Crisis is the big word these days – a global financial crisis.  “There will be…on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity…” (Luke 21:25) or as the NEB translation puts it, “On earth nations will stand helpless, not knowing which way to turn from the roar and surge of the sea….”  However, we haven´t got to that point yet.  The present crisis is just the beginning.  The pleasure-loving world doesn´t care.  The TV stations are still full of insane entertainment.  A look at them  leads you to think of a mental hospital where the patients have been released and the doctors locked up.  The more crisis, the more fun!

The world is like one big “Titanic” ship.  It´s sinking.  “For the whole frame of this world is passing away” (I Cor. 7:31) or as it´s rendered in the Danish Bible,  “The world in its present form is heading for disaster!”  As “Titanic” was doing that in 1912, the orchestra was ordered to play soft music to calm down  its passengers. The history repeats itself.  The Bible warns against coming agonies when God will deal in judgment with the sins of our Sodom and Gomorrah. But the world doesn´t care.  The orchestra is playing for its laughing hedonists on their dance floor.  “And many will follow their destructive ways and bring themselves swift destruction” (II Pet. 2:2).

Hebrews exhorts us to come together as believers, not to play games or have fun, but “to exhort one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching” (10:25). Do we really see that?  Or has the carefree world blinded our eyes?  Are we as Christians on the defensive?  Are we playing too?  A game called church?  Does our testimony have “salt” in it?  I was grieved, I must admit, when I saw a sequence of Sarah Palin in a TV show.  I know that a politician must sometimes do a lot of strange things, but a godly woman has nothing to do in show biz.  That doesn´t keep us from praying for her though.  Far from it!

So what are we supposed to do as God´s people?  Repent of our sins and follow our Lord in his humiliation and witness of the truth of the gospel!  And while we´re praying for our country, we are called upon to follow the example of Noah, who “being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of righteousness which is according to faith”  (Hebr. 11:7).

That ark of salvation is Jesus Christ!  By our presence and by our testimony we should point to Him for our “household”, our neighbors, our friends and people we are led to.  Not by doping them with  happy music,  but showing them honest concern, often with broken hearts and tears, for the sake of the gospel.

-jn-