Large, Formidable, and Entrenched Evil

There are some respected Christian researchers and theologians today who feel the church, as we know it, is only a generation away from being eradicated.  If it were because of the Rapture, I would delight; unfortunately, however, I fear it is not about that (at least for the majority of confessing Christians).  Perhaps our Laodicean-like attitude or behavior is a precursor to—or actually a part of—that prophesied event called the great falling away which is to occur immediately before Christ’s return; either that, or it is a death knell judgment leveled specifically against the superficiality of our times. 

 

Mankind’s natural bent toward rashness—impatience—is, I believe, behind many of the disasters which ultimately befall us.  King David, long ago, noted a connection between presumption and great sin; he said: “keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; let them not rule over me; then I will be blameless, and I shall be acquitted of great transgression” (Psalm 19:13, NASB).  Superficiality, rashness (impatience), and presumption are all poisoned fruit from one poisoned tree—and though entrenched—it springs from a shallow depth of understanding which is derived from thinking more simply than the complexity of the reality allows. 

 

A lazy self-indulgent generation commits and omits many sins; a lack of watchfulness (which ought to have been bathed in humble prayer) has made this generation particularly inert and apathetic.  Of course, God forewarned us by making an example of Israel; He told Israel to “Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments… otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8: 11-14, NASB). 

Again God forewarned us by cataloging the iniquity of Sodom which is eerily similar to own iniquity.  Aside from “pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness,” in which we mirror Sodom exactly, there is the sodomy, homosexuality, and other sexual deviances that both Sodom and America are guilty of in great measure and increasing (Ezekiel 16: 49, KJV). 

     

Of course America is without excuse; she has been abundantly blessed and completely informed.  We knew, for instance, that “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil” (Ecclesiastes 8:11, NASB).  Unfortunately, our spiritual indolence is destroying us as we are blindly being overcome by large, formidable, and entrenched evil.