Our Lord is coming. He is very near. We hear his footsteps. He is coming to destroy the wicked and bring his elect to heaven. But many things must happen before he comes to judge all men. Wars will occur. Famines will leave many desolate. Earthquakes will shake the earth, crushing the great creations of the civilizations. These are only the beginning of sorrows. We will be persecuted for confessing Christ’s name. False prophets will deceive many. Iniquity will abound. We will have to flee for our lives lest we be killed. We see the beginning of these things today. We see men committing great wickedness all around us without a thought or care for the Lord’s second coming. Unless they repent, they will be utterly destroyed in sudden judgment: “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:37–39). But we by God’s grace look forward to Christ’s second coming and will not be taken unawares.
We live in a depraved society. We see wickedness increasing around us as we get nearer to the end. One does not need to look far. Even in my short time on this earth (24 years) I have witnessed our society go from bad to worse.
Only in a depraved society such as ours would a man abduct a girl and keep her in his house for ten years, repeatedly raping her and beating her so that her unborn children would die. This man was accused of murder and rightfully so. Yet anyone can go to an abortion clinic and murder an unborn, unwanted child, and this is not considered murder! Abortion is the butchering of children, and is now on the brink of killing children who survive failed abortions. This is all justified because the death of the child was the original intent of the woman. This justification comes from human rights activists, of all people. This is how twisted the world is.
We currently have a president who crusades for abortion. He commends those who promote a “choice.” Recently he took this an abominable step farther when he gave a speech at a Planned Parenthood gathering praising their efforts. He ended his flattering address by saying, “God bless Planned Parenthood.” God bless Planned Parenthood? Really? The God of the Bible who hates the sin of sexual promiscuity that leads to the sin of murder by way of abortion is going to show his favor to Planned Parenthood? God does not bless Planned Parenthood, and he never will. Their promotion of sin is an abomination to him, and he will judge them in his righteous wrath.
In our selfish, idolatrous society there are other “choices” in addition to abortion that all mankind is encouraged to make: the choice to choose your gender and the choice to be a homosexual. Many do this flying the banner of Christianity. This is not Christianity. They do not worship our God, but they worship their own gods: themselves.
When a society has reached the point that homosexuality is commonplace and commended, as ours has, it has fallen so far into sin that it is on its last leg before judgment. Homosexuality is a sin that comes to light when a culture is far advanced in sin. Our society is ripe for judgment, just as Sodom and Gomorrah were before their fiery end. Homosexuality is so rampant in the United States that the Department of Education decided to replace the terms “Father” and “Mother” with “Parent 1” and “Parent 2” on the application form for federal student aid—all this in the name of “inclusiveness” for “unique family dynamics.”
Sexual promiscuity is widespread among people of all ages, especially the younger generation. In 2008 alone there were 110,000 pregnancies among 15 and 16 year olds in the United States. What is the government’s plan to reduce the problem of teenage pregnancies? Ignore the real issue, which is sexual promiscuity, and lower the minimum age allowed for purchase of the morning after pill. The government did not address the problem of sexual promiscuity but merely gave young girls free reign to be sexually active before marriage without consequential pregnancies.
We have seen school shootings and bombings at public events. Violence on such a scale is becoming more and more common and will continue to increase as we near the end. What is the government’s answer? Gun control. While I do not intend to get into the politics of gun control in this editorial, I merely want to draw attention to what they ignore. Video game violence, they say, has no effect on the minds of children. They can murder hundreds of people in a hundred different ways on the screen in front of them and not be affected. This is not the case at all. They can be entertained for hours with violence and gore without consequence.
On the subject of screens, the computer and television are devices in which wickedness has multiplied exceedingly in a very short amount of time. Raunchy movies and television shows can be accessed with the click of a button. Internet pornography can be viewed with hardly an effort. It seems as if the ultimate goal of today’s society is to be entertained. Billions of dollars are spent each year to satiate the thirst of the world for entertainment. Millions come again and again to the empty, broken cisterns of this world’s entertainment, only to leave thirsty again. They ignore the fountain of living water, Jesus Christ. Family time has changed from recreation and fellowship into the family gathering in the living room for hours each week with glazed eyes fixed on a 42 inch plasma screen TV. Are we aware of the increasing wickedness surrounding us, or are we in an entertained stupor as the world is, not looking for our Lord’s coming? The Lord warns us in Luke 21:34—36: “And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting [overindulgence of food], and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.”
We live in a depraved society. We shake our heads when we think about the insanity of wicked men. We cry with the psalmist, “Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph? How long shall they utter and speak hard things? and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves? They break in pieces thy people, O Lord, and afflict thine heritage” (Psalm 94:4—5); also in Psalm 7:9: “Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end.” The Lord hears our cries. He is near, very near. This world is ripe for judgment.
We must remember that Satan does not send this flood of wickedness for the world. He already has the wicked in his clutches. His focus is on the church. He wants to destroy our faith in God. Satan has learned much since the fall in the Garden of Eden. He knows where and when to attack us. May the Lord preserve us in the face of this flood of wickedness. May we be found faithful and true to his word in these last days.