Warning Signs: Will we respond in time?

by Wes Moore                                                                                           Vol. XXI, No. 2, February 2008

He was hard on them. “You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky,” He charged, “but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.” In some ways, the religious people of Jesus’ day were very clever; they could look at the sky and predict the coming weather. But they had missed the signs alerting them to the spiritual realities quickly coming upon them.

We are much like the Pharisees of the first century in this regard. Signs of the future of spiritual life are everywhere, like roadside billboards, but we don’t always recognize them for what they are.

So what are the signs of our times? And, perhaps more importantly, what do they indicate for the future of spiritual life in America? Let’s look at the evidence.

Our culture is in a moral tail spin. Take as a single example the evil that is being produced by our culture’s institutions (government, business, sports, and spiritual). Let’s just mention a few names: Enron, Michael Vick, the Cincinnati Bengals, Larry Craig, Catholic Priests, and Ted Haggard. Any of these ring a bell? Why is this an indicator of our nation’s overall morality? Because the institutions are made up of the people.

Not only is our culture failing but so are our churches. According to one expert, 80-85% of churches in America are not growing or are losing members with little hope of revival. Perhaps an even more frightening statistic is this: up to 88% of children raised in conservative Christian homes leave the church after their eighteenth birthday and never come back. One does not have to go far to find a church with no youth, only gray hair and empty pews.

Finally, consider the war being waged on biblical faith in our land. You may recall during the summer the Reverend Danny Harvey in Florida claimed he was fired for praying in Jesus’ name. Leesburg Regional Center, his employer, said his work was not “consistent with the center’s various faiths.” Then there was Erica Corder who was refused her high school diploma for saying during a commencement speech that people should “get to know Jesus Christ.” Then in Chicago, just last month, U. S. District Judge Robert Gettleman issued a preliminary injunction against a new law that mandates — not a moment of prayer — but a moment of silence in Illinois’ public schools. Barry Lynn, of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said Judge Gettleman “understands that there is no motive for a moment of silence except a religious one.” Indeed.

Need I mention the battle over Christmas — and Easter, just wait — the 10 Commandments, ‘In God we trust,’ God-defined marriage, and the rights of the unborn?

What is happening? Why have things continued to degrade over the last 50 years or so?

The fundamental problem is that the Christian Bible is no longer the source of moral and spiritual authority in our culture (and even in many of our churches). When a person views the Bible as true, as genuinely coming from God, and representing His will for man, that person also will recognize and accept that there is only one true religion (biblical Christianity), there is a concrete moral standard (summarized in the 10 Commandments), and the Cross of Christ is centrally important to life. But, when the Bible is no longer accepted as true, the opposite conclusions are drawn: all religions are valid, morality is up for grabs, and the Cross and church are irrelevant. Which of these two describes our nation today?

 You may already have come to this conclusion, but have you thought about how Satan has done this? He has done it by attacking the intellectual credibility of the Bible itself. Through the teaching of evolution, assaults on the New Testament documents (such as put forward in The Da Vinci Code), and challenges to basic Bible assumptions like the existence of God and absolute truth, our Adversary has caused many to write off the Bible as mythology. In so doing, multitudes have written off Jesus and biblical morality as well.

Don’t believe me? Perhaps you read the U.S. News article entitled, “The Gospel Truth: Why some old books are stirring up a new debate about the meaning of Jesus,” from December, 2006. What old books? The recently discovered and published “lost” gospels of Mary, Thomas, and Judas, among others. The article concluded: “Some think the new gospels will ‘blow the lid off the boring stuff we grew up with.’” What is this but an attack on the Bible?

Then maybe you read about Rick Warren’s debate with atheist Sam Harris as reported in Newsweek early in 2007. Did you notice Harris’ arguments? At what did he take aim? The Bible. He charged it with being only a human writing, attacked it for so-called “human atrocities,” challenged its history with evolution, and took a swing at the validity of the N. T. writings themselves. In one exchange, Harris makes clear his (and our Adversary’s) strategy: “Let’s go back to the Bible. The reason you [Warren] believe that Jesus is the son of God is because you believe that the Gospel is a valid account of the miracles of Jesus” [emphasis added]. Point: Undermine Jesus by undermining the Bible.

All the while, the church has done little to counter this message. Yes, there are a plethora of books available, but in terms of the application of that knowledge in day-to-day church ministry and outreach, there is a huge vacuum. Although our people and our potential converts are bombarded with these challenges every day, if you walk into the average church in America, you would think all our enemies had laid down their arms. We teach Bible stories, while the world teaches us you can’t believe the Bible. So far, it seems, the church has viewed these attacks as of secondary importance; this is proving to be a fatal mistake.

 Maybe we are scared that there are no answers. Maybe we believe our faith is on such shaky ground and our Goliath so big that the best thing to do is hide in the hills until Jesus returns. But we would be mistaken! The truth is there is no need to fear the evidence. Our faith is real. It happened in real history. The Bible is God’s Word and the evidence and the facts support that claim.

Evolution is driven by a belief system, not scientific fact. Where are the missing links, anyway? And the untouchable scientific dating methods are fraught with bad assumptions and unreliable and often contradictory measurements. The Bible is the most well preserved document of antiquity, second to none. In fact, we can recreate all but 11 verses of the N. T. just from the writings of the ancient church fathers, not to mention the 5300+ manuscripts we have in the original language. God’s existence can be demonstrated beyond a doubt by the law of cause and effect (and many other compelling arguments). And as for miracles, they are only impossible if you reject the existence of a supernatural being from the start.

Our faith is strong and our answers are powerful.

What can you do to rebuild the Bible’s foundation in this culture? Here are a few simple things to help you begin to make a difference:

– Convince yourself. Ask your lost friends, even your church friends, what the Bible is to them. See what kind of answers you get. Do they trust it? Do they believe all of it or parts? Why do they doubt?

– Equip yourself. Study the issues being brought up in the culture, like creation/evolution, challenges to the N. T. documents, and questions about God. See the table for book and website ideas.

– Equip your children. Your children and grandchildren are being bombarded with the message, “The Bible isn’t true.” You must counter this message by teaching them to defend their faith. If your children attend public school, you must be aware of the subtle (and not so subtle) messages they receive at school and retrain them each night, especially in the areas of science, world religions, and morality.

It is time we discern the signs of our times and understand that if we don’t make some significant changes, true faith in our land will receive its last blow in one or two generations, our children will bear the weight of our failures in a land of spiritual darkness, and the glory of our great Jesus will fade into history as mere mythology. So let us rise to the challenge and take up arms in a new kind of fight and find a victory few believe we can garner.

[Wes Moore is an ordained Baptist minister, graduate of Trinity College and Seminary, and founder of Evidence America, a non-denominational apologetics and evangelism speaking and equipping ministry, www.evidenceamerica.org. He lives in Mebane, NC, with his wife, Dana, and their four children.]