Y’all,

It has been said that 1968-69 was one of the most explosive and worst years of American history. Assassinations, riots, corruption, Vietnam, Manson, and shortly after, Jonestown, the Weathermen, the Symbionese liberation Army, and the Chicago Convention riot. Unless you read the front page (I did not) or listened to Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, and Harry Reasoner (I did not), you had no idea what was happening (like me). However, I did not feel I suffered at all not knowing about things I could not control.

My point is: these are scary times, but not for us. My attitude towards the little Red Hens is, “What did you expect?” When you reject the ground all of reality—God—and the means by which all final truth is known—the Bible, “What did you expect?” Will the future surprise me? No. “What did you expect?” Without God, man is dead, as well as morality, peace, civility, marriage, true sexuality, and true art and culture.

When the author Os Guinness wrote in 1973 about the atheistic counter-culture that had evolved, he called his book The Dust of Death. That is what “post-modernity” leads to. “Modernity” is the name for a period that grew out of the 17th and 18th century Enlightenment. What was “modern” was the modern idea of how final truth could be known: by reason, by science, or by human feelings instead of by the Bible, which was the common idea for over 1400 years.

“Post-modernism” since the mid 1800s is the abandonment of the belief in final truth. All is now relative to one’s own personal opinions and feelings: Existentialism. Bringing “The Dust of Death.”

I love to read Ezra, Esther, and Nehemiah. I love them because they are me, they are you, they are us. They are Jesus in a pagan culture surrounded by lies and sin. The great heroes of the Old Testament come from these people. Ezra, Zerubbabel, Nehemiah, Esther, Mordecai, Daniel, and the three Hebrew brothers. They were forced into a courageous stance on the truth, and nevermore would they lapse into idolatry.

In the same way, the Christian in today’s world must stand against the current of post-modernism. He stands because he has seen the disaster and failure of life without God. Just like the Old Testament heroes of Israel.

Times are scary. Ancient values are cast down, a new generation repeats old errors. Still I don’t lose any sleep. I have my salvation.

  • My Savior,
  • My Bible, a light to my path,
  • My divinely given moral code,
  • My family,
  • My church, my shelter in this alien world,
  • Prophecy that assures me of what shall be,
  • God’s sovereignty which encourages me in all things.

I have no confidence in this world, nor even in my own country. “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one.”

As Peter said, “To those who reside as aliens.” Indeed, we reside as aliens. We are in Denton, but we belong to God. As the song says,

“So let the storms rage high The dark clouds rise They won't worry me For I'm sheltered safe within the arms of God He walks with me And naught of earth shall harm me For I'm sheltered in the arms of God”