The Changing Times

     "America is really going down the tubes," our youth pastor told us seriously.  "Why, when I was young..." he went on to share about how perfect the world of the 1940s' and 50's had been.  As a teenager in the 1990's, these kinds of talks made me feel guilty for living in the present instead of the past, even though I had no choice in the matter.  They also made me feel hopeless, as if there was nothing good in store for my generation, and we had no value to the kingdom of God.  Our leaders at church were wonderful people, and did many things right, but going on and on about how the past was superior to the present was something I could have done without.  The godly youth just felt bad, like I did.  The youth who weren't strong in the Lord just tuned it all out.  No one was benefited.  Another Sunday school teacher in the same church told us that everyone was a Christian in the 1800's, and the world didn't get evil until the 20th century.  Everyone believed this was true, but it bothered me.  

 

     Is the world getting worse and worse?  Some have said it is getting better and better.  What does the Bible say about this?  Were people morally and spiritually superior in past generations?  Let's look at this.

     A thought-provoking movie about this is the 2002 Christian film Time Changer.  The story starts in 1890.  A professor at a theological seminary has written a book called The Changing Times, about how Christian principles can be taught apart from the name of Christ, and can still benefit society.  In order for this book to be published, the whole seminary board has to unanimously vote to endorse it.  All but one board member accepts it.  The dissenting member is very concerned with where such teaching could lead in the future.  The professor/author is furious about this, but changes his tune when he is given the chance to go forward in time 110 years to the year 2000, and see where the world has gone in light of such modernistic teaching about morality without Jesus.  This movie is a little corny, but also deep.  It definitely has its touching moments.  It's a low-budget film, made before the advent of many of the higher quality Christian movies in theaters today.  It is a sort of cross between Back to the Future (with the time-travel/changing history aspect of it) and Elf  (with this 1890's professor being shocked by the world of 2000, similar to how Buddy acts in New York City).   At the end, he returns to 1890, and determines to edit his book, as well as be a witness for Christ, not just morality.  For the point it was trying to make (morality without Christ is futile), it was amazing, and I recommend it.  However, some took from it that the movie was trying to say the world was better in 1890.  I don't believe that was the point at all, but assuming it was, let's look at that.

     The late 19th century was a time of change in the world.  In a sense, it wasn't so different from today.  It was a time of history moving along, just like now.  Two of my favorite hymns, Higher Ground and Heavenly Sunlight, were written in the 1890's.  Spiritually, the 1890's fell between some revivals, with none going on at that time in particular.  Dwight Moody preached until shortly before his death in 1899, however.  At this time in history, children were often forced to work in factories for pennies, just barely enough to help their families.  This was the period of the newsboys strike (which was depicted in the movie and Broadway musical Newsies).  Women didn't yet have the right to vote.  Liberal modernism had already made its way into Christianity and churches, though this controversy between liberalism and fundamentalism would become much more pronounced in the 1920's.  Many of the problems from that time no longer exist, but some of our problems today didn't exist then either.  It's a mixed bag.  

     Also worth noting, it is very easy to romanticize the past.  When it was the 1890's, no one thought it was particularly romantic or amazing.  It was just normal life, like today is for us.  I think people romanticize the past because it can no longer disappoint us.  It's under control.  It isn't a threat.  The present and future can seem scary, but the present has always been "the present" even in the past (wow, what a sentence!)!  

     It is easy to look at the late 19th century and see the good--how the Bible was still in our public schools, how more marriages stayed together, and how church attendance was higher--while ignoring the wrong.  Many people of that era who read the Bible in schools and even churches had no understanding of what it was really saying, so it wasn't transforming their hearts (Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof, Second Timothy 3:5a).  There really weren't more born-again Christians than today.  Just more professing Christians.  It was more culturally beneficial to be a Christian at that time, so many unsaved people claimed Christianity.  This is even true today.  In my adult life, I once had a boss who was secretly practicing witchcraft, but publicly always talked about us doing right at work because it was "the Christian thing to do."  She would use the word "Christian" as synonymous with good, and the general people who heard her talk that way thought she was a God-fearing woman.  A lot of people do that.  As of 2015, 75% of Americans claimed to be Christians, but upon deeper questioning, only 29% said they had made a personal decision to receive Christ as Savior.  With so many people claiming Christianity culturally, maybe we're a lot more like the 1890s than we realize.  There is a big difference between Christian culture and actually being a Christian.  

This map depicts religion in the US (not necessarily isolating Christianity).  Most of the deep green state are the Bible Belt, and are the most religious (Utah is not considered the Bible Belt, but is part of this deep green category because of the strong adherence to Mormonism).  The medium green states are "average" (whatever that means).  The yellow-green are have the lowest religious involvement.  

     I'll camp on this just a second.  We tend to value Christian culture.  I grew up in Southern California, which has a largely secular reputation (in spite of many wonderful churches and Bible seminaries, and in spite of it being "average" on this map).  Christians in California often idealize the "Bible Belt" (which many think is all states outside of California).  Technically, the Bible Belt is the South (all deep green states on the map besides Utah).  Having lived in California, South Dakota, New Mexico, Texas and now Arkansas, I can say that there isn't as much difference as people think.  It was funny that, as soon as I arrived in South Dakota (after 34 years as a Californian) all my Christian friends back home kept saying how lucky I was to be in the Bible Belt (hint: South Dakota isn't in the Bible Belt, and the particular town we lived in there was a much more secular humanistic society than I'd had in California.).  I currently do live in the Bible Belt, and even now, I don't think it's better or worse than anywhere else.  People here act more or less the same as those in my previous states.  Besides that, Christian culture isn't a virtue in itself.  It's something we idealize, but it isn't good unless it actually facilitates people becoming real Christians, and gives God glory.  If people are living moral lives and going to church, but don't know Jesus Christ, there is no benefit.  What do we as Christians profit if we influence others toward morality and goodness, but lose them for eternity (For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Mark 8:36)?  Our goal isn't a Christian culture as an end in itself.  Our goal should be to win the lost for Christ.  Having a culture that leans more toward Christianity is only helpful it it enables us to reach that end.  To be honest, some of the nicest, most godly, committed believers I have ever met lived in the states that are the least religious (lightest green) on the map I shared.  Sometimes, being surrounded by a more hostile culture helps Christians look to their faith and realize it's worth defending and living for.  

     Newton's third law of physics tells us, "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."  As time has moved forward and wrong things have happened, true Christian people have made a stand against them, and formed movements that have glorified the Lord.  We now have organizations like Compassion International, Focus on the Family, the HSLDA, Answers in Genesis, among others.  These godly movements weren't part of life in the past, and they illustrate that genuine Christian people are as strong today as they ever were.  The things we wrestle with might look a little different, but we are the same.  We also have a lot of wonderful resources Christians in the past didn't have, and we can be grateful for that.  

     There is an additional aspect of this as well.   I began this post talking about things I was told at church.  The first mistake in our youth pastor's talk was that he focused on America.  He was saying how America was going down the tubes.  We need to qualify statements like that by broadening them to look at the whole world.  The whole world has problems, and America is part of the world, so it has problems too.  When I would hear people complain about America being in so much trouble while I was growing up, I used to think that this must mean other countries were wonderful compared to us.  Having traveled internationally, I can say this is not the case.  Humans are humans.  All are equally loved by God, equally depraved by sin, and equally redeemable by faith in Christ (but not everyone is redeemed, because not everyone has chosen His way).  Americans complaining about the present is unique to us.  We are a nation that was founded on religious freedom, and can see how far we've fallen.  Most other nations can't make that comparison, because they weren't founded on those ideals.  The Pilgrims came to our shores in 1620, in order to have the freedom to worship God as they saw fit.  At that time, they weren't attempting to create a nation.  They just wanted that freedom.  Over 150 years later, the United States declared independence from Britain.  Some of the founding fathers of our nation were Christians, but many were not.  Several were Deists.  The Bill of rights in our Constitution grants Americans freedom of religion.  The exact wording of the first amendment is as follows: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.  Our nation was, and has continued to be, a place of religious liberty.  Christianity has played a big part in it.  As time has moved on, we have seen wars on our liberties, and very unchristian things happen.  This is to be expected.  We live in a world that never knew God.  We're part of a country that has been blessed for over two-hundred years, and we pray for God's blessing to continue.  We have to look at our country as one that was started with Christianity in mind  but was full of people who didn't know God, even at the beginning.  At the present, it feels like we're fighting for our liberties in ways we never have before, and we need to pray!

     In 2009, then-President Barak Obama made the claim the the US is no longer a Christian nation.  Many were outraged.  I disagree with the motive behind his statement, but I heard an amazing sermon shortly after this that helped my perspective on this.   I heard the sermon at a church I was visiting in the course of doing ministry in a different city than usual.  The pastor--a Conservative Christian man who also happened to be African-American--built the case that America has never been a Christian nation.  He pointed out that there were Christians in our nation's founding, and there are many Christian principles in the fabric of our culture, but there have been non-Christians and their ideals as well.  He brought up many travesties in our history (IE: slavery), as well as present (IE: abortion), and pointed out that our nation has never been exclusively Christian.  But then he built an even better case.  He said there is a Christian nation within the US--and in every nation.  God's kingdom on earth today exists in the Christian people, and there are definitely Christian people in America.  We are that Christian nation.  It was such a beautiful message that touched my heart and left me in tears.  It left me with a deeper love of my fellow believers, and a longing for what waits beyond this life. 

     The past wasn't as rosy as we paint it, and the present has its own issues.  What about the future?  Are things getting worse?  Or are they getting better?  What's going to happen?  

     Here are some things we are told in the Bible:

     Creation was plunged into corruption when sin entered the world.  Romans 5:12 tells us, Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin...  A few chapters later, in Romans 8:22-23, we're told that all of creation is groaning because of the effects of sin.  Sin has affected our world since Genesis 3.  Since Adam and Eve ate that fruit, there has never been a perfect time in history.  

     Believers from different times have felt alone, but God has always had a remnant.  

     David wrote in Psalm 42:9-11, I will say unto God my rock, Why has thou forgotten me?  Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?  As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me while they say daily to me, Where is thy God?  Why are thou cast down, O my soul?  and why are thou disquieted within me?  Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my  countenance, and my God.  We know David had trusted friends in his life, from studying his life in First and Second Samuel.  But he felt alone in his walk with the Lord, as we can gather from Psalm 42.  

     Another believer who felt alone was Elijah.  He did great things for the Lord (First Kings 17-18), but when his life was threatened, he ran, and felt totally alone.  He despaired and wanted to die.  In First Kings 19:10 (and again in verse 14) he laments, I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of armies; for the sons of Israel have abandoned Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they have sought to take my life.  In verse 18, God tells Elijah he isn't the only one left: Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him.  Elijah needed a wake-up call to remind him he wasn't the only faithful believer.  God always has a Remnant.  The same is true today.  

     As we wait for Christ's return, our hope shouldn't be in this world getting better.  On the other hand, it isn't helpful to sit around complaining about evil.  Our focus should be on what is eternal.  In the Apostle Paul's last letter, Second Timothy, he warns his protégé:  For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires,  and they will turn their ears away from the truth and will turn aside to myths.  But as for you, use self-restraint in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.  As for that part about people not wanting sound doctrine and finding preachers who teach to their liking, that sounds a lot like today--but it has sounded that way a lot in the history of Christianity.  What are we, in the present, to do?  The rest of that passage tells us.  We're to use self-restraint, endure the difficulties, do the work of an evangelist, and fulfill the ministry God has given us.  That's what I wish our youth leader had urged us, instead of making negative comments about the time in which we were living.  No one can help when God chose to create them.  If God had given me a choice, I very highly doubt I would have picked to be born when I was.  But God knows best.  He has a plan for you and for me in the time in which He has placed us.  Acts 17:26-27 assures us that God places us in the boundaries of time and space that we are in order for us to know Him.  ...having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God.  He could have put me in another city, state or nation, and in an entirely different time in history, but He put me where and when He did because He knew it was the very best place and time for me to know Him.  For me, the very best time to come to know Christ as my personal Lord and Savior was on February 7, 1987 in Riverside California, USA.  That's when and where I was saved.  No other time or place would have been as good for me, according to scripture.  Even where I am now, in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 2020, is the best time and place for my walk with the Lord right now.  It is so easy to think we belong in another time or place, especially when the past is painted as being idealistic, but God's word says differently.  God also has plans He created for you to fulfill (Ephesians 2:10).  He knew what He was doing when he created you in the time and place He did.  You are not defined by your time in history--let history be defined by you!

     All times in history have had their difficulties.  Since Jesus ascended, Christians have longed for His return.  They have expected it in their lifetime, as many do today.  We are right to long for it (Even so, come, Lord Jesus, Revelation 22:20). , but also must remember that God isn't slack concerning His promise to return, but is patient, not wanting anyone to perish, but for all to come to Him (First Peter 3:9).  I can imagine Christians during some dark times in history begging Jesus to come back, just as I sometimes do today, but I'm glad God answered their prayer with a no, because those of us alive today wouldn't have had the chance to be part of His kingdom if He had come back then.  The same might be true now.  There might be some brothers and sisters of ours that we will spend eternity with, but they haven't been physically born yet, and if Jesus came back now, they'd never have a chance.  We just don't know.  We have to rest in His Sovereignty.  

     We don't know what the rest of history looks like, exactly.  But we do know Jesus is coming back, and we will be with Him forever, as well as all believers who came before and after us.  We are contending with a world that never knew God.  Luke 21 gives us some clues, but verse 28 is the biggest encouragement  And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.  American history has given us a bit of a reprieve, but it has never been perfect.  We are reminded that we are citizens of Heaven (Philippians 3:20).  We are to do our duty to preach the gospel.  Remember what Jesus said, And this gospel of the kingdom must be announced to the whole world, as a witness to all the nations. Then the end will come. (Matthew 24:14).  Maybe you will lead that last soul to salvation so Christ's family is complete and He can return!  Let's get busy!