CNN can make you pretty depressed these days. Unemployment has been over 9% almost every month for two years now. The stock market fell 634 points yesterday and it looks like there's more bad news to come.

What's interesting is how we associate good times and bad times with money.

In contrast, the Bible
associates a bad time with the kind of people you encounter.  It says there will
be "terrible times" and then it gives the list of people you'll find
during those terrible times.  Here are a few of them:

-Lovers of themselves
-Lovers of money
-Not lovers of good
-Lovers of pleasure

In sum, they'll "have a form of godliness but deny it's power." (2 Tim. 3:1-5)

Have you seen a few of those people around?  They're symptomatic of a society going through terrible times.

Yes, the fact that the national debt per taxpayer is $104,000 is depressing, but it doesn't
mean we're in terrible times.

On the other hand, if you look around you and see people like the ones in the above list, it could be that things are worse than you realize.

FYI, the prescription the Bible gives concerning these people:  "Have nothing to do with them." A little harsh, maybe, but then it seems to refer to those people who pretend to be followers of Jesus but who really are just following their own desires.

My sense is that when God's people are most effective, they're an encouragement to everyone around them. But when they're focused on themselves, they lose their effectiveness. And when times are tough, we especially need encouragement.

Terrible times should be a clarion call for us to pay attention to the people we hang around.