What Schaeffer wrote there nearly 40 years ago was prophetic in nature. But as is so often the case, such prophetic words are ignored and rejected. As we look around the West today we see the sad fulfilment of what he had warned against.

On May 15, 1984, the great evangelical thinker, Presbyterian pastor, and noted apologist Francis Schaeffer passed away. Just a few months earlier his last book was released: The Great Evangelical Disaster (Crossway). Anyone who is familiar with his life and work knows that this volume very much followed in the same vein as his previous 21 books.
It continued the basic themes he had always preached on and written about, which include: an infinite personal God exists; he has revealed himself to us; Scripture is his inspired and infallible word; we can come to this holy God based on the finished work of Christ; Christians are called to model the truth and beauty of God in our relations with others, and the church must refuse to compromise and accommodate with the surrounding culture.
His final book certainly hammers home these key truths. In the dedication page he says the following:
To a new, young generation—and to those in the older generation—who will stand and be countedas radicals for truth and for Christ.
That is emphasised throughout this crucial volume. Plenty of quotes could be offered here. Let me feature just a few. On pages 31-32 he speaks about how utterly important all this is, and what a massive war we are in:
Make no mistake. We as Bible-believing evangelical Christians are locked in a battle. This is not a friendly gentleman’s discussion. It is a life and death conflict between the spiritual hosts of wickedness and those who claim the name of Christ. It is a conflict on the level of ideas between two fundamentally opposed views of truth and reality. It is a conflict on the level of actions between a complete moral perversion and chaos and God’s absolutes. But do we really believe that we are in a life and death battle? Do we really believe that the part we play in the battle has consequences for whether or not men and women will spend eternity in hell? Or whether or not in this life people will live with meaning or meaninglessness? Or whether or not those who do live will live in a climate of moral perversion and degradation? Sadly, we must say that very few in the evangelical world have acted as if these things are true. Rather than trumpet our accomplishments and revel in our growing numbers, it would be closer to the truth to admit that our response has been a disaster.
And on pages 48-49 he warns about which way we will go: with humanistic relativism or God’s absolutes:
Soft days for evangelical Christians are past, and only a strong view of Scripture is sufficient to withstand the pressure of an all-pervasive culture built upon relativism and relativistic thinking. We must remember that it was a strong view of the absolutes which the infinite-personal God gave to the early church in the Old Testament, in the revelation of Christ through the Incarnation, and in the then growing New Testament — absolutes which enabled the early church to withstand the pressure of the Roman Empire. Without a strong commitment to God’s absolutes, the early church could never have remained faithful in the face of the constant Roman harassment and persecution. And our situation today is remarkably similar as our own legal, moral, and social structure is based on an increasingly anti-Christian, secularist consensus.
On page 60 he discusses what happens when cultural infiltration saps the strength and vitality of the church. Everything that we have now experienced – including the evangelical acceptance of homosexuality and fake marriage, was all foreseen by Schaeffer:

John may have expected a slightly different kind of messiah. But nevertheless, had an idea in his mind of who that messiah ought to be. Jesus simply says, I am the messiah and you will be blessed if you’re not put off by me as I am, whatever your expectations. It’s quite something. Later on, Jesus points out that the religious leaders couldn’t be pleased in their expectations at all.

I was recently prepping a sermon in Matthew 11. The passage concerns John the Baptist’s doubts concerning Jesus. Is he really the one God has sent? Should we be looking for someone to come after Jesus?
Jesus doesn’t even answer John directly. He just references Isaiah and effectively says to John, these things are happening. In a sense, Jesus is saying to John, if Isaiah’s prophecy of what the messiah would come to do didn’t factor into your thinking, then it should.
Given John’s earlier confession of Jesus, the question is always asked: how could John go from everything he said about Jesus at his baptism to wondering whether he is really the one Israel have been waiting for? But, to be fair to John, he had been preaching a message that included confession of sin and repentance from it because judgement was at hand. But it was that very message that got him locked up by Herod. It’s not totally unreasonable to think – if Jesus has come to judge the world and is going to restore the kingdom – what am I doing in a jail cell at the behest of a bloke like Herod! I think there’s enough in the passage – and earlier descriptions from John’s disciples – that John is a product of his times and Jesus just isn’t what he is expecting.
It is into that context that Jesus gives his answer. Effectively, he says, do you see the things the prophets said would happen coming to pass? Am I doing the kind of things the prophets said the messiah would do? If I am, then whatever current expectations might be, there are good reasons to believe that I am the one God has sent to save his people. That is Jesus’ basic answer. Look at what the prophets prophesied and compare it to what I am doing. There is your answer.
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The church, as we have seen, is inextricably tied to the Word of God. So long as the Word remains, the church will remain. And so long as the church is incomplete, the work of missions will remain. And the fruits of that work will endure forever. 

A Surprising Testimony
A Chinese brother studying at RPTS told us the story of his conversion. He was raised in an atheistic family. Before he was 40 years old, he had never heard of Jesus. He worshipped money, power, and idols. But, while reading a secular book, the author happened to quote Matthew 9:37-38, probably out of context: “Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest’” (NKJV).
These two sentences touched him deeply, and he began weeping and shedding tears. He was overcome by a desire to find more about these living words. Out of hundreds of pages of beautiful prose, as well as perhaps hundreds of other books he had read in his lifetime, those words of Scripture had a power that eloquence and human wisdom did not have.
Those words were not even the content of the Gospel. They were peripheral. They made no sense apart from the Gospel. But every word of Scripture, however plain, and every sentence, however obscure, is inspired and endued with power. And history is full of people who have been converted by the obscurest verses.
When history runs its course, and the full number of the elect are gathered into the kingdom, we will see that no verse of Scripture was wasted in bringing many sons and daughters to glory. All have accomplished the work that the Lord intended – not just when they were written, but down through the centuries, and not just for conversion, but also for the edification and encouragement of the saints.
Application to Missions
That surprising conversion testimony only confirms what we already know of Scripture (from Scripture itself – which, after all, is our only ultimate authority). According to Hebrews 4:12, “the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” The LORD affirms the same truth from the pen of Isaiah:
10 “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven,
And do not return there,
But water the earth,
And make it bring forth and bud,
That it may give seed to the sower…
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