Perilous Times

Do you feel as though you’ve entered an alternate universe?  A world where things appear to be normal, but something’s not quite right? People look the same, yet their thoughts are backward from what you remember. And the longer you investigate your surroundings, the more you find what you knew as good has now been deemed evil. Is it a nightmare? The Twilight Zone? Or could it be what God’s Word prophesied, “…that in the last days perilous times will come:”[1]

 

As I was thinking about what to write, and whether or not to write, I remembered the “Back to the Future” movies. One of the films, Part III, I think, took Marty McFly to a different reality. Something happened in Part II that had altered his universe. Marty’s mother was now married to the villain, Biff. And if that weren’t shocking enough, she had had cosmetic surgery and appeared very voluptuous.

 

Marty found where once respect, decency, and morality were the norm in their town, now licentiousness and depravity reigned free. He had to right the past of this new reality to rectify the future. Of course, Marty McFly is the savior. The changes he secured made his true and current world better than before.

 

This makes me wish there was a way we could return to 1947 and change the outcome of the Everson v. Board of Education case. The Supreme Court took Jefferson’s “separation of church and state” metaphor out of the context of his private letter to Danbury, Connecticut Baptist Association. The court used this small portion to reinterpret our Constitution’s First Amendment, which was meant to PROTECT rather than REMOVE Christian values and practices from public policy.[2]

 

But, if 1947 is too far back, how about 1962. Then we could stop the Supreme Court from again throwing precedent out the window and redefining “church” to mean a religious activity instead of the actual meaning of the Constitution—a federally-established national denomination such as Baptist or Catholic. Prayer and Bible reading were religious activities.[3]

 

Still too far back? Maybe return to 1980. This Supreme Court Decision removed the Ten Commandments from the classroom. In justifying their ruling, these intelligent judges said, “If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey the commandments…[this] is not a permissible state objective.”[4]

 

Almost 200 years earlier, President John Adams stated, “If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.”[5]

 

Perilous times indeed have come because sinful people have allowed evil to reign, and unlike Marty McFly, we cannot go back in time to right the wrongs. However, we can vote for the candidate who more closely aligns with God’s Word—one who is pro-life, pro-marriage, and pro-religious freedom. Maybe, just maybe, God will have mercy and continue our reprieve from evil. For, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD…”[6]

 

Vote wisely, dear friend. The timing of these perilous times, “…the Father has put in His own authority.”[7]  And, take heart, God sees all. “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous…His ears are open to their cry…The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good…For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He ponders all his paths.” And, praise God, “…the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.”[8]

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[1] II Timothy 3:1

[2] “America’s Godly Heritage” video by David Barton,

distributed by www.wallbuilders.com

[3] ibid.

[4] ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Psalm 33:12

[7] Acts 1:7

[8] Psalm 34:15; Proverbs 15:3; Proverbs 5:21; 2 Chronicles 16:9