Sermon snippet – It Might Be the End of the World as We Know It
INTRODUCTION – I do not rip my sermons from the headlines, but I do try to listen to people’s questions and concerns. Then, I frame a Biblical response. Given the current chaos in our country, folks are concerned about anarchists and Marxists. There is Scriptural counsel on our present predicament.
- THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN – OR UNDER THE COVER OF DARKNESS
I used the preceding sentence last week and have retained a fondness for it. In Judges 17:6 and 21:25, we find a pithy prognosis of the problems of that period: “Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” This attitude is at the very core of anarchy, and the time was more than 3,000 years ago. Anarchists are still rebels – rebels without a pause to consider anything other than the moment and instant gratification. (I have created a new word, bratification, to describe the spoiled brats and their drive for immediate gratification.) Isaiah 3:5-8, written about 2,700 years ago, speaks of anarchy as defying God (“provoke”). The sad irony is that there was nothing left to govern. Indeed, there is nothing new under the sun – or under the cover of darkness.
- IN SEEKING TO DESTROY, WE ARE DESTROYING OURSELVES
Galatians 5:13-15 specifies that anarchy is not “liberty.” Would any one of us like to live in the cities where anarchists are rioting and so-called leaders are egging (bricking? Molotov cocktailing?) them on? The irony is that anarchists are well-organized (as the great Christian writer G. K. Chesterton noted many years ago). Anarchists seek to destroy (nihilism); then, of course, something (like Marxism) must replace what has been obliterated. Not every anarchist is a Marxist, but every Marxist is an anarchist; Marxists will grimly accept anyone’s help (calling such people “fellow-travelers” or, as the first Soviet dictator Lenin labeled them in a moment of rare candor, “useful idiots”). What will happen to the anarchist (or to the decent law-abiding citizen) who is not a Marxist? The all-encompassing principle of verse 15 is our answer.
- GOD HAS SPECIFICALLY WARNED US THAT ANARCHY LEADS TO BONDAGE
The lengthy passage of II Peter 2:10-19 provides details regarding rebellion and its ultimate end – “bondage.” This is a spiritual problem, but it covers the political, economic, social, and cultural realms as well. The title of this message, “It Might Be the End of the World as We Know It,” was carefully constructed, for it might not be the end of the world as we know it. However, we do know what that end will look like. II Thessalonians 2:3 presents the “man of sin” (literally, “the man of lawlessness”). In verse 8, he is called “that wicked” (literally, “the lawless one”); he is the Antichrist. Satan is an anarchist; anarchists today are doing Satan’s work; and the way is being prepared for Satan’s man-pawn, the Antichrist.
CONCLUSION – Let us be careful, for Matthew 24:36 says, “Of that day and hour knoweth no man.” However, of the danger we must know and we must not partake of Satan’s anarchy. No Christian should wittingly and willingly do Satan’s bidding. Instead, let us trust in Jesus, God the Son, Who creates and recreates rather than destroys.