WILL-O'-THE-WISPS

I Was Just Thinking About - - - 

A will-o’-the-wisp is a type of mirage. You think you see something that isn’t really there. It is a term used to describe “an atmospheric ghost light (also called: foolish fire) at night, especially over bogs, swamps or marshes. It resembles a flickering lamp and is said to recede if approached. It draw travelers from the more safe paths” (see: Wikipedia). At any rate, it misleads one into believing there is reality to something that is fable rather than fact. Can you imagine the sadness and  disappointment for the one who had pursued what was believed to be light but the further one went the greater the darkness became. It is similar to the one lost and wandering in a desert. His water supply has been consumed and he becomes desperate for water to quench his thirst. He sees something on the horizon that resembles a pond and moves rapidly toward it. The further he goes the more he realizes that it is much further than he first thought and increasingly elusive.

In a world that is marked by Cultural Chaos, many have concluded that we are now living in a post-Christian era. From the immediate focal point in the USA, it appears that is a true evaluation and assessment of what is happening, especially in terms of the Judeo-Christian values. On the one hand, there are the current comments of Cal Thomas. According to an interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) with liberal Michelangelo Signorile, Cal Thomas was asked whether he believes the Supreme Court will rule (in June 2015) that states cannot ban homosexual marriage. He replied: “I think it’s going to go 5-4 or even 6-3 in favor of same-sex marriage. All of these things are not the cause of our decadence, they’re a reflection of it…We worship at the golden calf of the Dow Jones Industrials – in Dow we trust, not in God. Too many conservative Christian marriages are breaking up. So, if they can’t impose morality on themselves, how do they expect to impose it on the rest of the country?”

On the other hand, there is an opinion column from December 2007 by Tristan Emmanuel where he writes in World Net Daily (WND): “The theory is that because Christianity is in decline in the West, it is also losing its power to influence culture and shape the course of human history…The Third World church actually believes in the rightness of the historic creeds, which is why it is better equipped to deal with Islam than the relativist and multicultural church of the West. They also retain a very strong supernatural orientation and doctrine. They are far more interested in fundamental issues of truth and falsehood than in radical politics like the liberation theology of the ’70s and ’80s, And they are morally uncompromising. Granted, this faithfulness in the Third World church isn’t helping Christianity in the West – at least not yet. But it does shed some sobering light on the arrogant disposition of liberals and secularists who like to trump their so-called victory over Christianity. The notion that history has reached its climax with the apostasy of the West – that we are somehow living in a post-Christian era – is an indication not of how things actually are, but of how inflated our own sense of self-importance and geopolitical arrogance has become.”

The Church in the USA suffers from a “will-o’-the-wisp” constituency. You believe they are really there but when you head toward them one cannot find them. Despite the secularism and casualness of the professing Christian, the Biblical Christian, not unlike Gideon’s diminished army, will persevere and stand for Christ and His Kingdom. The Biblical Church and Christian is God’s idea, His plan is for a people who are uniquely His own. When Jesus Christ said the words recorded in Matthew 16:18 (ESV), (“I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”), He had a definite plan in mind for the Church to function in a practical and expanding worldwide way. The ultimate goal and purpose is found in the words recorded in passages such as Romans 14:11, Philippians 2:10, Psalm 72:11, all of which indicate: “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” This is Biblical reality. Consider these things with me.