The image above is an icon of Christ Pantokrator, “Christ the Ruler of All.”
Some of us, myself included, are dismayed by the moral and spiritual disease afflicting our country and the world. But we mustn’t give in to despair, and we mustn’t be surprised. Wars, crime, tyrants, heresies, and outright folly–these are the products of the human heart, which Jeremiah described as desperately wicked (Jer. 17:9). We, the human race, are sinners; and sinners sin.
Surveying the news, we can hardly help believing we have entered the End Times, the last days. But there have been worse times than these. World War II was one of them. We are preyed upon by wicked and ungodly persons; but the villains we confront are pretty small potatoes compared to the Hermann Goering Division, or the Imperial Japanese Navy. And didn’t we just defeat the villains in a national election? I mean, we’re talking about people who go running for the Play-Doh because their party lost. We ought to be ashamed to be afraid of them.
Our world is the way it is because of our free will, abused on a massive scale.
Where I live, it’s been terribly cold all weekend, with high winds–most unpleasant. But when I went outside this morning, I saw green shoots coming up all over.
These tell us, in a soft and sometimes nearly inaudible voice, that God is nigh. With infinite patience, knowing that to break our free will would be to damage us beyond repair, God is working all the time to restore and renovate His whole Creation, which He will place under the absolute kingship of Jesus Christ, His Son. We know that this end is a certainly because the Lord has said so.
God’s chess game, and the moves He makes in it, are too deep for any human being to fathom. Most of them, we don’t even see. Nevertheless, He moves. And we must have faith in the eventual and inevitable outcome of the game. It will end in evil being checkmated and cast out of God’s Creation forever: for the Lord has said so.
It’s our job to keep listening for God’s voice, to do our work conscientiously, as good servants who don’t know when their Lord will come home, but who do know that He will come home, and who will want Him to find them at their posts when He does.
For the Lord will do as He has said. He will!
I think that there is one characteristic difference between now and even the extreme evil of the Nazi era. We are seeing a wholesale abandonment of all decency in many places. France is in an uproar yet anyone that speaks against unrestricted immigration from the Middle East is shouted down and called a Nazi. Germany has similar things happening as well.
The Middle East, itself, has become a shambles in most places and there is a strong nationalist movement in Turkey, which I am watching with great interest.
The Bible gives few hints as to the makeup of the heavenly realm, but it leaves some hints that there may be supernatural influence that varies geographically. Daniel’s prayer for help was not answered immediately because the “prince of the kingdom Persia” delayed the angel for 21 days. Daniel 10:13.
If there truly are powerful spirit forces governing various places as they see fit, and not according to God’s will; well that explains a lot with regard to the endless conflict we see today. It also explains why the spread of certain ideologies brings with it such a change in social conditions. The fact is, there is not enough information in the Bible to make a strong declaration regarding how all of this works, but there is plenty in the Bible to suggest that there are definite influences that extend beyond the earthly realm.
So here we are, unable to piece together enough information as to predict with absolute spcertainty, but we have enough information to recognize things as they occur.
One thing, of which I am certain, is that if it all seems to clear up and there is the appearance of order, that should be viewed very cautiously. 1 Thess 5:1 “Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. 2 For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.”
I fully agree with both Lee’s and UnKnowable’s comments. So many people are so deceived, it is almost unfathomable, but we should not be surprised, because the Lord told us it would be so. As prophecy unfolds, we will find events becoming more clear, and it should give us a basis for reaching the lost, as they are already saying, “what on earth is wrong with this world?” We who know the Scriptures should know what to tell them.
I am surprised by your comments on free will. Certainly our sin is the cause of all the evil in the world, but thankfully God intervenes and changes the will of His children to love Him instead of darkness. The Apostle Paul surely had his free will changed when he was struck blind on the road to Damascus. Even in your own books we see something similar in the case of Lord Orth.
I would still be walking in vanity and pride except for God’s mercy in changing my heart; I think this is what is meant by the new birth. I thank God that He broke my sinful will and brought me to life! 🙂
What I mean is that God could have created us as puppets, or automatons, but He didn’t. Of course He intervenes. We wouldn’t last another day, if He didn’t. And of course He changes hearts: who can deny it? But the persistence of evil in this fallen world, the depth and breadth of it, are not something that can be erased suddenly.
I’m glad you brought up Orth. God changed him. In fact, God **almost** broke him. Orth came very close to being shattered. But what he experienced as evil, God meant for good. Orth was reborn, as Paul was. I modeled him after Paul, but allowed much more time for his conversion.
We can easily see that in spite of God’s word being available to us, people continue to choose sin. This we do because we are born with Original Sin.
Sanctification is a process, and very seldom an event. God performs it individually, and in small pieces.
Paul never said that since his experience at Damascus, he was free of sin. In Romans Chapter 7, he cries out his inability to stop sinning.
But he is, by then, a better man that he was.
P.S.–My books are a lot smarter than I am. I write what God gives me. Whatever errors I make here on my blog are my own.
Ultimately, our free will is all we can give to God. He may help us to see when we are following the wrong course, but it is still our choice, whether to heed this or not.
Every day we see people that use their free will to make bad choices. This nation has made some terrible choices over the last fifty years and has fallen greatly from its former status, yet there are plenty of people that respond to this defiantly.
If we give ourselves over to something, to anything, we surrender some degree of free will. Those that give themselves over to Satan are promised freedom, but they are, in fact, serving Satan as their god and doing his will. Satan’s will, BTW, is simply to prevent worship of the True God.
If we give ourselves to the True God, then we give up on certain freedoms, but we end up better off in the long run, because God’s ways protect us from much that is bad.
So, either way, we have free will, but our choices place us as serving the interests of either Yahweh or Satan.