Word on the Web

22 Jan 2009: Troubled times

We live in troubled times. This is actually being written on 15th December 2008 but I guess whenever it is read those opening five words will still be true. However as we survey the current national and international situation it seems to many that we perhaps live in the most troubled times ever as we face what appears to be a daily escalating list of horrendous events and doomsday predictions which affect every nation on earth.

 

Such a situation brings to mind the words of Jesus in Luke 21.26 where he says ‘Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world.’ As people face financial ruin; as we contemplate a world without fossil fuel and face the consequences of global warming; as we hear daily reports of war in Afghanistan and live under the threat of terrorist attacks, Jesus’ words suddenly become very real and relevant.

 

So do Christians faint from terror or do the present times present us with a glorious gospel opportunity? Surely it is the latter! For in verse 28 Jesus says ‘When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads because your redemption is drawing near.’ That presents all of God’s people with a challenge – a challenge to live as people of hope, excitement and expectancy for our focus is not primarily the here and now but the glory of the new heaven and the new earth the certainty of which is guaranteed by Jesus’ resurrection and this certainty should enable us to sit lightly on the upheavals of this world and demonstrate to our fellow men and women that the hope of glory (the world which is to come) far outweighs the troubles of the present time Romans 8.18. A life lived in the light of such a future must surely challenge the world at such a time as this.

 

Andrew Bradley