The Gathering Storm: A 5-day DevotionalSample

The gathering storm over Western civilization—the secularism that has wrought utter moral chaos in places like Europe—has blanketed the horizon in deep shadow and darkness. So many have celebrated this unforgiving storm. But Christians are in a unique predicament. We can confront the culture because we truly love our neighbor, and as such we work for the preservation of what is good and faithful—good laws that promote human dignity and uphold justice and righteousness. But, at the same time, we cannot attribute ultimate allegiance to any culture, but only to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Today’s evangelicals, as the theological heirs of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and many others, cannot capitulate to the demands for a revolution in Christian doctrine and morality. An affirmation of the divine inspiration and authority of the Bible has stood at the center of the evangelical faith since the sixteenth century—and as the heirs of the Christian faith for more than two thousand years. We are those who confess, along with the faithful throughout the centuries, that when Scripture speaks, God speaks. Scripture alone is the ultimate authority for life and doctrine. In a sense, a Christian theology hangs on the accuracy of that singular proposition.

The Christian church cannot long survive without the church’s explicit commitment to the authority of Scripture, and to the Lord Jesus Christ above all else. Without the authority of Scripture, our theological convictions will mirror the secularism of the larger society—we will merely espouse conjectures rather than finite and lasting convictions, and our preaching will dwindle to nothing more than a display of empty promises.

As Christians continue to face the stiff wind of opposition from the storm of the secular age, we must continue to be faithful. We must say and tell what we know to be true. We must protest every false gospel and every erroneous worldview that diminishes human flourishing. We must continue to hold fast to the core theological convictions of the Christian faith and to the primacy and authority of Scripture. We must not fail in seeing Scripture rightly proclaimed, the church built up, and the message of the gospel stretched to every corner of the earth.