Chicken Little Theology

If you follow Facebook, the Twitter-verse or haven’t gone off the grid completely, then you are aware that the sky is falling. We live in a totally amoral world (as well as immoral). What is bad is good, what is wrong is right and it is the masses who determine what we should think and believe. To believe in the Bible makes you an out-of-touch, hate-mongering dinosaur who has misinterpreted Jesus’ message of love. The world has gone to hell in a handbasket while God was asleep at the switch. It has gotten so bad that God’s only choice is to bring about the Apocalypse and put an end to it all.

There is much hand wringing and the Chicken Littles among us want the rest of us to wake up to fact that the sky is falling.

When I woke up this morning and started reading my Bible I found that, surprise, God is still sovereign and that there is nothing new under the sky (which is still firmly in place).

I have lived long enough to go through many crises in the world and through many reactions and interpretations to those crises by the Christian world. I am also a student of history which adds more evidence to my theory.

Remember the Dark Ages? They were called that because the world was about as dark a place as could be imagined. The Church withheld the Word from the people and conducted worship services in a language that the people could not understand. The best thing they did was to preserve the Word by making copies in obscure monasteries. Savagery, servitude and superstition ruled the day.

More recently we have examples in Corrie Ten Boom’s book, The Hiding Place, how awful and dark a place the world had become under the rule of Hitler. Could things possibly get any worse under the axis triangle of evil that threatened the world (Germany, Japan, and Italy)?

Even more recently than that I can remember how some friends of mine were convinced we were living in the last days and that Russia was the great enemy from the north predicted in the Bible. They were mad at me because I wasn’t dropping everything to follow their apocalyptic lifestyle.

Here’s the thing. God is still sovereign. He is still in control. Nothing that is taking place comes as a surprise to Him nor does it happen without Him allowing it to happen. Nothing! Remember that we live in the here and not yet of the kingdom of God.

It has all been foretold in His Word.

What is important to understand is what our role is in His master plan. How is the Church supposed to respond?

First of all, our role is the same that it has ever been.

Matt 5:16 “let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

Matt 28:19-20 “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

Somehow, we have come to think that it is our role to point out sin to the world. We want sinners to live like Christians and we want to legislate morality.

If you’ve noticed I’ve taken care to only quote Jesus in this article. I want us to hear things directly as He intended us to hear them. Not that the Apostle Paul and the other writers of the New Testament don’t have much to tell us about how we should live, but a case can be made that it comes to us through the filters of their experience. By reading the words of Jesus there can be no bias or filter. This is the message from the Father directly through His Son.

We are to love people where they are and build a relationship with them so that we can share the love of Christ with them. In His love there is freedom and joy and that is what the world is looking for.  Let the Holy Spirit do His job of convicting people of sin.

Matt 5:44-46 “But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. “

Is this world going stark raving mad and is there evil flourishing and being praised on the front pages of the media? Of course it is.

But, God.

That may seem like an incomplete sentence but it’s not. God is still in control and He has a plan.

The question is will the Church play the role that He wants it to play.

Think back to the 80’s and the start of the AID’s epidemic. The response of much of the Church was to point its finger at the gay community and tell them that this was God’s punishment for their sin. Think of how differently the Church would be viewed if instead of condemnation, the Church would have been at the forefront of taking care of those infected with the HIV virus at a time when even Doctors and nurses shied away from them. Would that have conveyed the message of Christ’s love?

Yes, but Jay that would have sent the message that we condone the sin of homosexuality.

Think back to the woman caught in adultery. Did she sin? Was she guilty of the offense for which those men wanted to stone her? The answer is yes and Jesus knew it. However, He did not join the chorus of the self-righteous judgmental, religious types. Instead, He showed her mercy and a love she had never experienced through all her illicit love-affairs. He spared her from judgment. Did he condone her sin? No, but it was only after He showed her love and mercy that He said to her, “Go and sin no more”.

As for me, am I ready to sell everything I own and move to a mountain top to await the return of Jesus and to rejoice as He passes final judgment on this world gone wild?

Sorry, while I do believe that His second coming is closer than ever before and could happen at any moment, I will continue to obey His commands and do my best to love the unlovable into the kingdom of God.

No, Chicken Little, the sky is not falling. In fact, today as always it is firmly in the sky where He put it.

Ps 19:1-4 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. 3 There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. 4 Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.