consider all of this endtimes thinking has a consquence on my life....and my children's life. Two nights ago my son opened up to me about his fears for the future, and I found myself walking a fine line between being a father giving sound doctrine about our hope not being in this world, and simply being David Koresh.
The evangelical Christian may feel he is a small raft in the perfect storm: First, his beliefs are dispensational, and apocalyptic, so he does not put much stock in earthly future...much less plan for his children and grandchildren's earthly future. (Compare this to the multi-generation thinking of Asian, Eastern, and even Islamic cultures.) Second the American Evangelical is bombarded with propsperity teaching...no doubt many Christians are literally living, and spending, like there is no tomorrow. Thirdly, the American Evangelical is mostly of Pentecostal/Charismatic DNA, which means he is wanting to be led by the Spirit...a lifestyle that is too often imitated by living simply through emotions and feelings.
This is the perfect storm of physcological dispair that unsettles most evangelicals I know...including myself.
200-300 Years ago our Christian ancestors were nation builders. They built not just for themselves, but also for their children. Such courage has left us long ago...we are shadows of their substance. We are but fallen leaves from once sturdy trees, turning in every wind that touches us. The America Christian reminds me of TS Elliots verse."My life is light, waiting for the death wind, like a feather on the back on my hand."
Who knows...perhaps we are in the end times sister. But the factors I have listed above are real...and they are effecting our perceptual culture. We are right to point the finger at America's moral and financial decadence as part of the problem...but are we too close to ourselves to see how end times fervor, deeply rooted in our mass physcology, is also weakening our society?
Indeed, could such fatalism cut off sincere prayer...hope...for revival?
Recently a dear brother jokingly said to me..."I'll be relieved when America finally collapses. I'll, turn to my children and say, 'kids, daddy doesn't have a job anymore, and they took our house. So the only thing we have to worry about now is running to the woods from the government to wait for the Lord to come back." He was kidding, but I think he was expressing a deep longing we all have to leave this world, and all of it's seemingly pointless worries, yea unthinkable horrors, behind us.
I once was on a rafting trip where we had an incomptent river guide. Now the river we put on was in a serious season, but the guide's pessimism made it actually deadly serious. He could not respond to the rapids with a clear head...and so we were constantly making the wrong approaches to the rocks. (At one point we were joking about having a helicopter lift us out! I guess that made us pre-tribbers!) Every ten minutes it seemed we were being dumped into the 'drink'.
Now what we needed was a mature river guide who combined experience, critical thinking, and confidence into that quality known as leadership. The other river guide was a self fulfilling prophet, warning us of this danger and that danger but never having anything more to offer. (I imagine if we ever went over a waterfall, he would be describing the pain we are going to experience while we would be busy screaming!)
But a good river guide plans as best as he can, and while he can not avoid all the dangers...he himself is not one of them.
Likewise, we as parents, as shepherds of our churches, as stewards of our business concerns, cannot continue to assume all hope is lost, lest we ourselves become the biggest danger to those depending on our leadership. True enough, like the river, this world is beyond man's 'control'...but still we must row on! And it is also true, when riding the rapids there is a kind of peace you can give yourself from simply laying down in the bottom of the raft and praying. But there is a greater love that we must give our children (who are in the raft with us) that comes from crying out to God while thrusting your oar deep into the water and using the health, mind, and will that God gave you to make it to safety.
You know...part of me will be glad when the economy adjusts. Yet even if America "collapses", we have to consider that we may still be here for another 100 years. Perhaps as Christians we can find a balance in our theology that allows us to stop obsessing about our own physcological peace and start thinking about our children in this new world that is coming.
Jesus is surely coming back. Yet, I cannot help but be impressed what Luther once said when asked "What would you do if you knew Christ was coming back tomorrow?" (paraphrase) He said "I would do exactly what I am doing today."
Blessings sister,
(By the way...did you ever record those songs?)
That is staggering. It's scary too.
Whats so staggering about it? It's just statistics.
Thank you Compton for that great post, your right on the money.
are we too close to ourselves to see how end times fervor, deeply rooted in our mass physcology, is also weakening our society?
Good point. Good post Compton.
I’ve been studying the book of Micah these days. This 2,700 year old message tells me something quite different than the u-tube video – essentially: NOTHING HAS CHANGED. A slight tweaking of our focus - a glance beyond the PC’s, the LDC’s, wires, and such, and you see man’s hopeless condition (unless you are a health and wealth prophet, of course).
Why does our world continually refuse to look at the REAL problem and continue to create for itself all kinds of gadgetry that merely distracts us from our “incurable wound” – and the only solution – God’s Son.
Is $$ not the bottom line? No, I’d say it’s idolatry. Countless offer their $$ to their modern-day idols - technology is a big one (potentially). People cling to technology to save them from the misery of this life, from their unbearable loneliness and disconnection, from their fears…. To make life work, to get ahead in the world. Let's face it, if people didn’t buy, people wouldn’t make and they wouldn’t sell. (I wonder how much exploitation goes on behind the scenes that relates to this market.)
The punch line of the video is rather clever. Someone seems to understand that when you mix advanced technology with man’s fallenness you have a big mess. Good for him. But he needs to look further. The OT prophets saw what we need to see too.
If the Old Testament prophets were to step on our turf today, I dare say, their message would require minimal tweaking – just replace antiquated figures of speech with more culturally relevant ones, update some political names – and there you have it! God says the same thing!
Still today the only solution is what Christ has to offer. And still today it’s not a utopia on earth, but another kingdom – the kingdom of heaven. The prophets looked ahead in faith and could see the day this would be accomplished through Christ. We glance back to see how Christ did it, and we too look forward in faith, trusting God to fulfill his plan for mankind.
How long will it be before God dismantles this modern Babel Tower that man holds together with wires and modern technology?
In the meantime…. may we be shrewd in our use our technology. May it be for the advancement of his kingdom – not in our cleverness, but in God’s power.
we, as believers, must grasp the eternal perspective of God in order to minister to our own children and prepare them with an eternal perspective and a kingdom mentality for the future.
Diane
Great post, Compton.
I used to have a friend who refused to recycle because Jesus is coming soon so why bother. (Same kind of mentality).
I loved your experience of needing a "competent river guide." Thank you!
Wow, Mike, you need to write a book! That there was a good post. :-D
I watched the video... and I know the numbers are big... fascinating... challenging to one's personal real-time perspective... But isn't this all just computer modelling rather than fact?
Christians have been taking the opportunity of one-year teaching opportunities from the UK, to go and teach the Chinese English... at the same time as Rupert Murdoch was angling to get English speaking tv over there... no real surprise that now they are getting good at it. ;-)
I'd also like to pour a little scepticism on the idea that students' courses will be outdated before they have completed a college degree... because the real world doesn't move fast enough to keep up with 'new' 'developments'.
While there are (indeed) children who don't know where milk comes from; who have never been out of their towns and cities to see fields and trees, waterfalls or mountains, God has given us rich and diverse natural resources which will not fail. We may find ourselves drinking dandelion tea (picked the dandelions m'self, guv), gathering mushrooms and wild fruit in season and fishing in cold waters, but... praise God that's a possibility. I've always liked the promises that His people will not be scorched by the sun, and wondered when this will become relevant to us.
I do, also, realise it's not as simple as extreme technologies or basic survival, but if we are aware of how we're being compromised by our cell phones and computers, perhaps we will appreciate the gift of the Holy Spirit more properly and with [i]much[i]always
Wow, Mike, you need to write a book! That there was a good post.
A reoccurring thought reading MC's expressions here most all of the time.
No pressure brother ;-)
Thanks Diane and Linn, twas great reading your posts.
Brother Compton wrote well about the past generations that did well for this nation...
There was a time like this in the history of Israel...and then listen to what God worked into the frabric of this fallen nation...
1 For behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts,
\tTakes away from Jerusalem and from Judah
\tThe stock and the store,
\tThe whole supply of bread and the whole supply of water;
2 \tThe mighty man and the man of war,
\tThe judge and the prophet,
\tAnd the diviner and the elder;
3 \tThe captain of fifty and the honorable man,
\tThe counselor and the skillful artisan,
\tAnd the expert enchanter.
4 \t“I will give children to be their princes,
\tAnd babes shall rule over them.
5 \tThe people will be oppressed,
\tEvery one by another and every one by his neighbor;
\tThe child will be insolent toward the elder,
\tAnd the base toward the honorable.”
6 \tWhen a man takes hold of his brother
\tIn the house of his father, saying,
\t“You have clothing;
\tYou be our ruler,
\tAnd let these ruins be under your power,”
7 \tIn that day he will protest, saying,
\t“I cannot cure your ills,
\tFor in my house is neither food nor clothing;
\tDo not make me a ruler of the people.”
8 \tFor Jerusalem stumbled,
\tAnd Judah is fallen,
\tBecause their tongue and their doings
\tAre against the LORD,
\tTo provoke the eyes of His glory.
9 \tThe look on their countenance witnesses against them,
\tAnd they declare their sin as Sodom;
\tThey do not hide it.
\tWoe to their soul!
\tFor they have brought evil upon themselves.
He took away the mighty men and gave children to rule over them. Everyone was looking to another for salvation, for hope, but none was found. The children were insolent.
They looked to men of wealth to rule over them...yet they were found naked.
Brother Mike, I hear your cry for your children and their hopes. The children of Israel that survived lived in bondage to Babylon, yet God was with them. Likewise, let us take refuge in the One that is exceedingly able to comfort us even if the comforts of this life are vanished by our God.
In Love
Jeff
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