". . . When you see these things happening, know that the kingdom
of God is near" (Luke 21:31).
Our world desperately needs some good news.
Today's headlines are filled with bad news-wars raging around the globe;
famines devastating entire countries; environmental catastrophes and natural
disasters such as earthquakes, droughts and floods killing multiple thousands
of people; grinding poverty holding entire nations in its brutal grip;
violent crime increasing in spite of man's best efforts to deal with it-the
litany of tragedies and bad news is relentless.
Accidents and diseases kill thousands every day. Tragically, accidents,
suicides and murder are leading causes of death among teenagers and young
adults in economically and technologically advanced nations. Drug and alcohol
abuse and sexual promiscuity are rampant, bringing epidemics of broken
marriages, broken homes and broken lives.
Baffling new diseases spring up around the world, defying the best attempts
of scientists to contain or cure them. Other diseases, long thought to
have been conquered by medical science, resurface with deadly vengeance,
having grown resistant to the medications that easily cured them only a
few decades ago.
Even religion, to which many look for solutions, is often a part of the
problem. At any given time, wars and armed conflicts flare and burn, fanned
by the fires of religious fervor. Wars are fought not only between major
religions, but between sects of the same religion, supposedly out of devotion
and service to the same God.
Human existence threatened
In this century, more than 150 million people have been killed in war
alone. Well over 100 million more have died from diseases and natural disasters.
Terrifying nuclear, chemical and biological weapons have the capability
to annihilate armies—even entire nations—in seconds. Government
leaders grow increasingly worried about such frightening weapons of mass
destruction falling into the hands of terrorists who stop at nothing to
achieve their ends.
