Bad Stuff

A lot of bad stuff is happening in the world, but these things are normal in a season when the people of the world have forgotten God. Modern expansions of power are just the world doing what the world does, and the world expands while the church sleeps, but I am not surprised, or disturbed. God sits in heaven and laughs. He scoffs at their plans (Psalm 2:4).

Without God, serious problems always occur, so people look to political power to rescue them. And there are always power seekers willing to step up and try to do it. They often start out with good intentions but get corrupted by power. Some arrive at a place where they believe that they can achieve more good by doing evil. Some bad people also try to manipulate political power to advance their evil goals.

This is happening now, but it has always happened. Read English and European history, and you will see that it has been going on forever. The same thing was happening in Judges 9. It is an analogical to what is happening in our time.

In the last hundred years, we have seen massive increases in political power as faith in God has declined. With every new crisis, leaders demand more power to deal with it, and the people are mostly glad to see it, because without God, they need the government to rescue them. I note that people who grumble about increasing political control expect the government to rescue them when their homes are damaged by flood, landslide, or earthquake, or when a pandemic disrupts their business. I am not surprised, or distressed by these changes. They are the inevitable consequence of people losing faith in God. Without God, people need political powers to rescue them.

Fortunately, the limits of political power are also being completely exposed. Every time a crisis is dealt with, another worse problem that they did not expect pops up in its place. The political powers are just not smart enough to deliver the peace and plenty that they have promised, so all over the world, government leaders are being shaken and are failing.

Biden, Macron and Rutte are examples. And the powerful people who try to manipulate political power, like Schwab and Soros, are getting older and are no longer confident that they can resolve all the problems that frighten them.

Railing against the world for doing what it always does is a waste of energy and will not help. We have an effective solution to the problems of the world. That is the gospel of Jesus and the alternative kingdom that he is establishing with the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, the church seems unwilling to push this solution seriously.