From My Perspective - - -

When my children were young, one of their exciting moments was to ride the Incline on the Lookout Mountain Railway. The Incline is a funicular, in which two cars are attached to opposite ends of a fixed-length cable. The cars counterbalance each other so that the engine in the upper station needs to supply only enough power to overcome friction and the different weight of passengers in the two cars. Specially designed cars, with windows on the side and the ceiling, take passengers on the steepest passenger train ride in the world.Passengers are transported from St. Elmo's Station at the base, to Point Park at the mountain summit, which overlooks the city and the Tennessee River.  The railway is approximately one mile in length (single track except for a short two-track stretch at the midway point, allowing operation of two cars at one time), and has a maximum grade of 72.7%. It is billed as the world's steepest passenger railway.While my children were excited with their fifteen minute ride to the top, their Grandmother was terrified for them. Needless to say, The Incline was built in 1895 and countless hundreds of tourists have taken that trip.

I guess one could be forgiven for pondering that if the journey to the top is called an “Incline”, by the same token could the return trip back to the starting point be rightfully called a “Decline”. I began to muse about this after reading a Washington Times news entry that was headlined: “Mr. Obama Tries To Hide The Decline.” The article states: Last November during his trip to India, President Obama admitted that on his watch the United States was a declining economic power. For most of my lifetime…the U.S. was such an enormously dominant economic power…that we always met the rest of the world economically on our terms. But those days were over because of the rise of new international competitors such as China and India. But it was a positive development…because this will keep America on its toes…Then, during his recent trip to Britain, Mr. Obama abruptly denied the decline. It's become fashionable in some quarters to question whether the rise of these nations will accompany the decline of American and European influence…That argument is wrong." The Washington Times  editorializes: “Maybe so, but he was the one who made it. Nothing dramatic has happened on the economic front since last fall that would justify this 180 degree shift in the president's thinking; in fact there have been several developments that argue to the contrary, such as rising energy prices, expanding U.S. debt and declining rates of U.S. GDP growth…”

The difference between an Incline and a Decline is simply direction. If this is true of nations, it is also true for the Church and individual lives as well. Throughout History, there are times when the Church has lost its direction and is actually in Decline (although those within the Church have been lulled into thinking they are on the Ascent rather than the Descent). There are two places in the Bible where delusional thinking has allowed people to think “their Church” and “Church work” is in keeping with Biblical standards for spiritual health. In Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus tells those who boasted what they were doing in His name – “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven…I declare to them, I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” Paul gives a scathing assessment in II Thessalonians 2:9-12 – “The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false…” Being deceived they were on the Incline, they were blinded to the steep decline that was spiraling them downward. Jeremiah 23:12 spoke of it as a “slippery slope in the darkness” that can only result in disaster.The Message States it: “But they won't get by with it. They'll find themselves on a slippery slope, careening into the darkness, somersaulting into the pitch-black dark.” Know the difference between being on the Incline versus tumbling down the Decline! Get turned around before you miss that opportunity. Consider these things with me!