I just completed my one year Bible reading plan, which was originally created by a Scottish minister called Robert Murray M’Cheyne in the 1800s. The Bible reading plan takes you once through the Old Testament and twice through the New Testament and Psalms. I highly recommend it.

I have found through the years of reading the Bible that it speaks on a nearly daily basis to the trends in our contemporary culture and in the church today.

I’ve sometimes commented on that relevance in social media, but I’m going to move the bulk of that to this blog. Hopefully, WordPress is not exerting the kind of repressive control over their platform that Facebook and Twitter are doing.

“God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’” — Genesis 1

“So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations….”

“…behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” — Matthew 1

Many people in our culture and some people in the church state that Jesus never addressed the issue of homosexuality and gay marriage, and therefore it must be fine. Jesus did address these issues, which His audience considered to be settled already, when he quoted this passage in Genesis regarding marriage and divorce.

“And He answered and said, ‘Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH?'” — Matthew 19

The gender madness we are experiencing in our culture is a direct result of ignoring historic truth as delineated in Scripture. God knew that atdifferent times throughout history mankind would devolve into the kind of idiocy we see today, and so he laid the groundwork right in the first book of the Bible.

Here in Genesis we find the first commandment to man, which would be repeated multiple times throughout the Old Testament. This commandment runs counter to the Green and Same-Sex movements prevalent worldwide today. God commanded the first man and woman to have children — lots of children — enough children to fill the Earth. For many decades now, the godless secularists have been condemning the growth of population and childbirth. They have created many practices that run counter to biblical understanding, including elective abortion (infanticide was practiced by many of the Nations surrounding Israel), alternative lifestyles, and population control.

I have attended dozens of conferences that deal with social and political issues, and here’s a couple takeaways from some of those:

I was present at a conference with an United Nations population council, and I expected it to be in the standard “overpopulation is our doom” mindset. Doom was indeed at the center of the discussion, but the lack of population growth was pointing towards that doom. The speaker’s expressed clearly how population and fertility was declining in all the nations of the world, including the poorer ones. They pointed out the extreme suffering that would be a result in population declines in these countries.

Most of us remember China’s forced abortion and one child policies. China has done an about face regarding family size, however, because they have recognized that their workforce will not match the needs of their country.

Japan has such low fertility rates that the country will functionally cease to exist in just a few decades. Japan sells more adult diapers to its people than baby diapers.

More recently I was at an economic conference, and the keynote speaker was from a group of economists with a very good track record in predicting recessions. Barring unforeseen circumstances like nuclear war, she gave the prognosis that we would suffer a couple recessions over the next few years, but nothing catastrophic.

She said, however, that we are heading down the road to a depression rivaling or exceeding the Great Depression at right about the hundred year anniversary. She added that the collapse would be pretty much inescapable, because of two chief factors. The first factor, the lesser of the two, was of the debt of the nation weighing down the ability to service that debt, which would become a significant ratio against our gross national product. The second factor? The lack of population growth sufficient to support the workforce needs and tax needs of our country.

When she was asked what investments would be safe, she replied that commodities such as food… And industries servicing the pet population of our country.

All is not lost however, because of those generations of faithful followers of God who obeyed His original commandment to procreate, and who brought us our Messiah.

Despite the wickedness we see in our culture, it’s been there before, and when people turn to Jesus a culture can turn with them. “…for He will save His people from their sins.”