by
William T James
There
was a time, early in this century, when reports of children being sold to
makers of pornographic movies and magazines would have been met with disbelief
by
the reader or hearer of such allegations. News of gang rape, mass killings, of
genocide on an unfathomable scale would have - among civilized people
at
least - been considered as acts of barbarism predating the Renaissance, or as
happening only in earth's most primitive cultures. Almost certainly, such
acts
in early twentieth century life would have been catalogued as aberrations or
isolated incidents of insanity.
World
War I brought news of chemical warfare - of mustard gas searing the lungs of
men at war.
The
1920s and 1930s were ablaze with gangland killings. Capone, Pretty Boy Floyd,
Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger all are names infamous for their bloody
trails
of violence across the face of naive America. Naive because many people,
enamored with Hollywood and all the glitter emanating from the silver screens,
viewed
these brutal murderers as modem day Robin Hoods getting even on behalf of
middle Americans.
These
criminals were seen as outwitting the banking tyrants, the law, and lawmen with
clever maneuvering. For many the outlaws were, for the most part,
merely
misunderstood rather than truly evil men and women. They were people forced
into their nefarious molds by sour, vindictive injustice.
Globally,
the strategists in geopolitical affairs tried to hammer out a League of
Nations, but the world, despite coming together in war, would not come
together
in peace. The league failed, other than to lay groundwork for a uniting of a
bloc of nations that would come at a later, more amenable date.
In
the United States crime and violence - the ugly side of life - while festering
within the nation, remained isolated from the mainstream of society for
the
most part. The nation forged ahead, producing labor- saving machinery and
creating a more leisurely way of life for the middle class.
But
clouds of war were boiling in Europe. Anger over terms forced on Germany at
Versailles at the end of World War I inflamed passions and the political
thought
processes of those who would have their revenge. Adolph Hitler wrote and
dictated to Rudolph Hess from his jail cell where he had been gingerly
exiled
for rabble-rousing. The genocidal blueprint for avenging Germany's humiliation,
by the world he would one day come close to conquering, emerged
from
his twisted mind. The resultant holocaust and aftermath, with six million Jews
mass-murdered, forever wiped away the naïveté and head-in-the-sand
innocence
of America and the world.
From
that shocking moment in history when the corpses of the Jewish holocaust
victims were filmed and shown to a gasping world, man brutalizing man has
taken
on new dimensions, and humanity now seems desensitized to the point of being
almost shockproof.
In
2 Timothy 3:13 the apostle Paul, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
prophesied: "But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse......
From
the daily news accounts, the accuracy of this prophecy cannot be denied. The
front pages of our newspapers do not provide adequate space to contain
the
number of stories flowing from the news services across America and the world.
Reports
of man's degenerate acts spill over into and fill other pages from front to
back. The rare exception in today's world is the story of people doing
something
beneficial to others; the norm is bad news.
Throughout
the centuries there have been the Jack-the-Rippers, the Bluebeards, the
Attilas, the Rue Morgue-type horror stories. Never, however, have these
grisly
accounts come in such profusion as now. We are bombarded hourly by accounts
that bear witness to the fact that despite our professed civility, we
are
in a period as barbarous and perverse as any in human history.
It
can truly be said that we live in a world in the process perhaps in the final
stages - of going mad. Jesus himself told us in the Scriptures that there
would
come a time at the end of the age when, if God did not physically intervene, no
flesh would be saved. Man would, collectively, commit suicide.
Since
that sunlit mid-day of November 22,1963, in Dallas, Texas, when Americans
watched the murder of the president of the United States, the floodgates
of
evil seem to have opened wide, and it appears that no one and nothing can stem
the flow of violence.
The
Scriptures tell us that the end will come like a flood. All the signs given by
God's prophetic Word will be gushing through the generation that is alive
at
the time Jesus Christ returns to put an end to man's insanity. While the
Apocalypse looms and Armageddon sucks all of fallen mankind into its vortex,
the
time will resemble the days of Noah and the days of Lot.
God's
holy righteousness demanded that the generation alive in Noah's time be
destroyed. The contamination that sin wrought had finally so corrupted mankind
physically,
mentally, and spiritually that the earth had to be cleansed. Noah and his
family were the only people perfect in their generation. They were
not
sinless because God's grace saved them just as it saves all who believe in Him.
Noah and his family were saved from the flood because they chose to
remain
free of the genetic and spiritual contamination that ran rampant over all the
earth of that pre-flood era.
Sodom
and Gomorrah, of Lot's day, were similarly affected and infected. The thoughts
of the people, according to God's Word, were only on evil continually.
Homosexual
activity was not an alternate lifestyle, it was the predominate lifestyle.
Society festered as well with all other manner of reprobate human
interaction.
Man had reached the point of incorrigibility that demanded a just and righteous
God destroy them in order for cleansing to take place.
Jesus
said in Luke 17:26: "And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be
also in the days of the Son of man." In verse 28, Jesus said it will be
"as
it
was in the days of Lot" when He returns to set right this wayward planet.
Exactly
how, then, will things be in the period just before Christ returns? According
to God's Word, how will man be conducting human affairs at the time
of
the end?
Let
us attempt to find answers to this question by exam - the only truth there is -
God's truth, His holy, inerrant Word.
The
apostle Paul delineated the precise societal symptoms of mans last gasp of
living death. God, who loves man and wants to give him the life and freedom
that
is in His Son Jesus Christ, must in the final analysis give God-rejecting man
up to his vile affections. The symptoms are clear, unmistakable in their
presentation,
as the Apostle minces no words in outlining them. We will look at these one at
a time to see if any or all fit the generation in which we
five.
Jesus
said in Luke 21:28: "And when these things begin to come to pass, then
look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh."
Jesus
was speaking to His disciples of every generation, but particularly to His
disciples, or followers, who would be alive at the end of the age. There
has
never been a generation in which all signs prophesied for the last days have
come as a flood until this generation. In this passage the Lord was telling
His
disciples who would be living during the end-time period to be watchful and
expectant. He promised He will come for them when the signs given in prophecy
begin
to manifest themselves. Let us consider how near that time must be.
The
major symptoms of fallen humanity's end-time societal disorder are given by
Paul's prophecy in 2 Timothy. We will look at recent and current issues
and
events and dissect these matters one at a time, filtering them through the
light of God's prophetic Word.
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,
high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; Having a form of
godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away (2 Tim.
3:1-5).
Today
we are told by sociologists and by psychologists that, at the root of
practically every personality problem, is lack of self-esteem. Criminals,
deprived
of
equality in society as children, thus grow up feeling left at the bottom of the
heap and become angry at the system that rejected them. They rationalize
that
it is street justice to compensate for what society has done to hurt them and,
therefore, society is fair game.
Psychologists
say people should be taught to acquire higher self-esteem; then they will
become useful, productive citizens. Self-esteem is another expression
for
self-love, and God's Word says that this inward-turned philosophy is the
problem - not the cure. When people think first and foremost of themselves,
others
whose lives they affect inevitably suffer from their self-indulgence.
One
of the most blatant forms of self-love, and one of the greatest detrimental
effects of egocentricity is found in the problem of teen-age sex and the
havoc
it wreaks upon individuals, families, and society at large. Young people are
shown by example that it is a natural thing to indulge in sexual activity
apart
from the bonds of marital commitment. The body is to be enjoyed, they are told
by example. They see in movies, TV sitcoms, and their adulterous parents
the
"If it feels good, do it" philosophy.
Teens
are now told by public school systems that sex is a natural act to be enjoyed,
just as eating is to be enjoyed. After all, we are but a higher form
of
animal life, according to public education's adoptive religion, the Theory of
Evolution. The only thing to be concerned about, according to a growing
number
of educators across America, seems to be that teens engage in "safe
sex."
A
young man, whose glands are inflamed with lust after having been issued a
condom by a school-based clinician, impregnates a girl, who is pressured to
give
in to the boy's egocentric drive. He feels no obligation other than, perhaps,
to advise aborting the baby. The girl is harmed physically, socially,
psychologically,
and spiritually. A baby dies. This tragic reality is played out thousands upon
thousands of times each year.
The
social engineers tell us the secret to ultimately producing a healthy cultural
environment is high self-esteem. A sense of self- worth will make man
live
up to his own great expectations.
Rather
than love of self, however, God's Word tells us to love others, to esteem
others more than ourselves, to humble ourselves before God. This generation
is
obviously doing none of these.
Keeping
up with the Joneses is more than a joke in America today, it is symptomatic of
a society gone mad with compulsion to acquire not merely as much
as
one's neighbor, but much more than one's neighbor. Commercials have for years
told us that we "deserve the best" and have urged us to "'go for
the gusto."
We
continue to have our senses assaulted by advertising slogans that appeal to our
human pride - to our love of self.
This
materialistic drive has individually, nationally and globally tumbled man into
an economic abyss from which he will not be extricated, apart from the
unprecedented
(and ultimately diabolical) geopolitical and socioeconomic rearrangement
prophesied in Revelation 13. Rock star Madonna's hit song, "Material
Girl,"
says precisely what this generation is becoming.
For
the United States, the quicksand of opulence began tugging the first time a
general store owner granted a customer the privilege of purchasing merchandise
on
credit. The credit monster awakened, and the next step was no doubt to bring it
to its feet by granting larger loans and expanding the debtor base.
Commercial
lending thus began in a big way, and usury exploded as did inflation.
The
spirit of covetousness is thriving in every facet of life. From young children
who desire to out-dress their peers to their parents who overextend to
make
an impression. From there it moves to governments whose members complain of
massive, unmanageable deficits yet vote themselves huge salary increases
and
other perks, while demanding that the taxpayer tighten his belt and shell out
more for congressmen's pork-barrel projects. The greed monster grows!
Coups,
revolts, rebellions, and wars have at their sin blackened centers, Paul's
end-time term for greed. Our generation is unparalleled in its covetousness.
Following
closely on the heels of covetousness - actually an outgrowth of it - are the
dual vanities within the heart of end-time man. These people are
boasters;
they are extremely proud.
Jesus
said, "Blessed are the meek [humble] for they shall inherit the earth [the
millennial earth]."
The
father of those whose characters exhibit the antithesis of humility is Satan.
Lucifer was the greatest boaster of them all. "I shall put my star above
the
throne of the most high," he said in his supremely prideful arrogance. He
seduced Eve in the Garden of Eden with the same prideful boast and promise.
"Ye
shall be as God," he told her. When Adam yielded, all humankind became
genetic heirs to the great pride that first welled in Lucifer's heart.
Again,
we see the boasting and the pride in our children. We can remember our own
childhood experiences. We made claims, each having to be bigger and better
or
farther or faster than the boast that went before.
Politicians
are living, breathing proof of boastfulness and pride, while they vie for a
chance to "serve" us. How quickly the boasts turn bitter and ring
hollow
when they become inaccessible and self-willed after election time. They become
little lords; we become revenue producers for the wastefulness of
bureaucracy.
The rhetoric of the campaign stump, whether on the courthouse lawn, door to
door, or in media propaganda is a strange alchemy of prideful
boasting
and humble exhortation.
Yet
we who are victimized time after time have no room to complain; it is the
American political process in action. It is the process we have allowed to
stray
far from the noble designs of the founding fathers, a process we perpetuate
through our acquiescence. This is not cynicism - it is fact.
Such
pride has given the Supreme Court a de facto authority. They execute, legislate,
and adjudicate such marvelously innovative things as: 1) the forbidding
of
prayer in public schools; 2) abortion on demand; 3) in effect, evolution as a
religion; 4) the softening of the legal system to the extent that criminals
now
feel they have a green light to plunder, rape, and murder; 5) in some
instances, interpreting homosexuality as deserving moral and legal status
equivalent
to
that given heterosexual marriages; 6) made a mockery of the First Amendment by
pampering pornographers at every juncture, while at the same time banning
Bible
reading and all mention of the true, living God from classrooms in public
schools.
Like
Satan himself, our judiciary over the past three decades has ascended to such
heights that it serves as documented proof that we have little to be
prideful
or boastful about as a people who have allowed it to happen.
In
all fairness, there are occasional times of sanity. One such instance involves
the 1991 Supreme Court decision regarding abortion and foreign aid to
Third
World nations. An Associated Press release dated June 4, 1991, states:
The
Supreme Court on Monday let stand a Bush administration rule aimed at making
sure U.S. supported family planning programs in Third World countries do
not
promote abortion.
The
court, without comment, rejected a Planned Parenthood challenge to the
government ban on federal contributions to health care organizations abroad
unless
they
promise not to use money from any source to "actively promote abortion as
a method of family planning."
Those
who would save "Mother Earth" by engineering birth, death, and all
facets of life in between those two events, for the entire world, lost one
round.
They
continue, however, to win many others in their drive to set up their version of
Utopia. But such an entity would be a global order based on infanticide
and
would be totally devoid of God Almighty.
God's
name has been all but officially removed from public education in America - in
itself a blasphemous thing. But His name is at the same time in practically
every
theater in America. Jesus Christ is unmentionable in public forums because His
holy name represents a narrow-minded viewpoint and would offend. Religion,
if
it is to be mentioned, must represent an eclectic view - must encompass an
ecumenical theological viewpoint.
In
almost every film above the rating of "'G," the name of Jesus Christ
is repeated frequently. It seems, as a matter of fact, as if screen writers are
required
to use His holy name blasphemously at least a minimum number of times per
scene. Always, the name of God, the name of Jesus, is used in one of
two
ways: 1) as an expression of frustration, exasperation, or anger; or 2) to
portray the fanaticism of one religious zealot or another, usually a character
who
is dangerously insane.
Is
it any wonder that a blasphemous generation of young people reject discipline
and self-control, when adults have spent decades producing an anti-God
language?
Even Christian parents have slowly become desensitized, thereby giving into
this blasphemous language's insidious, venomous effects.
Movies
such as The Last Temptation Of Christ, in which Jesus, man's only hope for
redemption, is portrayed as succumbing to sexual immorality, are treated
as
art form under Supreme Court interpretation. Mention of Christ as the eternal
God incarnate in front of a class of public school children, however,
has
been viewed by that same body as unacceptable. A so-called artist can represent
the blessed Savior by a crucifix submerged in a bottle of urine and
receive
federal dollars for his blasphemous work! Madonna is looked upon with amusement
when she blasphemes, in the most gross fashion, the name of the
Lord
Jesus Christ! A large audience of Americans pay her millions of dollars for the
privilege of watching her do so!
It
is perhaps ludicrous to even ask the question: Are we living in a time of
blasphemous deportment such as described by the apostle Paul?
A
more subtle yet, at the same time, more dangerous indicator of the blasphemous
times in which we live is the New Age movement's philosophy that has
infiltrated
almost
every segment of American life. At the heart of the movement is Eastern
mysticism and ancient occultism.
New
Agers claim the devotee of the movement's methods and agenda has within himself
the "Christ consciousness" and can ascend to the apex of God-likeness
with
meditational effort. All mankind is collectively God, they proclaim. Once
laughed at, or shrugged off as merely a weird cult, the New Age is blossoming
with
unbelievable speed, pervading every part of our lives, including the true body
of believers in Jesus Christ.
To
claim to be Christ and/or God is blatant blasphemy, and this generation is
swallowing the New Age lie that we are all Christ’s - as they say - hook, line,
and
sinker.
As
in the case of blasphemy, we should not be shocked at the rebelliousness of our
young when they have watched their parents consume themselves with self-love
to
a point where the children suffer incalculable damage. There has been for years
now a degeneration of respect for anything and everything that smacks
of
order and discipline.
Children
watch adults fly in the face of authority in every aspect of life. In sports,
adults curse and all but physically attack referees, umpires, and
judges,
from the primary level of midget league sports and little girl beauty pageants
to the big league competitions. Policemen are almost always unjust,
unfair,
"stupid cops" when tickets are handed out. Remember a case in 1990
when actress Zsa Zsa Gabor slapped a policeman and flaunted her disdain for
law
enforcement before the nation?
Teachers
are constantly "picking on" the children of parents who refuse to
accept responsibility for raising their young in the right way. To these
people,
schools
should be babysitters who never drag them in on their children's problems. When
parents are called in to deal with the situations, the school is
at
fault, no matter what the circumstances.
Likewise,
when the children then refuse to follow the laws that govern society, the
parents blame "the system" for being unjust and geared only to
placate
the
wealthy and the elite. The parents refuse to accept responsibility - the
children follow suit. Each generation thus exceeds the bounds of restraint
to
an extent greater than the previous generation.
God's
Word says there will come a time in human history when children will betray
parents. This has already come to pass in one instance. The Hitler youth
movement,
dissatisfied with the perceived weakness of German parents, removed the
children and trained them in Nazi ways for the purpose of properly educating
them.
The children became tools of the state for spying out those who resisted the
regime. When parents refuse to accept responsibility, government, ostensibly
to
preserve the order of things and promote the general welfare, will.
During
the soon-to-come Tribulation, Antichrist and associates will no doubt use the
same tactics as Hitler did. It will be relatively easy to institute
such
a system because uncaring or too-busy parents will have paved the way by
handing the most horrendous dictatorship in history a generation of children
ripe
for the picking.
Jesus
said in Luke 18:16: "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid
them not ......
Sunday
schoolrooms remain more than half-empty while parents selfishly seek other
things to do on Sundays. By so doing, they forbid children from coming
to
the One who can make them truly productive people. A primary command to parents
by God is given by the apostle Paul in Ephesians 6:4: "provoke not your
children
to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."
Parents
who refuse these commands of the living God risk reaping a bitter harvest of
disobedience. We can look around us today and see the terrible consequences
of
rebellion taking their toll on this generation of young people.
President
Abraham Lincoln officially proclaimed Thanksgiving Day a national holiday in
1863. Thanksgiving, as a concept of thanks for blessings in the land
in
which we now live, however, was first celebrated in the autumn of 1621, when
William Bradford, governor of Plymouth Colony, called for a day of thanksgiving
and
prayer after the harvest. Other New England colonies gradually adopted the
practice.
These
godly people, regardless of what revisionist writers of today's accounts of
American history claim, escaped England first and foremost for the privilege
to
worship the one, true God. They knew to whom they were indebted for all
blessings they received. Thankfulness and holiness were inseparable in the
minds
and
hearts of our forefathers. They were thankful to the one and only God of heaven
because they sought to be holy and righteous in His omniscient eyes.
How
far we have come as a nation and as a world from that 1621 autumn Thanksgiving!
People are proud of the things they accumulate, accomplish, attain;
they
are grateful in some instances to other people and to institutions. For the
most part, however, they use the word thankful interchangeably with the
words
happy and pleased, not in the sense of thankfulness to God.
To
be truly thankful to God one must be holy, that is, a believer that God is the
provider of all things good. This is a generation of unthankful unholy
people.
They know neither the God of the Bible nor seek to know Him. The only way to
know the Father is to know the Son, Jesus Christ, who said as recorded
in
John 14:6: "1 am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the
Father, but by me."
The
world today views the biblical truth that Jesus Christ is the only way to God
as a "narrow" or "close-minded" concept that cannot and
will not be tolerated
by
an enlightened people of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
A
holy, thankful people in the eyes of God must desire to worship and serve Him.
In Joshua 24:15, God commands: ""choose you this day whom ye will
serve."
This
subsequent passage records God's command for not only the children of Israel,
but for all mankind: "fear the Lord [reverence, worship Him], and serve
him
in sincerity and in truth: and put away [all other gods]" Gosh-24:14).
One
quick glance around us tells the story. Man is Obsessed with many things other
dim the God of the Bible. These are the gods of a truly unholy, unthankful
generation.
we
all read with disbelieving eyes accounts of family members killing each other,
of babies being sold or discarded by their mothers, of fathers engaging
in
incestuous relationships with daughters from childhood, until in some cases,
the daughter either kills her father or reports the despicable matter to
family
and authorities.
In
Russellville, Arkansas, in 1987, asocial miscreant named R. Gene Simmons,
killed all his family members whom he had invited for Christmas, including
the
daughter he had sexually abused since her childhood. It was the worst murderous
rampage involving one family member killing other family members in
United
States' history, and apparently stemmed from the fact a local woman had refused
Simmons' romantic advances.
This
tragedy punctuated the point that our supposedly civilized nation has reached
with regard to familial breakdowns. This was the outer limits of atrocity
to
be sure, but the numbers of incidents coming to light daily, weekly, monthly,
yearly, attest to the fact that such activity is accelerating.
Accounts
involving what can only be described as abhorrent behavior that is
"without natural affection" stream in from around the nation and
world. From
Livingston,
Montana, a news report of June 26, 1991, reads in part: Authorities say a
woman, unable to have more children, arranged a rape by her live-in
boyfriend
of her 11-year-old daughter because she wanted another baby.
The
30-year-old mother of three ... said that she couldn't have children and she
asked the daughter to sleep with the boyfriend. ... The girl is pregnant.
"It's
one of those things that when you end your shift and you go home, you don't
sleep so well that night," said Acting Police Chief Steve McCann.
But
perhaps no one issue in American society today so fulfills Paul's prophetic
end-time characteristic "without natural affection" as does that of
abortion.
In
the great majority of cases in which unborn babies are deliberately
exterminated, those doing the killing and those consenting to the murder
consider
the
matter to be no more than medical procedures to solve medical problems.
In
most cases, those involved in the abortion process seem to feel no guilt or
experience any sorrow over the taking of an unborn child's life. The multiple
thousands
of victims each year cannot give their views in protest of their impending
murders, so they are considered by the abortionists as nothing more
than
fetal tissue, refuse with which to be done away.
The
proposition now has been raised that in some cases the dead fetus be used in
the treatment of maladies such as Parkinson's Disease. In that procedure
the
brain cells of a fetus are transplanted into the brain of a Parkinson's Disease
victim. This raises the probability that genetic engineers will some
day
raise fetuses for the specific purpose of maintaining a bank of tissue for
treating humanity's medical problems.
If
this seems far-fetched, consider a recent case that has raised moral and
ethical questions. A couple conceived a baby specifically so that the baby
could
donate
bone-marrow to another member of the family in order to treat a disease. The
couple, of course, claim to love the baby as much as their other children
and
undoubtedly do so. The point to be made is that such thinking is at the root of
what is becoming symptomatic of a generation "without natural
affection."
This
casual attitude about human life - considering the unborn as non- entities, as
nuisances to be eliminated, or as tissue to be utilized - is also precisely
the
mind set that God's Word says will pervade the generation alive in the era
immediately preceding the Apocalypse, Armageddon, and the return of Jesus
Christ
to earth.
People
have been convinced by humanists - the social engineers who claim to want to
save planet earth through human effort, apart totally from God Almighty
-
that these little ones are not people, that the unborn are not yet human. But
the God - whom the humanists in their critical thinking, values clarifying,
no-moral-absolutes
philosophizing consider to be dead - says something diametrically different.
God
told Jeremiah the prophet, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee;
and before thou cameth forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained
thee
a prophet unto the nations" (Jer. 1:5).
The
Psalmist wrote under God's inspiration, "For he knoweth our frame; he
remembereth that we are dust" (Ps. 103:14). God's Word records in Luke
1:41-44
that
the child within the womb is indeed fully a person. Elizabeth, the mother of
John the Baptist, said upon greeting Mary, the mother of Jesus, while
both
were pregnant with those babies: "For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy
salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy" (Luke
1:44).
God
himself tells us that the embryo, the fetus, the unborn child, is every bit as
much a living human being as the child who has taken breath.
Paul
the apostle says that the last generation before Christ's return will be marked
by the trait "without natural affection" - or - without love for the
most
basic kind of relationship such as the mother for her baby still in the womb.
People of that generation will, God's Word says, prefer convenience
to
responsibility.
Hundreds
of thousands of abortions, the vast majority of them nothing less than
contraception after the fact, have marked the last several decades as the
era
of greatest infanticide in recorded times.
Children
who are born are likewise subjected to atrocity bordering on holocaust. This,
the humanist philosophers tell us, is but another reason "unwanted"
babies
should not be brought into the world. The old bromide, "two wrongs do not
a right make," applies. It is analogous to one saying that statistics
on
cancer project that one out of four people will develop cancer in their
lifetime, therefore, we should eliminate one out of four people before they
have
a chance to develop the dread disease. Only God in His omniscience has the
right to decide such things.
"Without
natural affection" means also unnatural affection. Homosexuality is
rampant; sexual deviation and perversion of every sort is looked upon now as
private
matters between consenting adults.
One
most recent case starkly makes the point. Convicted mass- murderer, Jeffrey L.
Dahmer, was confronted by Milwaukee policemen prior to his apartment
being
found days later to contain body parts from many dismembered corpses. The
police, in that first encounter, were called by neighbors who said Dahmer
was
chasing a nude, bleeding man. The police determined that it was a lovers'
quarrel between the two men, and so they did nothing. Later, the bleeding
"man"
was found to have been a fourteen-year-old boy whose body parts were reportedly
found in Dahmer's apartment.
Such
perverse activity is more and more becoming private and non- private
abominations between adults and children, and even between people and animals.
No
moral absolutes in the twisted rationale of humanist, critical thinking and
values clarification means "anything goes."
A
report in the Encyclopedia Britannica 1990 Book Of the Year titled "Arms
Control and Disarmament" states:
The
most important arms control event of 1989 was Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard
Shevardnadze's historic admission that the Krasnoyarsk radar installation
in
the USSR was a violation of the 1972 ABM treaty. This was the first admission
by the Soviet Union that they had violated an arms control agreement;
it
resolved a long- standing U.S. debate in favor of those who had argued that the
Krasnoyarsk was one of several Soviet violations. This argument had
been
made on successive reports on Soviet noncompliance with arms control agreements
by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and had been bitterly criticized by
much
of the arms control community as being incorrect. However, the Reagan
administration charge was now acknowledged as true by the Soviets.
In
actuality, the report grossly understates both the extent of Communist treaty
infractions and the extent of protestation of those who knew and know the
Communist
way of doing business. It also exposes the woolly-mindedness of those who then
saw the Soviet Communist leadership and now see the Commonwealth
of
Independent States leadership as trustworthy citizens of a soon to be New World
order.
Communism
of the Soviet and Chinese kind, as well as every other variety, presents in
microcosm and typifies the last days' characteristics termed by the
apostle
Paul as trucebreakers. The number of incidents of Communists lying and going
back on their word is legendary, though the liberal-minded of the
West
just don't seem to get it. Perestroika, glasnost, and the USSR under a new name
will, in the final analysis, have altered nothing.
But
there is an epidemic of truce breaking in arenas other than geopolitics. It is
estimated by some sociologists that as many as one out of two marriages
in
the United States - that is, people now being married, not necessarily
including marriages made in past decades - end in divorce. The most basic
truce,
treaty,
or pact is that made between man and woman to be husband and wife. God ordained
marriage to be monogamous and to last a lifetime.
Hollywood
has represented the contemporary marriage as a contract to be broken at any
time or one to be ignored whenever expediency demands a one-night
stand
or weekend getaway with someone other than one's husband or wife. Young people
now have what seems almost a legitimate excuse to avoid marriage or
to
at least have an experimental live-in relationship before marriage. "Why
have marriage" they can ask, "when the commitment of the marriage vow
is so
lightly
treated in practice?"
Truly,
we live in a time when truce breaking is a way of life for a growing number of
people.
If
one wishes to look to a single area within American life where false accusation
runs unchecked, it is best exemplified by the political process at all
levels.
False accusations and false accusers are generally accepted as normal in
today's society as a whole, but in politics - as is said of love and war
-
all is fair.
False
accusation is nothing more or less than lying in order to seek and to gain
advantage for one's self - to the denigration of the one being accused.
Lies,
then, are at the heart of that described in 1 Timothy 3 by Paul.
Lying
to avoid punishment or to gain advantage has always been the human thing to do.
Corporations and kingdoms have been built on deception of every sort.
The
trait of lying - of falsely accusing for personal gains - the Scripture says,
is a heart problem. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and
desperately
wicked
. . ." (Jer. 17:9).
It
would no doubt be possible for the reader here to recall, in his or her own
life, instances when people took advantage of others through deceit, lies,
or
false accusations. For the purpose of looking at a single event in America that
symbolizes or captures the very essence of false dealings, think for
a
moment on the Watergate affair that brought a president down and very nearly
this nation's governmental stability along with him. Most every adult in
the
United States remembers the series of one revelation upon another - many of
which, even at this late date, still serve only to puzzle and confuse.
Politicians
in the 1990s still look into cameras and deny wrongdoing even after having the
proof of their guilt documented for all to see. Party affiliation
makes
no difference. Scandals on all sides and at all levels are epidemic.
False
accusers, too, are a big part of the political process in America. The very
fact that so many public officials are caught red-handed in one ignoble
act
or another makes the other honest, hard-working public servants vulnerable to
innuendo and out-right lies no matter the purity of their record.
Much
of the American public can be held responsible for the real and growing evil of
false accusation and false accusers. Tabloids thrive on such garbage
because
their readerships have insatiable appetites for it. We indeed five in an era of
false accusers.
Webster's
Third Dictionary defines "incontinent" as: "marked by lacking
control, unrestrained evil appetites; inability, disinclination to resist
impulse
[as
in alcoholism]."
Every
major civilization in recorded history has ultimately come to a time when the
symptoms wrapped up in tile term "incontinent" overwhelmed society.
Perhaps
Edward Gibbons' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is the most complete
account of such a deterioration. The apostle Paul tells us that the last
generation
of human history will also come to be predominantly incontinent, not only in
conduct but in its very character.
A
lack of self-discipline and self-control is a growing monster straining at the
tethers of law, order, and common sense. These restraints are themselves
perpetually
under the abrasive, corrosive attacks of Luciferic agencies that seek to
replace all traces of godly influence with humanism.
An
Associated Press report from Washington, DC, in June, 1991, clearly illustrates
this unrelenting strain modem man puts on the leash of morality.
The
National Park Service is "seriously" considering a proposal that
would sanction nude sunbathing at one of its facilities in Hawaii, an Interior
Department
official
said Saturday.
...
(spokesman) Steve Goldstein said three factors the department would consider in
making its decision would be local and state laws and normal customs
governing
"clothing optional" beaches as well as citizen reaction ....
...
He said there has been nude sunbathing at other park service facilities and
"there is no federal law governing whether someone can nude
sunbathe." But
it
has never been officially sanctioned by the government, he said.
So
even the human governing entities of our nation and world are confused by the
author of confusion, Satan. How can we expect our young people to be less
confused
or more disciplined than the adults to whom they are supposed to look for
leadership and example?
A
Knight News Service report, by Lee Ban, dramatically makes the saddening point
that ours is an age of unparalleled incontinence:
U.S.
teenagers are turning increasingly to booze to relieve stress and boredom, and
many may well be on their way to becoming alcoholics, according to a
national
report released Thursday. "It's an alarming trend," said Surgeon
General Antonia Navello.
More
than half, 10.6 million, of the nation's junior and senior high school students
are drinkers. Of those who drink, 8 million consume alcohol on a weekly
basis,
5.4 million have gone on a binge on occasion, and nearly half a million on a
weekly binge, guzzling five or more drinks in a row.
Some
drink as many as 33 beers a week, a dozen wine coolers, 24 glasses of wine or
24 shots of liquor, the study said.
...
The survey, conducted by the inspector general's office of the Department of
Health and Human Services found that teen-age students annually consume
35
percent of all wine coolers sold in the United States, about 31 million gallons
and 1.1 billion cans of beer, or about 102 million gallons.
Navello
termed the findings "shocking" and said they raise questions about
alcohol marketing, advertising standards and enforcement of underage drinking
laws.
The
1991 survey showed that more than half of the 20.7 million U.S. students in
grades seven through twelve who drink alcoholic beverages are, or will become,
alcoholics.
The
study showed that the highest percentage of drinkers - 54 percent - are among
the thirteen to fifteen age group. Imagine! If the percentage holds or
increases,
in just a few years more than half of all American high school graduates will
be users of alcohol. Many will be alcoholics! In some European
nations
the percentages are even higher. Cultures in several nations are built around
wine consumption.
Sexual
self-discipline - rather, the lack thereof - is easily observable and able to
be documented for anyone caring to open his eyes to facts. We have
already
addressed this tragedy to some extent. We have seen that lack of control in
sexuality has resulted in a significant proportion of this generation
of
young people emulating adult lascivious and miscreant behavior; teen-age
pregnancies and raging diseases continue to follow in the wake of the tidal wave
of immorality.
God's
Word declares prophetic truth in the 1 Timothy account characterizing end-time
man. We live at a time of unbridled behavior. News accounts, such as
the
case of a former heavyweight boxing champion's rape of a teenage beauty
contestant and his subsequent conviction, give vivid testimony of that truth
of
incontinence.
An
incident in 1990, familiar to most Americans, is the report of one teenager
dowsing another teenager with gasoline and igniting it simply because the
young
victim, reportedly a Christian and a well-liked, well-behaved citizen, would
not take a drug as the other boy demanded. The teenager who committed
the
atrocity is allegedly a drug user and small - -time dealer.
People
of the end time will be fierce, despisers of those that are good. A newspaper
report out of Atlantic Beach, New York, in June, 1991, reads: A black
teenager
was on life-support systems Thursday after being hit by four bat-wielding white
men, apparently because he was talking to a white girl.
A
June, 1991, AP release from Rome, Italy, reported: City councils in 21 towns
where officials are suspected of having close ties with the Mafia are slated
to
be dissolved, reports said Saturday.
Among
the towns in Calabria, a southern region, was Taurianova, site of one of the
most gruesome slayings blamed on founding clans of the Indrangheta, the
Calabrian
crime organization likened to the Sicilian Mafia.
A
few weeks ago, after shooting to death two merchants who were brothers, gunmen
in the main square of Taurianova. lopped off the head of one of the victims
and
tossed it in the air for target practice as dozens of horrified townspeople
watched.
A
minor traffic incident in Little Rock, Arkansas, incited one of the men
involved in the fender-bender to shoot the other man four times at point blank
range
while the man sat behind his steering wheel. We expect to read and hear of
beastly, murderous individuals like Saddam Hussehi, who reportedly once
had
a member of his body guards killed, then cut to pieces, and the body parts
delivered to the front door of the mans widow. But no longer are unbelievably
cruel
acts done by strange, megalomaniacal individuals in faraway places. Such
atrocities are now daffy fodder for local news writers. What's more, society
is
increasingly paralyzed in dealing with perpetrators of these horrible crimes.
The
rape of the Central Park jogger is a case well in point in considering the
fierceness of modem man. Four young men raped, sodomized, and bludgeoned
almost
to death a young woman in New York's Central Park. They were on a rampage
supposedly akin to a sport they concocted, which they termed "
wilding."
One
of the attackers said in court that another of the men involved had expressed
delight during the attack over the force and volume of blood spurting
from
the woman's cut body. At this writing, the legal system has failed to deal with
the accused in a way sufficient to the heinous nature of the brutal
attack.
Rather than concern for the victim, some lobbyist-like groups seem intent on
claiming racial bias against the alleged rapists. These groups apparently
see
these alleged, would-be murderers as the victims in the matter.
The
tide of murderous rampaging seems to have taken a quantum leap during the
summer of 1991. It seems as if each serial murderer is bent on breaking records
of
killers gone before them. As mentioned before, Jeffrey L. Dahmer is alleged to
have murdered as many as seventeen people throughout the nation. Body
parts
of eleven people were found in his Milwaukee apartment.
A
confessed killer now is feared to have murdered more than sixty people around
the country. An Associated Press report from Guffport, Mississippi, dated
August
16,1991, reads in part:
Federal
and state lawmen, reeling under a barrage of inquiries from 20 states, said
Thursday that they will proceed deliberately in investigating claims
by
a self-professed serial killer that he murdered more than 60 people.
...
So far, only three of the killings Donald Leroy Evans claims to have committed
have been confirmed, his court-appointed lawyer said. Mass and serial
murders
are only at the tip of the mountainous heap of murder cases - solved and
unsolved - piling up within society today. Law enforcement must specialize
in
such areas as mass murders and serial murders, developing expertise in investigating
specific types of what were once aberrant crimes but now have become
almost
standard police work.
There
is a pernicious movement among despisers of those that are good today. Texe
Marrs gives a masterful, informational presentation in a later essay on
this
diabolical consortium.
In
Luke 18:19, Jesus Christ says "none is good, save one, that is, God."
Those who despise good despise God himself, despise Jesus Christ, who was and
is
God.
All people who are redeemed through acceptance of and belief in the fact that
Jesus is the One and only way to salvation are good only because they
are
in Christ Jesus. Only Jesus can change the inner-evil of the fierce and the
despisers of those that are good. Only Christ can replace that heart of
hatred
with wonderful inner peace.
Symptoms 15,16, & 17: Traitors, Heady, High-minded, Lovers of Pleasures More Than Lovers of God
Reports
of military personnel selling secrets or bartering intelligence for sexual
favors have become more prevalent in recent years. In some cases we have
learned
of espionage that involved sabotage for the sake of personal gain. Recently, an
FBI agent, and later a CIA agent, were caught in incidents of traitorous
activity.
These incidents were only the most publicized of the hundreds going on
throughout the world.
On
the level of industrial and corporate subterfuge, the symptoms point to a
plague of betrayal. Fortunes are made and lost yearly, monthly, and weekly
by
those who step on, or are stepped on, while on the ladder leading to success
and/or failure.
This
self-uplifting, while ascending on the misfortune of others, is symptomatic of
headiness or high-mindedness. Satan was and is the most high-minded
of
all. He sought and still has the audacity to believe he can lift himself to a
position above the one, true, eternal God. Those who reject the truth
of
Jesus Christ are, through omission, heirs to the fallen one's - Lucifer's great
high-mindedness.
All
who seek, through their great intellect, their desire, or their superiority in
the realm of power-brokerage, to put themselves upon the pinnacle of
god-likeness
in the world they have chosen to conquer are inheritors of Satan's
pridefulness. They are exhilarated by the cutthroat struggle to vanquish
all
obstacles, all foes.
The
high-minded intellectuals of academia, of the sciences, or of the liberal
clergy seek more than at any time in history to erase all mention of God the
Almighty,
even at the temporary expedient of tolerating many religions and allowing those
religions their many various ways to godhood.
With
the intellectual exercise of plotting the planet's physical and social
salvation, they are sacrificing their eternal souls on the altar of
"Evolutional
Theory."
God's Word tells that the last generation will be as was the generation that
perished in the flood of Noah’s day. Of that people God says:
Because
that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful;
but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was
darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of
the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man,
and
to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things (Rom. 1:21-23).
What
is this, if not a description of modem intellectual man and his attempts to
rationalize away all vestiges of the true God? It perfectly describes the
writings
of Charles Darwin and those who have reworked, reformulated and totally fallen
for, in one form or another, the Evolution lie. These, like the
antediluvians,
"changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the
creature more than the Creator. . ." (Rom. 1:25). These foolish,
soul-darkened
"intellects"
join forces with those they would once have termed superstitious idiots, the
occultists, and New Age adherents, to deify Mother Earth for
the
sake of ecological purity.
Man
seeks to create his own Utopias totally apart from God's moral restraints. Man
will go to any lengths that his own intellectual capabilities will permit
to
satisfy his lustful, ephemeral desires. He seeks, like Satan promised and Eve
desired, knowledge, power, and wealth because these things bring temporal
pleasures.
Second
Peter issues a terrifying indictment and judgment on the heady, high-minded,
God despising, pleasure seekers of the last days' generation.
The
Lord knoweth how ... to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be
punished: But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of
uncleanness,
and
despise government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to
speak evil of dignities.
But
these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of
the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their
own
corruption (2 Pet. 2:9-10,12).
We
live in days such as delineated in 2 Timothy 3:1-5. The evidence is
astoundingly abundant to anyone not wishing to be a foolish, deceived, brute
beast
but
rather desiring to seek to be wise unto salvation.
God's
desire for you is given a few verses later in 2 Peter 3:9: "The Lord is
... not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to
repentance.,,
All
who seek, through their great intellect, their desire, or their superiority in
the realm of power-brokerage, to put themselves upon the pinnacle of god-likeness
in
the world they have chosen to conquer are inheritors of Satan's pridefulness.
They are exhilarated by the cut-throat struggle to vanquish all obstacles,
all
foes.
The
high-minded intellectuals of academia, of the sciences, or of the liberal clergy
seek more than at any time in history to erase all mention of God the
Almighty,
even at the temporary expedient of tolerating many religions and allowing those
religions their many various ways to godhood.
With
the intellectual exercise of plotting the planet's physical and social
salvation, they are sacrificing their eternal souls on the altar of
"Evolutional
Theory."
God's Word tells that the last generation will be as was the generation that
perished in the flood of Noah’s day. Of that people God says:
Because
that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful;
but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was
darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of
the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man,
and
to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things (Rom. 1:21-23).
What
is this, if not a description of modem intellectual man and his attempts to
rationalize away all vestiges of the true God? It perfectly describes the
writings
of Charles Darwin and those who have reworked, reformulated and totally fallen
for, in one form or another, the Evolution lie. These, like the antediluvians,
"changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator. . ." (Rom.1:25). These foolish, soul-darkened "intellects"
join
forces with those they would once have termed superstitious idiots, the
occultists, and New Age adherents, to deify Mother Earth for the sake of
ecological purity.
Man
seeks to create his own Utopias totally apart from God's moral restraints. Man
will go to any lengths that his own intellectual capabilities will permit
to
satisfy his lustful, ephemeral desires. He seeks, like Satan promised and Eve
desired, knowledge, power, and wealth because these things bring temporal
pleasures.
Second
Peter issues a terrifying indictment and judgment on the heady, high-minded,
God despising, pleasure seekers of the last days' generation.
The
Lord knoweth how ... to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be
punished: But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of
uncleanness,
and
despise government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to
speak evil of dignities.
But
these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of
the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own
corruption
(2 Pet. 2:9-10,12).
We
live in days such as delineated in 2 Timothy 3:1-5. The evidences astoundingly
abundant to anyone not wishing to be a foolish, deceived, brute beast
but
rather desiring to seek to be wise unto salvation.
God's
desire for you is given a few verses later in 2 Peter 3:9: "The Lord is
... not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to
repentance.,,