What Is Happening To This Dark World? Just a few days ago in Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday afternoon, December 11 a lone gunman wearing a hockey-style face mask and dark clothes walked into the pleasant, peaceful Clackamas Town shopping center carrying an assault rifle. Witnesses counted as many as 60 shots before the assailant turned the gun on himself. When this unleashed evil finally fell silent, three people were dead, including the 22 year-old killer.
by Dr. Ritch Boerckel
varied from individual to individual. But each consequence plummets the individual and the whole society into a deep spiritual darkness. The failure to submit to God leads to an abandonment to our base desires and such abandonment brings pain in spades upon individuals and culture at large. The list of consequences of forsaking God is endless: senseless massacres, babies born outside of the nurturing bonds of marriage, corporate greed and ruthlessness that Just hours ago, another news story undermines both economic prosperity and announced that 20 elementary school human dignity, sexual perversions that children and six other adults have perished destroy body and soul, deceit in personal as 20-year-old man opened fire in a school relationships that erodes basic trust in building in Connecticut. What sadness. communities and families, a rejection of What heartache. What evil! marriage vows that makes marriage itself a What is happening in this dark world? mockery, a resentment by the poor against I am not a secular sociologist. I am a pastor the rich and a resentment by the rich against the poor that leads to social unrest, a who sees the world through the lens of God’s revealed truth in Scripture. And here dependence on government as a god that is what I read about the days in which we live strips away individual liberties and essential responsibilities, a hatred for unborn babies as I read my Bible: that leads to the sanctioned deaths of But realize this, that in the last days difficult millions of the most vulnerable and times will come. For men will be lovers of innocent, . . . Where do I stop with such a self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, list? A culture that shakes her fist at God revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unleashes unfathomable despair upon unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious herself. gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers In our country, we are rapidly moving toward of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding a place where we not only are purposefully neglecting God, not only are proudly to a form of godliness, although they have rejecting God, but we are on the verge of denied its power (2 Tim. 3:1-5). criminalizing Him. That is to say, that our God warns us that in the last days mankind will turn from Him and turn inward toward (Continued on page 2) self. The consequences of such turning are
January 2013
Over the Coffee Cup Children’s Ministry Missions Open Hearts Open Homes Marriage Maintenance Couple’s Conference Valentine Banquet Biblical Counseling Conf. Evangelism Explosion Trewyn Opportunities The Gospel Institute January Calendar January Birthdays/Ann’y Ladies Studies Parent/Child Dedication Prayer Room Open GriefShare First Prayer
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Rummel Baby Shower Carver Bridal Shower
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Engage 2013
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Men’s Breakfast
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Men’s Basketball
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No Regrets Men’s Conf. Reality Check Women’s Conf.
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