We are faced with a series of events that has put our time in a dark, dark place. COVID-19. 100,000 dead in the US. Riots and upheaval. Surely it cannot get any worse. Folks are saying that this has to be the sign of the end times. It has never been this bad!

         Indeed, 2020 has so far been a harsh year, and it isn’t quite halfway over. It could get worse. It could also get better. Just back away from everything for a bit. This is not the worse year in US history and it is not a sign that the End is upon us. Keep this all in perspective.

Between 1861 and 1865 the American Civil War tore the country apart. 655,000 total deaths, military and civilian. Along with the war came disease, infection and, in some places, starvation. We talk of rioting. Then it was American verses American in all-out war. As large a number of deaths as it was, remember that as the country was plunged into war the population was only 31,443,321. Imagine the turmoil. The country recovered.

In 1918 the Great War, now known as World War I, finally came to a close. America didn’t get into the war until 1917. By that time the fighting in Europe had been going on for years. US troops started dying in earnest near the end of 1917. When the war ended, there were over 53,000 US combat deaths in only a matter of months. In September of 1918 a flu pandemic hit the world, including the United States. In just the month of October of 1918 there were over 195,000 deaths in just this country alone from the flu. More in just one month than we have suffered to date from COVID-19, and now we have a population in this country of over 300,000,000 people while then it was 103.000.000. It is estimated that  between 550,000 and 675,000 Americans died in 1918 and into 1919 from the flu. It seems so much worse now because worldwide communication in 1918 was nothing like what we have today. For that matter, communication within the country was still mostly telegraph. The full impact of the battlefield deaths from the war and the deaths from the pandemic was not realized until several years later. The flu could cut through an isolated community and kill half the people before anyone could identify it. Because East Rivertown was isolated from West Rivertown, no one knew the other had endured the same thing. Think of that; 195,000 people died in this country in one month and most of the people in the country only knew about their small part of their world. There was grief, but not panic. The country recovered.

In 1932, 43,000 former WWI soldiers and some of their families marched on Washington DC to collect on bonus money the government had promised to them to get them to enlist back during the war, but had yet to pay. It was the Great Depression and these people needed the money. It was such a huge disruption that the US Army was called out to break it up. It happened again in 1933. Desperate people doing desperate things. The country recovered.

In the mid to late 1960s the civil rights demonstrations and riots took place. During the same time the Vietnam War raged. The riots were bloody, the war was devastating. Massive unrest gripped the nation. John Kennedy was assassinated. Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Martin Luther King was assassinated. The country recovered.

Anytime these things happen, they leave hideous scars. Things are never the same. But the country recovers. What about now?

This time is different because there is a large part of the country that doesn’t want the country to recover. They want the country to collapse so that they can rebuild it into what they want. If that is to happen it will require the deaths of many people. Everyone will pay a price.

But the biggest reason this time is different is because people, regardless of which ‘side’ they are on, are standing without the God who has been in evidence before in previous struggles. With the sounds of the Civil War still echoing in her ears, Fanny Crosby wrote the words to the hymn “Rescue the Perishing.” Over and over again, in times past, during the darkest hours of our country, our leaders have knelt before the One greater than they themselves. Churches have filled as people called out to the mighty God or the great Physician. As our warriors have gone to defend this country, commanders have led them in prayer. Now, when a leader invokes the Almighty, that leader is mocked.

So, let’s take a few moments. If we are no longer a Christian nation, whose fault is that? The rioter? The looter? The career politician who advocates wholesale abortion and then who makes the pandemic into a political event?

We are a nation that has left the King of kings, the One above all others. And the fault lies at the door of the church. How many good church goers faithfully share the Gospel of Christ? How many good church goers watch the rioting and grieve for the rioters because they are lost in their sin?

Ask yourself; when was the last time you shared the amazing love of Jesus to a lost person? When was the last time you prayer for that person throwing a brick or that person attacking our values? Whose fault is it that we are no longer a Christian nation? A nation where fewer than 50% of the people go to church.

For those who think it is so bad that this must be the end of time, we aren’t that fortunate. This is not the end of times, but it is the time stand up for Jesus.

And we start standing up by getting down on our knees.