When God created the heavens and earth, He set things up perfectly.
Time and again, throughout the Genesis 1 account, we can see the same words declared over and over again: “And God saw that it was good.”
When He created living creatures (including mankind) it actually goes one step further:
Gen 1:31 – Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.
Over time, God then proceeded to reveal His laws to His people, assuring them that the rules were good, and that in choosing to comply with them, things would go well.
By the time we progress to Deuteronomy 4, we see Moses declaring this truth:
Deut 4:7-9
7 “For what great nation is there that has God so near to it, as the Lord our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon Him?
8 And what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law which I set before you this day?
9 Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life….
Sadly, over the millennia, the scriptures have been argued against, mocked, ridiculed, scorned, prohibited, and cast aside. And how has that been working out for us, particularly of late?
There will come a day when each and every man will be judged by the standards of the laws of God. Until that day, those very scriptures assure us we will, for the most, witness greater and greater rebellion, and more and more trouble. Does the situation sound familiar?
Proverbs 14:34 tells us this:
34 Righteousness exalts a nation,
But sin is a reproach to any people.
As our nation in particular and society in general rages against God and arrogantly determines it will resist the immutable laws of creation, declaring things that God Himself declared to be wrong and perverted as being right and acceptable, we ought only to expect more and more trouble. It is a matter of cause and effect.
The psalmist tells us this in Psalm 12. Biblically, the number 12 represents judgment, by the way.
After bemoaning the workings of mankind, and prophesying that a day will come when those that rage against God and His laws will be cut off, we’re told:
Psalm 12
6 The words of the Lord are pure words,
Like silver tried in a furnace of earth,
Purified seven times.
7 You shall keep them, O Lord,
You shall preserve them from this generation forever.
And then comes verse 8 – that succinctly explains why things are this dark and getting darker, this wicked and bound to get more wicked, this violent and bound to get more violent.
8 The wicked prowl on every side,
When vileness is exalted among the sons of men.
Vileness has been, and continues to be, exalted. What God calls right has been declared wrong, outdated, unreasonable, and unfair. In the name of “freedom” we’ve legislated murder. In the name of pleasure we’ve legislated illegal unions. In the name of entertainment and art, we’ve manufactured and produced gratuitous violence and lewdness. A woman who takes her clothes off for one man, for money, is called a prostitute. A woman who takes her clothes off for a million men, for money, is called an actress.
In so conducting ourselves and in so condoning and supporting the lifestyles of others who choose to live that way, vileness continues to get exalted, and the floodgate of wickedness has been thrown open. Psalm 12 verse 8 is alive, in place, and active. The fact that we may not correlate vileness (according to God’s standards) to the prowling of wickedness throughout the earth, on all levels, is moot.
The issue is not really more or less laws of man. The issue is not which bathroom which gender might choose to use, nor is the issue gun control. The issue is self-control – a fruit of the Spirit of God that allows and empowers men and women to live properly in His sight, according to His laws, at which time things will work really well.
The really good news in all this is that God offers man a way out of sin, and vileness, and wickedness. It’s called forgiveness through repentance. The divine plan has never been for perfect-God to sit back and watch imperfect-man live imperfectly, and then eventually for God to rise up and destroy sinful man. God is way more wonderful than that. Throughout both testaments, there has been forgiveness through repentance. In the New Testament age in which we now find ourselves, Jewish Jesus represents the ultimate (and only) sin offering for everyone, everywhere. And meanwhile, we are witnessing empirical proof that anything but that truth won’t and can’t work.
People living in true relationship with God submit themselves to His laws, and then life works. That is when true love can prevail. Without the laws of God, love will not prevail. Society and life will corrupt and eventually collapse. It becomes a house of cards. It is the ongoing biblical account of man raging against God.
The New Testament, in perfect alignment with the Old Testament Hebrew scriptures, further tells us that these conditions will prevail on earth prior to the end of this age:
2 Timothy 3
1 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come:
2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good,
4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!
6 For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts,
7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Even the people of God can find themselves caught up in polarizing discussions and philosophical arguments that offer band-aid solutions to the mortal wound of sin through disobedience. We would do well to pray and repent for our nation, and live as light, offering every man salvation, warning every man, understanding their accountability as well as our own accountability, and declaring and preparing for the imminent return of our Lord.
The word of God is the instruction manual for life. We’re told how to treat our pets, love our neighbors, raise our children, govern our lands. We’re told about camping and singing and how to function in the marketplace so everyone prospers. And we’re told by biblical example that unless we conduct ourselves according to the instruction manual of a loving Creator, we will fail.
THE ONLY REMEDY: Here is true healing, including the revelation that God Himself will war against the disobedience of mankind unless/until we come back to Him and His ways, on His terms:
Hosea 6
1 Come, and let us return to the Lord;
For He has torn, but He will heal us;
He has stricken, but He will bind us up.
2 After two days He will revive us;
On the third day He will raise us up,
That we may live in His sight.
3 Let us know,
Let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord.
His going forth is established as the morning;
He will come to us like the rain,
Like the latter and former rain to the earth.
We of course would wisely couch the promises of latter and former rain with the further knowledge of this age drawing to a close, quickly, before our eyes.
All scriptures NKJV
Follow
