There is Always Hope

There is Always Hope…”

October, 2020
My Good friend:

Years ago, it doesn’t seem that long ago but it was, I thought of myself as a political liberal, but things changed. Back then it was an unwavering support of free speech, regardless of its content, the necessity of a free press, and always the free expression of religion. With the riots in Berkeley California while I was in Seminary my perspective changed. Liberalism was swallowed by something foreign to what I knew, believed, and loved. Anti-war protests became violent and hate filled directed even on friends of mine returning from Vietnam. Men who had done only what their country had asked them to do. Then the wise words of Dr. Martin Luther King, of a world “where we are judged by the content of our character not the color of our skin,” became in nearby Oakland an excuse for the “Black Panthers” to extort, rape, and murder for their own ends.
Yes, liberalism became for me disingenuous and destructive, but that was then. Now it’s worse, everything that was once basic to liberal thought is upside down; free speech is now ‘only what I want to hear or else it’s hate speech,’ and our college students require ‘safe places’ to recover from contrary thinking, there is no free press, except in a very few places, which are under constant attack, and religion, let’s say it, primarily Christianity is disparaged, and now most church buildings closed. As has been said, “when truth based facts are discounted, lies become normal.”
Just a few years ago we would have thought all this impossible, so is this what Paul warned the Thessalonians would proceed our Lord’s parousia, His coming, the “apostacy?” Probably not, for we have seen such dire cultural destruction before, yet one day things like this will escalate to a point that all previous similar horrendous events will seem trivial. Like the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple when hundreds of thousand were crucified with two even three nailed to one cross, or when the barbarian destroyed the Roman Empire and brought an end to that civilization and a darkness beyond anything we can as yet imagine, or when the Black Plague decimated Europe and the Middle East killing in some regions over half the population bringing such misery and fear that it makes this little virus we are experience seem trivial.
It is why I would state to those who say, “things can’t get any worse,” ‘you have no idea what Satan can do.’ But, and this is important, when Jerusalem and the Temple fell as Jesus prophesied, it was Christianity that saved Biblical monotheism, when Rome fell it was Christianity that saved civilization, when the plague decimated much of the world, it was Christianity that would rebuild. It was Christianity that saw the conversion of the Vikings ending that scourge, and those of Attila, and countless other invasions, plagues, and despots. And it will be Christianity again that will turn fear to hope, darkness to light, and reveal once more what is truth. It is always this faith, and only this faith that is able to overcome all the efforts of that vile adversary of mankind. You know of whom I speak!
Yes this morphing of liberalism into ‘progressiveness’ has poisoned everything it touches, our Universities are largely destroyed as places of wisdom, ‘modern art’ is something your grandchildren with finger paints can improve on, popular music is usually degrading and often only filth, and progressivism, this new leftist politics, has also poisoned our governments. They put no value in truth, any lie, use any subterfuge; anything is permitted so as to gain or keep power. But I believe Christianity will once more be the bulwark, the hedge, the breakwater to the flood. It has in the past, and as long as our Lord has purpose in such Republics that are founded on Judaic-Christian ideals, He will see His purpose accomplished. Is this republic system indeed “the world’s last best hope” as Abraham Lincoln stated? In the early 1860s everything was hanging by a thread, as it seems to be now. But God’s purpose, His will, whatever it is, will succeed. So I have hope, for Paul states that three things do remain, “faith, hope, love abide” (1 Cor. 13:13). Our faith is unshakable, our love will “bear all things,” and there is always hope. Hope in the wisdom of our people, hope in some of our leaders, and always hope in what God will do.

Besides, our “Lord’s purpose is unchangeable,” more on that next month!

Thomas Randolf Wyatt