Pensamientos para hoy (afterthought for today)

Unrest in Egypt

No one really knows how the unrest in Egypt will play out, but as I've been watching the events in Egypt, I've asked myself: "What lessons can we learn from the unrest taking place in Egypt?" One obvious lesson is that we should be prepared for similar types of unrest around the world. Think about the riots in France. In 2009 tens of thousands of young Muslim men staged demonstrations to protest perceived inequalities. Some of the demonstrations turned into violent riots. The French press called these disenfranchised Muslims "militants" who were demanding an increase in the minimum wage and higher taxes for the rich. Last year in Greece more than sixty thousand people demonstrated during a nationwide strike against the government's plan to increase taxes and cut benefits to public employees. In some places the demonstrations in Greece turned violent as protestors battled police. Recently, protests against the government have turned violent in Tunisia and Lebanon. Some experts on the Middle East predict that the same kind of unrest may happen in Algeria and Yemen. Unless we are blind or put our heads in the sand, we should be able to see a pattern developing. A time of great social unrest seems to be coming our way.

The Christian historian and philosopher Francis Schaeffer warned that these kinds of unrest would take place. Schaeffer wrote in his Christian Manifesto: "Humanism, with its lack of any final base for values or law, always leads to chaos. It then naturally leads to some form of authoritarianism to control the chaos." And in his book How Shall We Then Live, Schaeffer writes that "Prior to the Caesars, Rome was ruled by a Senate, but they could not keep order. There was much civil unrest. The people were willing to trade rule under a dictator for peace." Schaffer taught that to avoid the kind of chaos we see happening around the world people will accept a dictator. They will exchange freedom for totalitarianism as they bow down to the "gods of personal peace and prosperity." Is it possible that we are seeing the stage being set for the rise of the Antichrist?

The Bible warns us to be on our guard against a government that will force us to bow down to the authority of a dictator called the "Antichrist" who will set himself up as a world savior. Jesus warns us: "If anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Messiah!' or, 'Look, there he is!' do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time (Mark 13:21-23)."¹

May God help us to be prepared for whatever the future brings,

Pastor Steve Lorenz
February 4, 2011

¹ Mark 13:21-23, THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®, NIV ® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2010 by Biblica, Inc.^TM Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are from the NIV.

Jesus is the greatest teacher who ever lived. One of Jesus' techniques was to relate spiritual ideas to common everyday life. Pensamientos (afterthought) is an attempt to follow Jesus' method of teaching. Its title is in Spanish because we recognize the importance of multi-culturalism. We hope to translate some of these messages into Spanish soon.

Find more afterthoughts at Pensamientos (afterthoughts).

You can read recent sermons by Pastor Lorenz at Featured Sermon.