When LAWLESSNESS Increases!
by Christine Egbert
In December of 1776, Thomas Paine wrote the famous line, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Paine went on to write (I’ll paraphrase) that the summer soldier and sunshine patriot will shrink from serving their country in a crisis, but the one who takes a stand deserves both love and gratitude, for tyranny is not easily conquered. The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly. It would be strange indeed, Paine wrote (and here I will quote), “if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.” Freedom – true freedom – comes only through abiding by God’s instructions. Psalms 119:43-45 says, “Never snatch out of my mouth a word of truth, for I hope in Your judgments. So I may always keep Your Torah, forever and ever, and walk about in freedom.”
We are living in that time the Bible calls “the beginning of sorrows.” The Literal Version (LITV) calls it, “the beginning of throes,” and the Tree of Life (TLV) calls it, “the beginning of birth pains.” (Matthew 24:8) In Matthew 24:9-13, Jesus (Yeshua) warned that His followers would be persecuted and killed. “You will be hated by all the nations because of My Name,” the Messiah said. Then many will fall away, betray, and hate one other. False prophets will lead many astray, Jesus (Yeshua) warned almost 2,000 years ago. WHY? This would happen, Jesus (Yeshua) said, because of LAWLESSNESS! Lawlessness would cause the love of many to grow cold. Two thousand years ago, whenever Jesus (Yeshua) used the word translated into our English Bibles as “lawlessness”, He was not referring to our U.S. laws. He was talking about His LAW the TORAH!
In Romans 6:19, Paul wrote, “…as you yielded your body parts as slaves to uncleanness and lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, now yield your body parts as slaves to righteousness, resulting in holiness.” In Exodus 21:23-37, God decreed His proportional, retributive justice – an eye for an eye. As Gilbert and Sullivan’s famous operetta, The Mikado, says, “Let the punishment fit the crime.” In the wilderness, when ungrateful Israelites complained they had only manna from Heaven to eat and demanded meat, God let His retributive justice fit their crime and gave them quail until it became loathsome to them and was coming out of their nostrils.
“I set watchmen over you, saying ‘Listen to the sound of the shofar!’ But they said, ‘We won’t listen.’ Therefore hear, O nations and observe, O congregation, what is against them. Hear, O earth! See, I will bring disaster on this people— fruit of their schemes— for they did not listen to My words and rejected My Torah. (Jeremiah 6:17-19)
The LAWLESSNESS that is spreading like wildfire across this nation is God’s JUST Punishment. Why? Because for centuries now, God’s people have rejected His instructions, His TORAH, calling the Torah a curse. Now, like the children of Israel, whom God punished with an over-abundance of what they wanted, God is allowing His proportional, retributive-justice to discipline His Church in this nation, which claims to be Christian – One Nation under God! God is letting our punishment fit our collective crime!
Most in the Christian Church have been rejecting God’s instructions (His Torah) for nearly 1,700 years, claiming that their “freedom in Christ” is freedom from God’s “great and glorious TORAH”, rather than what freedom in Messiah really is. It’s “freedom from sin”, which Scripture informs us is a violation of His Torah! We, as a Christian nation, have rejected God’s LAWS, and now the godless are rejecting our civil man-made State and Federal Statutes. If the Christian Church, as a whole, does not repent, I fear we will have this lawlessness lead to more and more lawlessness, until lawlessness is coming out of our collective American nostrils.
Isaiah 42:21 informs us that for the sake of God’s righteousness, He made His Torah great and glorious. In Deuteronomy 30:10-14, God instructs us to listen to His voice and keep the Commandments and Statutes written in His Torah. He pleads for us to return to Him with all our heart and soul, to keep His commandments. They are not hidden from us or too far off. When His word is in our heart and in our mouth, we can do them. In verse 15, God pleads with us to choose life by abiding by His instructions, or we can choose death through disobedience.
Life or Death is a Choice
Isaiah 5:24, says that because people have rejected the Torah and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel, their root will be like rot and their blossom like dust.
In Joshua 1:7-8, God instructs His people to be strong and courageous, to do what the Torah commands. Don’t turn from it to the right or to the left, so that they would act wisely wherever they went. The book of His Torah, God said, was not to depart from their mouth. They were to meditate on it day and night, to guard it and do what it said, so that they would act wisely and would prosper.
God goes on to list all of the blessings He will bestow on those who obey Him. He will give them rain in season. They will produce fruit. They will eat their bread to satisfaction and live securely. They will have peace in their land. When they pursue their enemies, their enemies will fall. Five will pursue a hundred, a hundred will pursue a myriad. God will make His people fruitful. He will establish His covenant with them. God will walk in their midst. He will be their God and they shall be His people!
In Closing…
More and more of God’s people have been having dreams and seeing visions about God’s coming JUDGEMENT. We should not be frightened, but GRATEFUL for God’s warning. Remember what God told us through His prophet Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 18:7-10 “The instant I speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, or to break down, or to destroy, IF that NATION against whom I have spoken will TURN from their EVIL, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do to it. And the instant I speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it does evil in My eye, not to obey My voice, then I will repent of the good which I had said to do good to it.”
NOW, today, is the time to PRAY and REPENT! Why? Because when God’s people, over whom His Name is called, humble themselves and pray, when we seek His face and turn from our evil ways, God will hear us in heaven. He will forgive our sins (and our nation’s sins), and He will heal our land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)
Some verses to meditate on:
Matthew 13:41 – The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all the offenses, and those who practice lawlessness.
Matthew 23:28 – So you also indeed outwardly appear righteous to men, but within are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Matthew 24:12 – And because lawlessness shall have been multiplied, the love of the many will grow cold.
Matthew 7:23 – And then I will declare to them, I never knew you; “depart from Me, those working lawlessness!“
2 Corinthians 6:14 – Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership does righteousness have with lawlessness? And what fellowship does light have with darkness?
2 Thessalonians 2:7 – For the mystery of lawlessness already is working, only he is holding back now, until it comes out of the midst.
Titus 2:14 – who gave Himself on our behalf, “that He might redeem us from all lawlessness and purify a special people for Himself,” zealous of good works. Psalms 130:8; Ezekiel 37:23; Deuteronomy 14:2
Hebrews 1:9 – You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; because of this God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness beside Your fellows.” Psalms 45:6, 7
1 John 3:4 – Everyone practicing sin also practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.
Psalms 33:12 says, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD (Yahweh).”
You see, God’s people are those who obey Him, those who keep His instructions, His Torah!
God declares what He will do IF we walk in His statutes.
Leviticus 26:3 – “If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments and do them, I will…”
2 Peter 3:17 – Then beloved, you knowing beforehand, watch lest being led away by the error of the lawless you fall from your own steadfastness.
1 John 5:2-3 – By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome.
Revelation 14:12 – Here is the patience of the saints, here are the ones keeping the commands of God and the faith of Jesus (Yeshua).
Revelation 22:14 – Blessed are the ones doing His commands, that their authority will be over the Tree of Life, and by the gates they may enter into the city.
