Discerning the Times: A Sign of the Times

Jesus said, “You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.” (Matthew 16:3) There are passages in scripture that roar louder with each passing era, and Romans 1:28 is one such thunderclap. The apostle Paul’s warning about the “reprobate mind”—a conscience numbed by repeated rejection of truth—was not written for a moment, but for the turning of every age. To be reprobate is to lose the capacity for moral reckoning. In Paul’s world, it was a divine abandonment, not imposed swiftly, but surrendered into by choice. In ours, it is often masked in charisma, woven into party lines, and cloaked by public relations machinery. Leaders once meant to serve have become arbiters of confusion, appealing to impulse rather than wisdom, spectacle over substance. And when truth is no longer a prerequisite for power, and righteousness no longer a currency in governance, we begin to see the fruits of that ancient warning. We lament as policy replaces principle, and those entrusted with decision-making appear less guided by conscience than by calculation. I speak not with malice but with sober reflection. As I've said, “A reprobate no longer has the ability to ratiocinate, and should not hold an office of power, governance, or decision making.” Perhaps it’s not only a rebuke, but a call—to vigilance, to remembrance, to spiritual clarity. reprobate heart sways lost the will to ratiocinate light dims without truth