“But know this: Hard times will come in the last days.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The latest Marvel offering, Secret Invasion, is already in its second week and absolutely fantastic so far. My mind is racing with all the Gospel possibilities of the story. I had thought about writing down some early series reflections today, but I’m going wait a few more weeks until the series ends to offer up my thoughts on it. Instead for today, I recently had a conversation with a good friend who was expressing some spiritual and moral concern with the state of our culture. As he looks around at the world, he sees a nation awash in sin and getting worse. You may see that too. Here are some of the thoughts I shared with him. Perhaps they’ll be helpful for you as well.

What prompted his concern most was a recent Pride event in New York City that featured all manner of men and women, many of whom don’t think of themselves as men or women, several of whom were walking around topless, and who were chanting things like, “We’re here, we’re queer, and we’re coming for your children.”

The whole display was meant to be provocative, and it certainly was. Huge numbers of people who, though perhaps not opposed to everything LGBT, but who aren’t fully on board with the recent advancements of the T part of the movement and the open aggressiveness of its agenda toward young people, were shocked and even horrified by it. It prompted not one, but two Babylon Bee headlines. One was about a man in jail for exposing himself in public wishing he had just done it at a Pride event. The other was about historians deciding that Hitler wasn’t a bad guy when he declared the Nazis were coming for your children.

Fun update: The Babylon Bee strikes again. Today’s headline (after I released the original post) is that NBC has defended Pennywise the Clown’s slogan, “I’m coming for your children,” as a harmless chant with a rich cultural history. Sometimes they don’t even have to try because the media creates satire for them without even trying.

My friend looked at me and said, “How can we protect our children from this?” What he really wanted to know is how followers of Jesus are to get along in a culture that is insane with sin. He wanted to know if it was going to get worse.

I looked at him and without missing a beat said, “Yes.”

Our conversation wound on in several different directions from there, but here are a few of the most important things I said to him.

Yes, things are going to get worse, if you define “worse” as more and more characterized by sin and it’s terrible fruits. As followers of Jesus whose outlook on the world has been shaped by the Scriptures we’ve always known this. Pretty much every single person who contributed to the New Testament said as much. Jesus, Peter, John, Paul right here. Revelation alone is all about everything getting worse until God finally puts a stop to it all after a series of cataclysmic judgments designed and intended to reveal Himself fully to the world like He did with Pharaoh in Egypt.

As long as sin is in the world, things will continue to get worse until it is finally and fully stopped. Yes, the church has pushed back the darkness at various times and in various ways, using the power of the Holy Spirit to let the world see what life is like in the kingdom of God in hopes that some will, having experienced it in part, desire to enter it in full. But until the end, the forces of sin and Satan will continue to push back and recycle old ways to unleash horror on the people God created and loves.

Because of this, nothing about the current state of the world should surprise us. Yes, it can be a bit disorienting for believers in this country who are still accustomed to living in a culture that has been perhaps the most profoundly shaped by the Christian worldview of any human culture that has ever existed on earth, and who have not yet accepted the idea that we have broken from that past almost completely. But sin doing what sin does should not surprise us. And not even just because we were told it was going to happen in advance. It is in sin’s nature to corrupt and destroy. That’s simply what it does. Anywhere it is unleashed, that’s what it will always do.

None of this lack of surprise, though, should give us leave to turn to cynicism or fatalism or even mere resignation. None of those are appropriate for followers of Jesus. Instead, we are to be the church. We are to boldly live lives that are characterized by the Gospel and its sweet fruits. We are to sow love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control everywhere we go. We are to be salt and light. We are to always have an answer that we are ready to give for our commitment to Christ, but always with kindness and respect. We are to teach our children how to think like Christians, planting the Christian worldview deeply in their hearts and minds so that they can recognize the deceptions of the enemy and run to the truth whenever they face them, because the world is indeed coming after them.

And in the end, we are to live as people of hope. Our hope is not in this world. It never has been. This world doesn’t have anything to offer us. God’s kingdom does, and it will absolutely deliver on its promises. We have experienced a taste of its fruit in the small anytime we have encountered the fruits of the Spirit in the world around us. The full banquet is waiting to be enjoyed when that great day arrives at last. Because of this, we have hope. The darkness will advance. But the light will one day overcome. Our call is to live as children of the light who shine brightest when the darkness is deepest.