It wasn’t Bob Dylan who first said the times they are a-changin’! It was a plentiful band of prophets ranging from Samuel to Solomon who saw times changing for God’s people. It was a group of time masters from the line of Issachar who saw the world changing and adapted to the changing world by the power of the unchanging God. When the gods are multiplying, we take more thoughts captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ.
The times are a-changin,’ but the problems don’t change; there are just methodological adjustments we must make to face the times. Humanity has been plagued by the same liturgical and sociological sins for the last 6,000 years. We are beset by scoundrels within and without who despise God’s laws. But the Church unites around a common time.
The times are changing for all of us. The wicked may have different strategies than in the 1950s; they appear more committed to overthrowing the kingdom of light. Our response is not idle repose but active time-reading exercises, which means the saints must see the design of the wicked and act appropriately to the challenges of our day.
Probably very few of us even contemplated 20 years ago the ethics of attending a gay wedding or how to deal with visitors considering sexual transitions. But the times they are a-changin’! Christians will need to see the times and apply the Word of God to the proliferation of evil in our society, which is much more explicit because of the sociology of evil constantly reinventing its transgressions.
Unsurprisingly, the answer to these changing methods and aggressive strategies of evildoers is worship—and within worship, intimate communities, more singing and food, and more faithfulness to our calling. Of course, this means we need men leading their homes and lives. It means our young men must come out to play more and leave the basement behind. It means children in worship. It means homilies of praise and songs of adoration all around. But any list will crumble if we are not gathering to do the first thing God calls us to do—to worship.
So, let’s not fear the changing times but apply the worship of all ages to the pervasive evil of our day gathering with our communities on the Lord’s Day to adore Father, Son, and Spirit. Come, let us worship the Triune God with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
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