Some Features of Our Times

When Uriah Smith penned down this article in 1893, he most probably was not sure it would mean so much to me today.

Times change but the old paths of Christianity remain.

This is an age of brilliant pretensions, but sad realities. Its professions and practices, its facts and theories, present a climax of contradictions.

•       There never was so much of the form of godliness, and never so little of the power.
•       Never were there so many professors of religion, and never so little of religion itself. 
•       Never so many assurances of peace, and never so extensive and urgent preparations for war.
•       Never so many tokens of coming danger and calamity, and never such a feeling of security, expressed and implied, on the part of the people.  
•       There never was a time when the doctrine of the immediate opening of the temporal millennium was more universally cherished and talked of, and never a time when every feature of society, social, moral, and political, rendered such an idea more preposterous.  
•       There was a time when there was so much money in the world, and never a time when there was more wide-spread and distressing poverty.
•       There never was a time when there were so many remedies for every disease, real or imaginary, which profess to be sure cures, absolutely infallible, and never a time when there existed so much disease, sickness, suffering, and death.
•       There never was a time when there was so much boasting of progress and advancement on the part of the race, and never a time when they gave more palpable evidence of fast descending into every depth of iniquity and sin.
•       And what does all this show? It shows that the pretensions on which men build themselves up are a sham, and their professions, hypocrisy. They are willing to deceive others, and to be deceived themselves. This is the time when the prophet tells us that evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. We see this work going on before us, which proves that we have reached the time to which the prophet's words apply. There is nothing to which men will not put their hand for gain. With worthless nostrums, which the venders know will not accomplish what they claim, the confidence of the afflicted is secured, and their means filched. Falsity and hollow-heartedness exist on every hand. Truth is fallen in the streets, and equity cannot enter. Nor will this state of things improve till He whose right it is, the Prince of the house of David, takes the throne.  

We rejoice that this event is at the door. Hasten, O King of kings, the glad day.

By Uriah Smith, 1893

I am not convinced the situation will get better. There is only one person we need to be sure about: Jesus Christ. The One who was, who is and who is to come. Nelly McLung says in the hymn “In times like these”:

In times like these you need a Savior,

In times like these you need an anchor;

Be very sure, be very sure

Your anchor holds and grips the solid Rock!