Challenged By Change

Challenged By Change!

Hebrews 11:25; Malachi 3:6

Incredible changes have taken place in the past hundred years. We are experiencing more change than ever in history. The rate of change is so great that we barely catch our breath before another blast of change slams into us. Everything we’re familiar with is changing.

In my community people are coming and going so fast that I feel like I’m preaching to a parade.

We are forever on the move - doing things, eating stuff, working, jogging, writing, marrying, divorcing, shopping - you name it - we’re doing it! The pace is somewhere between maddening and insane. People are coming and going twenty-four hours every day. The interstates and most of our streets are choked with traffic - it never stops.

Faces reflect the tension.

The air is polluted.

The earth shakes.

The malls are crowded.

Nerves are shot.

The streets are dangerous.

This is the age of the half-read page; and the quick hash; and the mad dash; the bright night with the nerves tight; the plane hop and the brief stop.

It is the age of the lamp tan in a short span; the big shot in a good spot; and the brain strain and the heart pain; and the cat naps till the spring snaps - and the fun’s done.

Change is a constant companion in our fast-paced lives.

Every day in America:

- 108,000 of us move to a different home.

- 18,000 move to another state.

- 700 are moving to Florida.

Every day in America:

- The United States Government issues fifty more pages of regulations.

- Forty Americans turn one hundred.

- Five thousand eight hundred become sixty-five.

Every day in America:

- One hundred sixty-seven businesses go bankrupt.

- While six hundred eighty- nine new ones start up.

- And one hundred Americans become millionaires.

Every day in America:

- Americans purchase forty-five thousand new automobiles and trucks, and smash eighty- seven thousand of them.

- More than six thousand three hundred get divorced.

- While thirteen thousand get married.

Every day in America:

- We eat seventy five acres of pizza.

- We eat fifty three million hot dogs.

- We eat one hundred sixty seven million eggs;

- We eat three million gallons of ice cream;

- We eat three thousand tons of candy.

More information has been produced in the last thirty years than in the previous five thousand years.

More than one-half the scientists who have ever lived are alive today.

Ninety per cent of all the items in the supermarket today did not exist ten years ago.

It is estimated that fifty per cent of college graduates are going into jobs which did not exist when they were born.

It is also estimated that ninety per cent of the businesses in the United States today were started in the last twenty five years.

These kind of changes are taking place in every field.

Travel has changed:

More than two hundred years ago George Washington traveled from Virginia to Washington D.C. by horseback. It could take him ten days traveling at a speed of twenty five miles per day.

Today astronauts can enter a space shuttle and travel at twenty five thousand miles per hour. At that speed you could fly from New York City to San Francisco in eight minutes.

With all these advances in air travel it is possible to have breakfast in New York, lunch in Dallas, and dinner in Los Angeles -- and have your luggage wind up in Mexico.

One man put it this way:

"My great-grandfather rode a horse, but was afraid of the train.

My grandfather rode on a train, but was afraid of a car.

My father rode in a car, but was afraid of an airplane.

I ride in an airplane, but I’m afraid of a horse."

Since the thirties movies have gone from silent to unspeakable.

Since the fifties when we had three networks: NBC, ABC, and CBS; we now have 750 channels - so that by the time we find the program we want to watch - it is already over!

And to many, television talk shows have become just one big grab-bag of dysfunctional people talking about their miserable lives.

Many changes have turned our world into a war game.

Political corruption abounds.

Crime rate escalates as domestic violence, gang wars, and drug traffickers plague our communities.

One out of every four households in the United States will be touched by theft or a violent crime this year.

One out of every five women of child-bearing age will have an abortion this year. In 1995, 1.5 million babies were killed. Within our memories, abortion was a felony in virtually every state in America. Today abortion is common place.