Sunday Afternoon Tea - Dinosaurs in the Land of Oz

A few years ago, I watched the final episode of a TV series that I actually hadn't watched very much.  It was wildly popular with young people but I was so uncomfortable when I tried to watch an episode that I didn't bother again.  I was curious what their final show would be about.  

What I saw was alarming and I hoped was not a shadow of what was to come, knowing how many high school age and millennials loved the show.  The primary story line was about two of the young women deciding to get married (this was not too long after it was legalized) and their "battle" with one of the girl's grandmothers.

To make a very long story short, the grandmother was a Christian who had raised one of the girls.  However, although the girl kept begging for her to come to the wedding, she stood firm in her decision not to attend because it went against her Christian principles.

Of course, the grandmother was demonized in the show but what shocked me the most was the speech the granddaughter's girlfriend gave the grandmother.  Telling her how she was full of hate and she could not wait until her entire generation died so the world would be a more loving place.  Cut to a choral dance number with everyone singing What the World Needs Now is Love Sweet Love.

There had been many subtle putdowns over the years but I had not viewed anything so blatantly anti-Christian on Prime Time television up to that point.  The irony, which I am certain was not seen by the writers or most of the viewers, was that the grandmother always spoke softly and kindly and it was the young people who spewed hateful speech.

The consensus was that everyone after a certain age were nothing more than dinosaurs still walking the earth.

On a lighter subject, during the COVID lock-downs, I heard a person say that they often felt like they were in the Land of Oz and wondered when the tornado hit that sent them there.  For there was little of what the world looked like at the moment that they could recognize as "home".

I knew exactly what they meant, the world had indeed changed almost overnight and this nation was also in the midst of political turmoil, race riots, and even within the churches there were great differences of opinions.

The world had changed overnight and here I was, a dinosaur in the Land of Oz trying to make sense of it!!!

At first, like everyone else, I was unsettled and while not actually afraid... I felt at times that feeling of being untethered.  One often does during seasons of change, when your own world does not look like it did just weeks ago.  However, the more I began to compare the changes in the world with what was written about Bible prophecy, I could once again tether myself to the Word of God.

It used to bother me that it seemed every author of a book about Bible prophecy had a different opinion of what was going to happen.  But then I heard one of the authors in an interview say that no one had all the answers, yet.  We do look through a glass darkly and he thought God allowed that on purpose.  As we drew closer to the return of Christ, the lens through we view eschatology would become clearer and clearer.

It was during the COVID lock-downs that I decided if I were to continue blogging, then I had to write more about my belief that this entire experience was a rather large birth pain that God had allowed.  No matter where the virus came from and if it was let out by accident (and yes, there is something very hinky about that story)... God still has to allow what is happening on this planet.

I knew if I talked about it, some people would stop following the blog altogether and that certainly happened.  I could tell from the amount of Amazon credit I received that a number of people had left that once entered their Amazon shopping through the widget or a link.  The amount of credit earned plummeted.

On one hand, I don't blame people at all for if they came here wanting to chat about books and tea time (which I have dreadfully neglected), then the subject of Biblical events was not what they signed up for.  

However, I prayed a lot about what God wanted me to do, from shutting down the blog completely, continuing to write about what is happening, or going back to just writing about books and such... I needed His answer and I found it as life never did return to normal.  I doubt it ever will, at least not completely back.  Pandora has been let out of the box.

What I felt God reminded me is that I needed to write about the very subjects that I needed to read.  So many churches today do not teach about the return of Christ.  When I was a younger Christian, the subject of Bible prophecy was taught a lot from the pulpit but as the churches changed... so did the subjects being taught.

The world is indeed growing darker and even as one who studied Bible prophecy since 1970-ish, I am alarmed at how quickly everything is changing.   Of course, it has been changing for a long time but it seems overnight that the fruit of those seeds planted have grown large and powerful.  

I remember when one of my kids was a baby, I had to take them out of the Easter service at my in-law's denominational church because they were fussy.  I perused the various tracts and reading material they had for people to take home and was shocked by one of the tracts.  

The entire tract was against Billy Graham's preaching and the concept that a person has to be born again to be a Christian.  No wonder this denomination strayed so far from its' founder.  It helped me understand why my in-laws, who were devoted to their denomination, were so critical of my husband and me for our work in conservative political causes.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn warned America long ago that if it kept up the way it was going, it would stop being a Christian nation and become more Socialist as Russia did long before that.  Francis Schaeffer warned America starting in the 1970s that unless there was a change in the Church, America was doomed to go the way of a post-Christian Europe.

More recently, men like D. James Kennedy gave the same warnings but as with the others, few people believed or heeded their warnings.  Rev. Kennedy often warned that our public schools and universities were becoming more anti-American each year but few believed him at the time.  How was that even possible?

Perhaps the most vocal pastor who warned what the future could hold was David Wilkerson.  He paid dearly for his warnings as he went from being one of the most popular preachers in the nation (especially after Pat Boone played him in The Cross and the Switchblade) to one of those most despised by those in liberal pulpits.  

If there is one good thing that has happened this last year, it is that some of those who have slumbered are waking up to the fact that these men (and there were women who fought valiantly against the tides of humanism) were indeed speaking Truth.

So, I expect that those who will continue reading this blog are people who also feel like dinosaurs in the Land of Oz.  I promise to continue to be as encouraging as possible because I do not trust in emotions or in our various political systems or even (especially) what I read and watch in the media... I am tethered to the Word of God and it is very encouraging!

He tells us that when we are weak, He is strong!  He reminds us that His angels are protecting us and yes, there will come a day when each of us will go Home to be with Him.  We can't choose how or when or why but we know WHO we spend Eternity with.

As I've mentioned before, I have trained my husband (kinda) to say Maranatha instead of complaining about the way the world is today.  Maranatha!  Come Lord Jesus!  I remind myself that when I start to long for the world as it was in Andy Griffith or Father Knows Best.  Of course, it wasn't perfect but it was culturally more Judeo-Christian.

In the meantime, those of us who are still abiding on the planet have a work to do whether it is praying for our family and friends, introducing our Lord to those who do not know Him as Savior, or to give a cold drink of water in His name.  

Each one of us has a purpose that only we can do for God.  Especially spending time in prayer each day for those we love.  We live in an age where many are being deceived, just as it was predicted in the Bible.  I pray daily that my loved ones have God's Wisdom and His Discernment in all things. 

Image:  Wizard of Oz movie