Vince Deagler

is anyone out there familiar with the focus on the family resource entitled “the truth project”?  we have been using it in our church for almost a year and i would highly encourage you to check it out.  it is designed to challange the participant on their worldview and hopefully flesh out the worldview that should characterize us as followers of jesus.  the other night we got into a discussion on what we can do about the moral/ethical decline we have experienced and are experiencing in our postmodern, morally relativistic culture.  how would you answer that question?  think about it and see if what follows makes sense.

on the big picture level, i am not sure there is anything we can do to change what i believe will transpire as the end times progress.  let me explain.  on several occassions paul described a moral/spiritual decline would characterize the end times.  (for instance 1 tim 4:1ff, 2 tim 3:1ff)  couple passages like this with the reality of a spiritual warfare taking place in the heavenlies that involves world governance that will one day result in the world embracing anti-christ as their leader, and you come to a place where i do not see this big picture changing.  but there is more to life than the big picture.  god has a plan, he will move his story forward, the church will prevail, and we have all kinds of opportunity to fulfill the great commission in the mean time.  in fact in some ways, the darker it gets, the greater the difference christ can make.  so i guess you could call me an optimistic pessimist.  i see the direction our culture/this world is headed.  i don’t think it will change.  but in the midst of it all we can make a difference for christ and that has eternal consequence.

anyway in the midst of this discussion i brought up that passage “as it was in the days of noah…”  i have never really had any confidence i knew what this meant.  but lately i have been thinking along these lines.  what was going on in the days of noah?  a moral/spiritual decline so severe that when it came time to enter the ark, only 8 individuals were willing to do so.  i believe this decline went on for years.  as i see it there were 2 very distinct lines descending from adam.  there was an ungodly line therough cain, and a godly line (gen.4:26 men calling on/proclaiming the name of the lord) through seth.  as these lines progressed, i believe the ungodly line of cain was expanding while the godly line of seth was diminishing.  perhaps this is what genesis 6:3 addresses.  a spiritual struggle is implied where god gives man a time limit of 120 years.  (thus the ark could be prepared, and man given ample time to change their ways, though god knew full well the conclusion.)  when god saw the state of man (gen. 6:5) had decayed irreversibly he went forward with his plan to destroy the earth with a flood.  could this decline in noahs day be what jesus refers to as indicative of the end times???  if so, it seems pretty clear we live in scarry times…at least in america.  there are many great things happening in the majority world.  it is there the church is expanding exponentially.  but here in the good old usa, the church is struggling.

so, lets roll up our sleeves and in the power of christ begin to take the great commission seriously.  we are not here to be comfortable, we are here to change the world for christ.  will we re-write god’s story?  i don’t think so.  but we can sure be a part of re-writing the stories of all those people god has brought into our lives so we could win them for christ.  give me some feedback.  thanks for reading along.  blessings.  vince