THE BEST OF TIMES and THE WORST OF TIMES
New Year Message of the Month January 2023
As we start the New Year, the words of Charles Dickens at the beginning of his “Tale of Two Cities” seem very appropriate: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” No doubt those words could be applied to any era - but not least to our own times as well.
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Dickens’ novel was set in the period of the French Revolution. For centuries the French aristocracy had lived in pleasure and decadence at the expense of the poor. Then it turned into the worst of times for them - with many of those aristocrats ending up at the Guillotine.
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In the last few years, we have been going through some of the worst times since the Second World War – firstly with the Pandemic which caused over 635 million people worldwide to be infected and around seven million deaths.
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Then on 21 February, 2022 Putin started a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has had terrible consequences - with 42,295 people killed, 54,132 people injured, and approximately 14 million people displaced, to date.
For us in the West, we are feeling the consequences of these things too. For many years we have never had it so good. Yet as we have seen over the past few turbulent years, things are very shaky and they can change in a worldwide way very quickly. But hallelujah that for us as believers we belong to a Kingdom that cannot be shaken!
The words of the apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 3:1-4 are very relevant in these times – they are like reading the daily newspaper:
“Mark this:
There will be terrible times in the last days.
People will be
lovers of themselves,
lovers of money,
boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,
without love,
unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, BRUTAL,
not lovers of the good,
treacherous, rash, conceited,
lovers of pleasure
rather than lovers of God.”
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When talking about the terrible times in the last days Paul six times uses the word love. It all comes down to WHAT - and finally - WHO people love.
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I have also underlined the word “brutal” deliberately. Although we all agree that the megalomaniac who lives in the comfort and safety of the Kremlin dressed in his expensive suits, sending out orders which are destroying and spoiling the lives of countless people, including his own soldiers and their families, is unspeakably brutal and terrible.
But it’s not just Putin doing terrible things. We constantly hear in the news about “ordinary” people committing brutal acts of shootings and stabbings and more.
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Just before Christmas, we heard here in Britain about a father who killed his partner and her three children with a hammer and then did something unspeakably terrible to one of the girls as she was dying. That is brutality beyond words and I hate to even mention it, but we have got to face what is truly going on.
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The events of these last days show us are hurtling towards the great DAY OF JUDGEMENT when God will finally put RIGHT everything that has been WRONG, over all the years since Adam and Eve fell into sin. We do not know when that Day will come - but as believers, we must be awake and ready with our lamps trimmed, living in the light and witnessing to the world.
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In the face of all the problems and dangers that are before us, once again, the apostle Paul gives us this advice of what to do, from his own experience:
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This one thing I do,
forgetting those things which are behind,
and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
I press toward the mark for the prize of
the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13-15 (KJV)
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