With the continuing wars in Ukraine and Israel, political unrest, and a seemingly endless supply of reminders that we live in a fallen, broken world, it’s understandable that many have begun to wonder more openly if we are living in the end times. But while those questions are worth asking, we shouldn’t let them distract us from the fact that God is still moving in ways that often resemble Acts far more than Revelation.

I needed that reminder this week and found it in a recent profile of pastor Somphon Sriwichai’s work in Thailand.

Sriwichai’s story starts when, as a baby, he got sick and both the local shaman and traditional healers failed to help him get better. In desperation, his father took him to a Buddhist temple and made a vow to the statue of Buddha that if his child was healed, he would dedicate him to the temple’s service. Sriwichai began to get better shortly thereafter and, when he turned eight, went to live at the temple, later joining as a novice monk.

Life as a novice was difficult for a child, however, and when he turned nineteen Sriwichai left and moved back home with his father. Shortly thereafter, he began to hang out with criminals, drug dealers, and murderers, eventually joining one of the local gangs.

His life took a dramatic turn, however, when at twenty-nine he had an unlikely encounter with a group of local Christians.

“What kind of party is that?”

As Sriwichai describes it, “I was drinking heavily and using drugs with a friend when we heard people singing. ‘What kind of party is that?’ I asked. He answered, ‘That’s not a party, those are Christians.’ Curious, I decided to check it out.”

Sriwichai goes on to tell of how he wandered into the meeting drunk, high, and looking more like a threat than a potential convert. But despite his state, the group’s leader welcomed him in and shared the gospel with him. What struck him most was the grace and forgiveness that stood in such stark contrast to the karmic understanding of the world he’d grown up with.

As he remembers it, “I knew that, according to my own religion, I was destined to be reborn into one of the levels of hell because of the bad things I had done. I began to wonder about this grace and to hope for this forgiveness.” The leader went on to pray with him and Sriwichai “began to weep” and “sensed that my many sins had been forgiven. I had been changed but did not know what to do next.”

It was not until he came across another group of Christians three months later in Chiang Mai that the seeds of faith planted that night began to grow into a real relationship with the Lord.

Sriwichai eventually went through three months of Bible training before embarking upon a life of gospel work that more resembles those very first generations of believers nearly two thousand years ago than what most of us in the West experience today.

Whether it’s receiving visions from God that guided him to the city where he still serves, gaining credibility with the lost by praying for and healing a local shaman, or serving his community by caring for the refugees and children at risk of human trafficking, Sriwichai’s life testifies to the continued power of the gospel to transform lives and cultures today just as it did in the first century.

The entire profile is worth reading, and I encourage you to take the time to do so. But in reflecting on his story, there’s one point in particular that I’d like to focus on today.

Embrace hope

This week we have been discussing the advent theme of hope. In a day where suicide continues to rise as one of the leading causes of death and each day brings new reasons for despair, when we respond with hope rather than anger or fear it stands out. However, for hope to work it must be more than a naïve ignorance of the world around us.

The early Christians harbored no illusions as to the depravity and difficulty they would face as they lived out the gospel in a culture that showed little interest in abiding by God’s standards. Yet they did not let that opposition rob them of the hope they found in Christ. And the same should be true for us today.

So on the days when it feels like we’re living in Revelation, choose to embrace the hope of Acts. Then approach each day with the knowledge that you have the same Holy Spirit in you that has helped believers from Paul and Peter to Somphon Sriwichai change their world with the gospel.

How can you follow their example today?

Denison Forum

Since Time magazine first began selecting a Person of the Year in 1927, it reports that “the person chosen has typically been a ruler over traditional domains of power.” Fourteen US presidents, five leaders of Russia or the Soviet Union, and three popes have been recognized, for example. And yet, as Time notes, “The person whose singular influence was revealed throughout 2023 has held none of these roles—or anything remotely similar.” Singer–songwriter Taylor Swift was chosen because “in a divided world, where too many institutions are failing, [she] found a way to transcend borders and be a source of light.”

Time magazine explains that in her music, Taylor Swift is “committed to validating the dreams, feelings, and experiences of people, especially women, who felt overlooked and regularly underestimated.” As a result, “So many have turned to [her] tales because they’ve been so disappointed by the storylines that emerge elsewhere in society.”

“The battle of the Red Sea” is intensifying

Let’s consider some of the storylines emerging today.

Swift’s selection was announced a day before the eighty-second anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It comes as Europe is facing what one authority called a “huge risk” of terrorist attacks over the Christmas period. As one example, a tourist was killed and two others were injured Saturday in a terrorist assault near the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The killer had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.

Closer to home, a gunman killed three people and wounded a fourth yesterday on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The gunman was shot dead by police; a motive has not yet been established. This after a Texas man killed six people, including his parents, in separate attacks earlier this week.

Meanwhile, what the Telegraph calls “the battle of the Red Sea” is intensifying daily. Ballistic missiles fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels struck three commercial ships Sunday, while a US warship shot down three drones in self-defense. According to US Central Command, “These attacks represent a direct threat to international commerce and maritime security.” Yesterday, Israel intercepted a missile over the Red Sea targeting Eilat, a southern coastal city I have visited often over the years. The US Navy also shot down a drone originating from a part of Yemen controlled by the Houthis.

All this while the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are continuing their fight against Hamas in Gaza, seeking to remove what the Telegraph calls “a terrorist organization bent on killing civilians, taking hostages, using civilians to shield its own fighters, and doing its best to wipe Israel off the map.”

According to the writer, the IDF is “the most moral army on earth” for this reason: “The terrorists have surrounded themselves with innocent civilians inside hospitals. Knowing that, Israel risks the lives of its soldiers to infiltrate these structures, take down Hamas fighters, one by one, and destroy their terror tunnels underneath. Put bluntly, Israel risks the lives of its own soldiers to spare the lives of innocent Palestinians. Their terrorist enemy does the exact opposite. It uses innocent civilians to protect its soldiers.”

“The anarchy and slaughter of great-power warfare”

Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Russell Mead was a student and friend of Henry Kissinger. In a retrospective on the statesman’s recent death, Mead writes:

Kissinger understood something that too many Americans, on the left and the right, find difficult to grasp: Power and morality aren’t opposites. Rather, power is the platform that makes moral action possible for a state. And morality isn’t a set of rules and laws that states are expected to obey. Rather, in international relations, morality involves creating an order that prevents the anarchy and slaughter of great-power warfare. Such an order gains legitimacy not by its perfect adherence to a religious or secular moral code, but by its ability to preserve values and conditions that allow civilizations, and the human beings who inhabit them, to flourish.

As a teenage refugee from Nazi Germany who later fought the Germans and helped liberate one of their concentration camps, Kissinger experienced human depravity firsthand. He understood the brutality of humans against humans we are witnessing today. In his view, the purpose of political power is to create an order that mitigates this depravity as fully as possible.

However, despite the combined efforts of leaders and nations across eight decades, conflict in the Middle East continues. As does terrorism and other violence escalating around the globe.

This is why, as the Advent week of hope reminds us, our broken world desperately needs the transformational hope found only in Christ. Like the shepherds who “made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child” (Luke 2:17), you and I are commissioned by God to give the Christmas gift of transforming hope to everyone we can.

How to measure our love for God

Our willingness to share our hope in Christ is based not only on the fallenness of our world but especially on our love for our Lord.

We can measure our love for someone by our love for those they love. If you truly love me, you will love my family. We love our Lord to the degree that we love those he loves—and he loves everyone (John 3:16). And we love those he loves to the degree that we share what is best with them, whatever the cost to ourselves.

Would you take a moment to ask Jesus if there is someone you know who especially needs to experience his hope in your compassion today?

Denison Forum