What's Not Trending (but should be?)

Why is it that, with everything that is happening around the world these days, people are not more interested in what the Bible has to say about "end times", "last days", and "signs and wonders"?

Why are we - especially a lot of us Christians - not paying attention to what is going on in the world?

Maybe not, but what if it is?

I guess the answer is that maybe, like me, so many of us are falling victim to all the distractions that are playing out at the same time. Think about the things the news focuses so much on:

• Police vs citizens (especially with all the black men being killed lately, justified or not)
• Racial divides
• Gender issues
• Financial woes
• Celebrities 

Now think about some of the things that are just kind of tossed into the news that people don't really pay much attention to:

• CERN and what they are doing (or trying to) & that humongous Hadron Collider.
• The real political stuff going on in Greece, Israel, Russia, China, and right here in the U.S.
• The prophecies in the Bible that pointed to a time much like those we are living in.

By the way, this is that Hadron Collider. According to Wikipedia:

It lies in a tunnel 27 kilometres (17 mi) in circumference, as deep as 175 metres (574 ft) beneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland. (my emphasis)

That's an awesomely big machine for no one to be talking about as much as they talked about the recent Mayweather-Pacquiao fight.

Even more surprising to me is how I'm not even hearing many of the Christians I know discussing the issue of the so-called "God particle". I'm paying attention to a lot of what's being reported in one place or another, and I still don't have a very clear grasp of it all. Except I do know that something in my soul is not comfortable with any of it.

While all this stuff is going on, I can only have intelligent conversations about any of it with a very few people. Everyone else I know is caught up in their online games and news feeds (using the word 'news' here because that's what the latest gossip and silliness masquerades as). Not one person that I personally know outside my church wants to even pull out a Bible and take a look at it.

The main argument so many people make when I ask if it's possible that we are living in the end times is that I sound like "old folk". This is after they roll their eyes or give a big, bored sigh.

I don't care what anyone else thinks, I believe very strongly that we are really living right at the edge of the end times. And whether that is true or not, we are living close enough to not be paying attention.

We are living in a time when man thinks he can be as great as the very God he doesn't even want to believe in.

Such a majority of us think ourselves too intelligent or sophisticated or able or evolved to believe in and submit to the almighty God. Because these are the people shaping the better part of the news and information that gets disseminated, everyone else has started to digest that nonsense as if it's right.

We treat our faith and belief like a cheap date. We take it out to church one day a week, but don't show it any devotion the other seven days. We don't call on God until we are sick or broke or in trouble. We don't love God or try to honor Him in our every day, 24/7 lives.

So how are we any better than the person who doesn't believe at all?

We aren't warning each other and other people of what the Bible says about what is coming. We are saved by grace, but what happens to the friends and loved ones that we didn't warn and encourage and witness to?

What's happened is that, over a long period of time, we have come to shift our attention and common sense. We respect money more than sense; the very intelligent over the wise; and public opinion over what we know is right.

Instead of the "hot topics" we are being led to watch, we need to be getting back to our Bibles for what's really going to "trend":

• People will abandon the faith and follow after deceiving spirits (like they are starting to do already)
• There will be a tribulation period that will be worse to live in than we can imagine
• There will be a time when Christians will be killed for their beliefs (and not just in the places we are seeing it already, but all over the world)

Whenever I read 2 Timothy 3:5, I realize that I'm living in a time when people not only fit the descriptions but are often proud of and applauded for it. I read it and break it down in my head like so:

But know this: Difficult times will come in the last days. (And not when people are having financial hardships like in the past, but people are having so many emotional problems; kids can't interact socially without bullying and conspiring and being depressed and confused; with all the diseases we've conquered, new ones and strains of old ones are popping up every day; we've put a man on the moon but can't still have starving people all over the world. As much as we have "evolved" and as far as we have come with industry and technology, we can't find solutions to housing and basic medical care for everyone. As god-like as we think we have become, we are still struggling with some of the same problems as people did long ago.)
For people will be lovers of self, (Do I need to point out how much we focus on youthfulness and appearance? Or how we can't pass a camera without mugging for it? There are people who won't have kids because they don't want to 'lose their figure', or if they do want kids, they want to design them to perfection. We love justifying the way we treat others so that we can get ahead - to make money or gain fame or be seen and heard.)
lovers of money, boastful, proud, (Money, money, money. For a long time I misread what the Bible said about money being the root of all evil. What it actually says is that the love of money is the root of all evil. I think that we have confused the love of money with the pursuit of happiness and peace. If money alone could make people happy or peaceful, we wouldn't want money to buy the things that we think can give us happiness or peace. And there wouldn't be any rich people with depression or drug problems. Some of the people who do have a lot of money would be just fine with not having to show the rest of us how rich they are.)
blasphemers, (I don't even know what to think about when I see people who not only don't believe in God, but are so awesomely pleased with themselves that they don't. People have no problem mocking God or cursing Him. Even some Christians forget to be reverent of Him and His power.)
disobedient to parents, ungrateful, (So many people find it 'cute' that kids are flippant and disobedient that I can't stand it. Of course, they are ungrateful. We all tend to be ungrateful because we think that everything positive is a right and not a blessing.)
unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, (I don't know how we can always talk about how 'evolved' we are when we are still killing the way we portray our 'un-evolved' ancestors as having done.)
without love for what is good, traitors, (We've turned right and wrong upside down and inside out. Period.)
reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, (As a Christian, I know that there was a time when I could spend hours at a nightclub, but complain about how long a church service was. I look back on the past several years of my life and realize how unbalanced my life has been. If I graphed all the time I spent doing the silliest, most meaningless things and compared it to time I spent in prayer or reading the Bible, well...)
holding to the form of godliness but denying its power. (This brings me right back to the things that all those brilliant scientists are trying to do. They want to try to explore and duplicate the power God showed in creating the universe, but they are doing it in defiance of God Himself. They are trying to be a god.)
Avoid these people! (It's getting down to the nitty gritty for me. I don't want to be with people who don't accept that I am saved and trying to live holy. You know how it goes: love me for who I am or walk away.)

So, if you believe in the Bible, then you must believe its prophecies. If you believe the prophecies, then you should always be watching for the Lord to return. If you are watching for His return, they why aren't you trying to reach as many people as possible with the news of salvation? Why aren't you praying for those people and your loved ones who may be lost?

I'm concerned and I am praying and I am trying to reach as many people as I can. How about you? Are you ready?

Peace

--Free