More evidence of the steep end-times downward spiral appears every day. The character of human beings has been shipwrecked. There isn’t much time left.
Maybe 5 years, maybe 10, even maybe 50, but it seems quite clear that not a generation will pass, not even half of a generation at this point, before the image of God has been thoroughly snuffed out, squelched, and eradicated. At which point man will no longer have any purpose. The warning of Babel, of humans seeking their own glory. The warning of Lucifer, whose pride was his sole vice. These are now on display hourly. Not just by individuals, but by entire societies.
We’ve discussed many aspects of this. The information age, and its ability to send a “… lie halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” We’ve discussed how the human brain, when subjected to human pride, chooses “probably matching” over the “maximization algorithm”. As humility becomes extinct, so does human potential. Evil has always existed, even in the garden, but the difference between now, and a millennium ago, is that man’s arrogance has produced technology and social structures capable of enforcing evil much more thoroughly than could ever have been imagined even a few centuries ago. The prophecies of Daniel and Revelation, of Paul and Jesus, are now possible, and technology – our newest “Tower of Babel” – is the mechanism of our own destruction.
You see, technology has “healed the sick” and even “raised the dead”, it has brought “fire from the sky” and all kinds of signs and wonders. It has also already slaughtered more innocent people than it even claims to have helped. Society is already past the point of redemption. It demands godlessness and punishes the godly. The signs of the times would be obvious to even the most tortured martyrs of old. In their day, there were no credit cards to track them, no hourly news to spawn public hatred, those martyrs had months, years, and often decades to spread the gospel before they were slaughtered. Today, the slaughter comes much more swiftly. The words are twisted as they leave their mouths. Their good is evil spoken of. Thanks to technology there are “birds” waiting even among the fertile soil, to gobble up seed quicker than we can sow. Jesus is coming soon. Isn’t that clear?
After writing about the critical moment in 1844, when a seemingly honest and creative human endeavor produced for us the telegraph, it was brought to my attention that something happened soon after the telegraph that was an omen of things to come. In 1849 300,000 Americans (nearly 2% of the population), overwhelmed with greed, rushed to California. Often orphaning their children, widowing their wives, and devastating their own lives. The “49ers” as they were called. It only took 5 years for mass communication to be changing lives en-mass.
The transcontinental telegraph wasn’t even completed until 1861, but slow moving news, such as a few nuggets of gold being discovered in California, was accelerated in an unprecedented way by the telegraph. Only <1% of those who gave their lives for riches actually got rich, much better odds than today’s lottery. Even the man whose discovery led to the gold rush didn’t end up rich. For a 1:100 chance at wealth people literally sacrificed their entire lives and their families.
Some may say that even if the 1849 gold rush was triggered by information technology, that this was “progress” because of the acceleration of westward expansion in America. To that I will say, while such “bastions” of American culture as San Francisco, California owe their prominence to the gold rush of 1849. The Californian Indians whose population dove from over 100,000 in 1849 to < 30,000 in just a few years would disagree with you if they were not now extinct. Further, the fact that the state of California “…directly paid out $25,000 in bounties for Indian scalps with varying prices for adult male, adult female, and child sizes” should at least bring about a moment of hesitation before bragging about such “great accomplishments.” Is it any surprise that California continues to produce the most proponents of abortion, greed, and self-indulgent sexual deviance in the whole nation? The gold rush of 1849 was identified by broken families, greed, prostitution, genocide, and shipwrecked faith. An identity that continues to be embraced by much of that region.
That narcissistic “gold-digger” identity has spread throughout our nation today. The sanitized revisionism of that time in history has spun it to: “American ambition and grit”, of men “working hard” to “improve their lives”. A prime example of “American courage”, “entrepreneur spirit”, and “nation building.” A professional football team proudly wears the name “49ers” as fans cheer. At least the term “gold-digger” still remains somewhat negative, though even that is more acceptable today than ever.
“Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” The world is doomed. The remnant of Christ can do little more than be salt and light where we are. The arrogance and pride of “progress” in direct defiance of even the already diluted morals of our “gold-digging” ancestors is iterating so quickly now that we are certainly near the bottom of the spiral, where the coils are tight and the curves sharp. Our collective heads are spinning.
This generation is so arrogant as to declare: “We – as a government – have ‘progressed’ beyond the barbarity of paying $25,000 for 70,000 Indian scalps over 20 years.” Instead, in California alone, and in just a single year, millions were spent on retrieving the “scalps” of 184,552 unborn and partially born children. At least those early Californians relied on the pretense of guilt, and the pretense of threat, to justify the slaughter. Who today can even pretend that the unborn are guilty of anything? Though they do continue to justify a rare few (<3%) by pretending that the baby is a threat to its mommy. An amazing admission in an era of supposed medical omnipotence. For all of our “progress” and technology, humans are more arrogant than ever, more prideful than ever, and more doomed than ever.
Don’t give in to greed, even if it masquerades as “ambition.” Don’t give in to immorality, even if it masquerades as “love.” Don’t give in to delegating your charity and generosity by voting for socialists, rather than giving your own money to “the least of these.”
I’ve said the word “doomed” several times above. Our feel-good society, even many that see themselves as Christians, would claim that this is not a Biblical perspective. Many today will claim that hell cannot exist. Or if it does, that “that’s where the party’s at.” So I will conclude with a list of scriptures whose words and context all convey precisely that. Damnation is real, doom is real, and it awaits all who do not have their name written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Feel free to argue with Jesus, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jude, Peter, Paul, or any of the other authors of the Bible who consistently warn that the end will come like a thief. Our Holy Creator is not patient with the unrepentant, but sends them to hell with the one who was once the most beautiful angel of heaven:
Isaiah 14:12:
“How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!”
Ezekiel 7:
“‘Disaster! Unheard-of disaster!
See, it comes!
The end has come!
The end has come!
It has roused itself against you.
See, it comes!
Doom has come upon you,
upon you who dwell in the land.
The time has come! The day is near!
There is panic, not joy, on the mountains.
I am about to pour out my wrath on you
and spend my anger against you.
I will judge you according to your conduct
and repay you for all your detestable practices.
I will not look on you with pity;
I will not spare you.
I will repay you for your conduct
and for the detestable practices among you.”
Jude 1:4-7:
“For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.
Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
2 Peter 2:4-10:
“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh and despise authority.”
Matthew 10:28:
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Revelation 22:12 (4 times in Revelation, it is written that Jesus is coming soon):
“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.”
I cannot subscribe to your site because you will not accept me because of my religion. Interesting that my religion does more to espouse Christ than most so called “Christian” religions in existence today.
No matter. I can agree with you even while you hate me.
We are indeed on a downward spiral. Anyone who is familiar with the book of Revelation can see the set up for those things spoken of to happen, and indeed many are already happening.
It amazes me that people deny Christ even while seeing the prophecies being fulfilled. But then, most people who deny Christ do so without knowing (or caring) a thing about him.
The murder of the unborn is little different from the sacrifice of babies to false gods of the old testament and other scriptures. Yet it is justified with the unjustifiable reasoning of the mother having the “right” to her own body. Never mind the right of the baby. Oh but that’s right, H. Clinton said the unborn have NO rights. Yet under the Constitution their rights are as valid as hers.
Almost daily a new wickedness arises and is embraced till I wonder how much longer God will tolerate such evils. I suspect he does so only for the sake of the truly righteous whose number are decreasing much too fast.
Good article! Much to think about.