Vacuum

SCRIPTURE:   And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. Matthew 24:12-13 ESV

QUOTE: “As the memory of the Christian consensus which gave us freedom within the biblical form increasingly is forgotten, a manipulating authoritarianism will tend to fill the vacuum. … An authoritarianism as such, will gradually force form on society so that it will not go on to chaos. And most people will accept it – from the desire for personal peace and affluence, from apathy, and from the yearning for order to assure the functioning of some political system, business, and affairs of daily life.”

Dr. Francis Schaeffer, 1976, How Should We Then Live?: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture

THOUGHT: Prescient. That’s what I think of Francis Schaeffer.

In 1976 while he was writing his seminal work How Should We Then Live?, I was wearing bell bottoms and braces and thinking about boys. It was the 200^th birthday of our nation and I read patriotic poetry to a crowd outside Miller Auditorium in my red and white polka-dot, double-knit suit. Later that summer, I went to Brazil and learned more about how big the world was.

But now, the same world is pressing in, getting smaller. There’s just as much square footage, but less room to breathe. Most people would say, ‘well we’re suffering from overpopulation,’ but I would disagree – in fact, that’s a lie. We’re not suffering from parents who have too many children, we’re suffering from the philosophy that abortion is a right, and from the decline of good education and good parenting and good government, and the loss of “Christian consensus which gave us freedom within the biblical form.” We’re suffering from broken homes, and broken hearts, and broken relationships with our Creator.

We’re suffering from too much man-made chaos as opposed to too many God-given children.

Man’s answer is to try to stop the chaos they’ve created with heavy-handed control. As Schaeffer prophetically warned almost 50 years ago, authoritarianism is happy to flow in and fill any vacuum, and people who just want personal peace and affluence, or are apathetic, or yearn for order will be happy to accept it.

As Jesus warned more than 2000 years ago, lawlessness will be increased and the love of many will grow cold. But, if you and I aren’t part of that crowd, there’s more for us to consider: the one who endures to the end will be saved.

We have some enduring to do outside of the vacuum that’s sucking so many people in, and we avoid the pull by holding on to agape love and God’s rules for human flourishing.

PRAYER: Oh God, your son warned that love would grow cold as lawlessness grew stronger. Deliver me from the vacuum that swirls around me, place my feet on the rock, be my fortress and my deliverer (Ps. 18:2). I will endure to the end by your grace.