We are an affluent and comfortable people. We live in the midst of freedom as championed by those who established this nation and defined by successive generations, not only in terms of the originating vision of freedom, but now an ever-expanding understanding of liberty. We live in a time of prosperity; we live in a time of trouble. It all depends upon how you look at the world around us.
It is good for Christians to take some time to look at the trouble, for all around us are a darkening sky and gathering clouds. As we engage this culture and look at it honestly, we must sense that something has happened -- and is even now happening -- in our culture. These major shifts and changes will change everything we know about ministry in terms of the challenge before us and will draw out the reality of who the church is in the midst of a gathering conflict. Clouds are darkening.
We are no longer seeing the first signs of cultural trouble, but rather the indicators of advanced decay. The reality is that people now do not even know what they have lost, much less that they themselves are lost.
As a nation, we are living in the midst of an intense season of cultural, political, and moral conflict--that is no longer news. America has been through epic conflicts in the past, including a bloody civil war. Still, we must wonder if the worldview conflicts of our time may represent an even deeper conflict than those experienced in times past. We are living in a time of deep and undeniable trouble.
There is a sense, I think, in this culture that we are waiting for a signal for something to tell us which way we are going to go. Something is happening and about to happen. The landscape is changing, the skies are darkening--and this is something we know with a spiritual perception, a spiritual sense, a spiritual urgency. Something is happening that we as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ should see and understand. For we cannot say that we were not warned.
The prophet Joel declared: "I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls. (Joel 2:30-32 ESV).
And, from the book of Hebrews: "See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens." This phrase, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of things that are shaken--that is, things that have been made--in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire." (Hebrews 12:25-29 ESV)
These passages describe a reality we might call darkness at noon. In these passages we confront a prophetic vision, a prophetic warning, and a haunting reality. Darkness at Noon--I borrow this title from Arthur Koestler. In 1941 he saw the Soviet Union in all of its horror and the Third Reich in all of its hateful fury, and he described this horrifying reality as darkness at noon. Our times are not the same as Koestler's, nor are the particular challenges we face. Our central concerns and fears are not represented by totalitarian governments or foreign regimes that threaten world domination, but we must see a real and present threat on our horizon. We can hear the prophet Joel--we can hear him speak of the sun turned to darkness and the moon turned to blood on the great and awful day of the Lord. This is apocalyptic imagery--we know that. It is speaking of a judgment, of a day of the Lord that was near on Joel's horizon, and yet distant on the horizon of the eschaton, when the Lord Himself shall come to judge the living and the dead.
