When we moved to this home nearly 23 years ago, we lived in a semi-country setting. Across the highway from us were farmer’s fields. In fact, there were fields both to the west and east of us. Things sure have changed over time. There are several big new schools just over a mile from us, and across the highway the farmer’s field is gone. Instead of tractors and combines there, now we see…and hear…all sorts of construction equipment as a huge housing development is being built.
All the growth has brought lots of extra traffic. Our property backs up to the highway. We have a tree line that gives some privacy. But there isn’t much that can hide the sights and the sounds of growth…progress, some would call it. We miss the quietness, though, that we loved.
It’s now the time of year for open windows and chirping birds. I was at my desk early this morning. The birds were waking up, going about their early morning activities, and their various sounds were so pleasing to me.
Yet the birds weren’t the only ones busily starting their day. So were people. Pretty soon I was having a hard time hearing the birds over the sound of all the cars and trucks and school buses and motorcycles.
The birds hadn’t stopped singing, though. I could still hear them even when a group of vehicles drove past. I just had to concentrate on listening to them and ignoring the other sounds coming from the road.
I’m amazed at the very loud sounds blasting us from this culture today. Woke Disney. Gender confusion. Sexual dysfunction. Open borders. Drugs. Violent crime. Men in women’s sports…and the refusal of our top leaders to even define what a woman is!
And one of the saddest of all is the horror of abortion and the fight from the left to keep the murder of babies available and legal. Yesterday the governor of Colorado signed a bill that ensured women could kill their babies at any stage of pregnancy, for any reason. My friend who lives there, a pediatrician, said that this action is celebratory now…and she is right.
All of this, and so much more, is just heavy and sickening to those of us who follow Christ. And the voices who promote these lifestyles in our world today are often the loudest. They blast at us from the news, social media, corporations, movies, music, television, classrooms…daring us to disagree and trying to silence us when we do.
A couple verses I have just studied describe this so well:
“But evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of…” (II Timothy 3: 13-14)
Paul told Timothy to expect evil to get worse. Alfred Plummer says it well when he described their personal deterioration as the seducers being duped by their own deceit.
And so the evil ones GO, but Timothy is told to CONTINUE.
Evil loudly goes from bad to worse. Isn’t it interesting that the word ‘go’ means to progress?
Progressives today are nothing new. But their direction…their progress…is totally in the wrong direction.
Unlike the progress of the wicked, we who know Christ are to continue in the things we have learned from Christ.
We learn by listening to God, for He has not been silenced. He is still speaking, just like the birds outside were still singing.
We also need to continue in all that we know…that we have learned…in our life walks with God.
The word “continue” means to cultivate stability.
The brash noises of sin all around us being condoned and celebrated must not move us from hearing God’s voice above it all.
Now more than ever we need to be still and be stable in God’s truth and listen carefully to Him above all the noise of our ungodly culture.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
He Said What?! 