The Last Days of Earth
The old woman lies in her bed, in her room
The firelight playing on the walls
The blood running by in the streets of the town
The cries of the children down the hall
.
She looks back through the shambles of her life
Wracked and ruined by pride and deceit
The desire for fun and to be admired
The love she so constantly seeks
.
The divorce that brought hopelessness
Straight to her heart
The cruelty that broke her in two
The abandonment, being tossed to one side
Left her lonely and old through and through
.
And now the whole world is in its death throes
As she lies alone in her room
With no one to love her or tend to her needs
She’ll die as she lived–and soon
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She has no knowledge of her King
The One who loved her and died
That she might know of His love for her
And His kingdom right there inside
.
Her heart’s hard with bitterness
Her mind filled with fear
As the inferno rages outside
Is there anyone left who can care for her
E’n though her response will be snide?
.
Lives still His child
Who will come through the terror,
The danger that now rules the streets
And serve this bitter, caustic old hag
Whom Jesus waits to meet?
.
Not out of duty or to look good to men
Nor to build up your own vain pride
But because your heart breaks, her pain to behold
And you’d lay down your life at her side
.
Does Jesus live in you and cause you to care
Not at all what happens to you?
But breaks your heart open
At the thought of the lost
Whose torment will never be through?
.
With tears in our eyes
Our hearts broken too
Our lives laid down, ready lost
Will we come forth from safety, from blessing profuse
And take up the way of the cross?
Kaylyn Turner April 27, 1993
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Commentary by Kaylyn:
The metaphor in “LAST DAYS OF EARTH” is unusual in that the main theme is God’s cry for His true children to emerge from their prisons of self to die for the lost, rather than to fan their vanity through their Christian image of themselves as people who care for the lost. While the metaphor is actually secondary, because it will only be seen by the few who understand that the” hag” in the poem is also the apostate American church. I believe He cries out for His true children to minister to the church which has wandered so far from Him in her pride, deceit, and self-centeredness that she is now lost and no longer has knowledge of her King. This spiritual bankruptcy is flagrant in the charismatic churches as well as in the clearly apostate mainline denominations. We tend to define apostasy as not believing the Bible as inerrant where God defines apostasy as not abiding in him and putting the idols of self before him.
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