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A Coming "Famine of the Word"

by Scott Ashley

Isaiah 55:6-7 tells us: "Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him . . ." Seek mercy. Seek forgiveness. Seek God while you can.

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God's Word and His way of life are increasingly despised, demonized and canceled.

Who would've believed just a decade ago that our world could have changed into the world we see today?

I'm used to closely following cultural, political and geopolitical changes. But I didn't foresee transformations of this magnitude coming this quickly. The world we see today is barely recognizable from a decade ago!

As an example, I'm writing this editorial in March, which is Women's History Month here in the United States. Women certainly should be recognized for their achievements and honorable role. Yet in this month for honoring women, the following took place:

- A biological man was named one of 12 "Women of the Year" by USA Today due to his White House-appointed position as a transgender high government official.

- During judicial committee questioning on her nomination to be the first black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, the nominee, a well-known judge, repeatedly said she was unable to define what a woman is.

- After competing for three years on a collegiate men's swim team, a biological man won first place in the women's 500-yard freestyle collegiate swimming championship, beating out a female 2020 Olympic silver medalist. (Before winning first in the women's event, the best he had ranked nationally in men's swimming events was 32nd, 65th and 554th.)

Such madness has begun to permeate all levels of Western society. Recently a city council member in a locale near me publicized a list of books the city's library district promoted as "age-appropriate" for children 12 and under. Some of the titles included Woke Baby, Anti-Racist Baby, Feminist Baby, Pride Baby and Feminist Baby Finds Her Voice.

He rightly pointed out that even our public libraries have become indoctrination centers for pushing left-wing ideologies on children. At least one district library had instituted "Drag Queen Story Time" and several had provided children with drag-queen paper doll kits!

As many American parents were shocked to learn when their children took classes online from home during Covid lockdowns, public-school students are typically being force-fed a steady diet of distorted history, socialist ideology and undermining of traditional values that goes against everything the parents stand for.

Meanwhile, social media giant Twitter has repeatedly shut down the accounts of traditional conservative voices.

Yet it hypocritically keeps active the accounts of Russian President Vladimir Putin (whose invasion of Ukraine has killed thousands of people), the Afghan Taliban (notable terrorism supporters and human-rights abusers) and Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamanei (who has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel).

We're increasingly seeing the canceling of Bible-based perspectives. You may have heard the term "shadow banning," referring to Internet search engines manipulating search results to secretly ban conservative and biblical perspectives while elevating ungodly ideologies.

Here at Beyond Today, until recently our websites drew about a million new visitors per month, a number that was continually growing. But then those numbers started steadily dropping and now are approaching half that. We did nothing differently; in fact our Beyond Today print run increased during that same time.

So what happened with our vanishing website visitors? Hundreds of thousands disappeared apparently because major Internet search engines have deliberately begun hiding our website, articles and videos from people searching for biblical truth and answers.

The decline is striking, but we've been expecting it. Why? Notice this sobering prophecy from Amos 8:11-12:

"'The time is surely coming,' says the Sovereign Lord, 'when I will send a famine on the land -- not a famine of bread or water but of hearing the words of the Lord. People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from border to border searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it'" (New Living Translation, emphasis added).

Our world is rushing toward this. Good is now being called evil, and evil is being called good (Isaiah 5:20). God's Word and His way of life are increasingly despised, demonized and canceled. God foretold it long ago.

What should -- what must -- you do? Isaiah 55:6-7 tells us: "Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him . . ."

Seek mercy. Seek forgiveness. Seek God while you can.

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