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Today’s Scripture Reading [December 19, 2010]
And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. [Matthew 24:4-13. KJV]
The above verses were spoken by Jesus in His Olivet Discourse in response to His disciples’ question: What will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age? (Matthew 24:3) One of the signs or indicators that the end of the age is at hand is stated can be found in verse 12: Because lawlessness (i.e. iniquity) is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. We can read also similar warnings by Apostle Paul: This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. (2 Timothy 3:1-7).
Contextually speaking, although the wordings from our Lord Jesus and Apostle Paul are not exactly the same but they meant exactly the same thing, and by witnessing what is happening today all over the world, we can simply summarize these warnings as follows: "We are in the last day of the age as the world is experiencing lawlessness that have never seen before. The prediction that the lawlessness will increase has arrived as the end of the age or last days arrive, and these lawlessness are right at our doorsteps!"
In recent months, we have seen crimes committed by people that were unheard of in the past. For the world at large, the recent breaking news of WikiLeaks of private, secret, and classified diplomatic information has indicated to us that what we heard in the news are very different from what is really happening in the real world of international politics. The WikiLeaks has raised questions that no one really has the answers: who is actually saying what, who is doing what, who can we really trust, and more dangerously, who are those people who are actually controlling or ruling nations? We cannot help but just to sit and hope for the ‘best’ which unfortunately will never come. Our only hope is in the Lord Jesus, His new kingdom that He will finally set up for His chosen people. The dark days will be darkened further, and the darkened world does not need our consent nor permission to get darkened. It will come very naturally because the world is ruled – for now – by the power of the air, the prince of darkness (Ephesians 6:12). When we consider the texts above it should cause us to pause and think about what is ahead of us, and frankly it is not pretty! As we read, watch, or hear the news, it is undeniable that our society, our world is becoming increasingly more lawless. Even though we all (or most of us) know of the perversion that is taking place all around us, we just simply talk about these and treat them as jokes or past-time gossips. We hardly hear of people, even those in authority to come out to provide us some credible answers to dress the problem. Only in some extreme cases when the perverts have broken the law, they will be charged in court and often, for such offences, a fine rather than a jail is meted out.
In recent years, notably in most western countries like the U.S. and Britain, they are working hard at overthrowing God, biblical truth and biblical morality. And those who are doing this are using the freedoms they have received from God and the Bible to get rid of God and the Bible! They are sawing off the branch they are sitting on and if they succeed in cutting through it, they will fall along with the truth they have hated and despised. Society will then have no moral foundation and right and wrong will become a purely subjective matter determined by individuals, mobs, or majorities and in some cases minorities who have great influence on key government ministers. When such situation occurred to an extreme, the society will crumple and it will either become like the times of the judges when “everyone did what was right in their own eyes,” or a new form of government will arise which will offer less freedoms, less justice, and less equity than the government system they now have. In other words lawlessness will increase. It is inevitable.
What we see today in our country and the world is not only prophesied but the increasing influence of lawlessness is the natural outcome of rejecting God and His Word. Biblical morality and lawlessness do not mix. If we decrease one, the other will increase. Jesus predicted that lawlessness will be pervasive right before His Second Coming, and the present state of lawlessness that we are all facing is like cancer that has already spread to the most important part of our organ – the heart, and sadly some think that government is the cure. Get government to create more laws, hire more policemen, and build more prisons. Yet more law is not the cure. Paul describing the purpose of the law in “But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. (1 Timothy 1:8-11)”. The Old Testament had a perfect law system that was written by God himself but it did not stop lawlessness! Apostle Paul tells us that not only it fails to stop sinners from sinning but actually motivates them to sin (Romans 7:7-12). What more can you expect from the laws that are made or enacted by those politicians, parliamentarians who, many of them, are more corrupt than an average citizen!
As Christians, what can we look forward? Thank God – we can look forward to the Star of Bethlehem. Just like the northern star that had great significance to the ancient navigators and seamen guiding them to the right destination, we too must focus on the Star of Bethlehem and this Star which guided the wise men to the Saviour, will also guide the lost sinners to the same Saviour, our Lord Jesus.
While some of you may feel quite unsettled with the feeling of unpleasantness and lamented why would such a message of hopelessness be shared during this ‘joyous time of the year when the whole world is celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ’. I want to humbly apologize that this message is not to admonish anyone. If at all, this message is what I myself really needed, more than anybody else. By the grace of God, I pray that you treat this as my personal letter, my personal journal and my personal diary. By any account I cannot and will never ever to be named in the WikiLeaks portal as one of the players because this portal is strictly reserved for the great and the powerful. But you may just want to read this message like you are reading from a ‘WikiLeaks document’ of a sinful, rotten, and corrupt sinner, that is me in particular. But by the grace of God, like all repented sinners, we are saved by His blood and while the corruption of world is getting more corrupt day by day, our hope in Him too has increased day by day.
The plain truth is that we have reached the time the Bible calls "the last days" or "the end time." We stand on the cusp of the Tribulation and Day of the Lord, and God's Word prophesies that Babylon will once again be on the scene of events - only this time its powerful influence will be felt worldwide. This time, some countries not only have dominant armies, powerful economic and educational systems, and strongly entrenched and popular religions, but they also have extremely effective mass communication networks to disseminate its ways into the minds of men, influencing men against their Creator and His people.
Thus, God's urgent warning to take action while one can. The influence of powerful nations is imposed through communication. It occurs when we experience countless examples of misguided conduct by those who - unknown to them - are already enslaved by its evil influence. Like the Northern Star that guided ancient navigators to their right destination, so too, we must let the Star of Bethlehem be our beacon to this fallen world. This Star of Bethlehem which guided the wise men of the east to our Saviour is also going to be our our source of direction. Let us us all look upward to this Star for His divine guidance and march forward to do what God wants us to do, and that is to share His Gospel of Love to this unlovable world and to bring all repented sinners to our Saviour because when people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild and they will perish but not those who kept His laws (Proverbs 29:18). We must not be drifted away like those unrepented drifters who failed to march towards to His divine direction. The tide of lawlessness is getting stronger and stronger by the day and unless we take serious effort to drift ourselves back, we will all be perished into the darkness of this world. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit is willing to help us because it is the will of the Father that all to be saved and none should perish (2 Peter 3:9).