You Know These Are the Darkest Hours

Children, you know these are the darkest hours,
  the fetch* of evil plays out long—
     dark shadows blot the hope of light,
     black gloom drapes the soul with blight,
     drab sameness takes the shine from right.
Yet you know these times are here and will be till anon
  the Morning Star of Righteousness,
      glad hope in glorious dawn,
Shall come again!  Ah, this calling that is ours!

Yet here on earth the anti-Christs we see:
  spirits that oppose the truth,
      run hard to hinder right,
      work keenly to snuff out light,
      fight wildly to raise dark night.
There will be some that fight you nail and tooth;
  those you thought were closest friends
      rush out from church to worldly thrills,
Taunting you, proclaiming  that they're "free."

My children, do not think it strange for them;
  the call of evil beckons such:
      the heart seeks that for which it yearns,
      passions call and passions burn,
      the twisted soul can't long pretend a righteous turn.
They left, dear children; they loved not much
  our fellowship nor the One who with us sits—
      It is our Lord they spurn and cast aside!
They proved they were never grafted into Him.

- D. Benning

* fetch can mean the distance traveled by wind or waves over open water or, in an older meaning, a contrivance or a trick.

Children, it is the last hour, 

and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, 

so now many antichrists have come. 

Therefore we know that it is the last hour.  

They went out from us, but they were not of us;

 for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. 

But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

1 John 2:18-19 ESV