When Lawlessness Abounds

If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full (John 15:10-11).

There can be no spiritual fruit for the Father, and no consistent living in Christ’s love, unless there is the real subjection of our will to the Father’s will. It is only in our obedience to the Word of the Lord that we enjoy fellowship with Him and He with us.

We live in a time where spiritual lawlessness abounds and is increasing day by day. This is made all the more a reality in the physical, moral, and ethical lawlessness of the culture in this country as it is in many cultures of the world. It is appalling the increasing lack of personal moral and ethical restraint of the people. Right is now wrong and wrong is right. Good is now bad and bad is good. What is beneficial for the one trumps what is beneficial for the whole. 

Biblical lawlessness (anomia) is illegality, that is, the violation of law or (generally speaking) wickedness; iniquity (the natural tendency toward evil); transgression of the law (crossing over the established boundaries of God’s law); unrighteousness (the willful doing what is known to be wrong; unacceptable to God). The Apostle Paul said this phenomenon is indicative of the ‘last days’. (2 Thessalonians 2:6-12) And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. It is the willful turning away from God and turning toward Satan (see Romans 1:18-32).

We are warned in Scripture (2 Timothy 3:1-5) But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! However, the Lord has encouraged us to stay faithful to Him by obeying His Word and remaining in His love. Spiritual discipline in a godless world is not impossible, but it is imperative. Only by continuing to look to Jesus moment by moment, day by day, are we able to remain steadfast, firmly rooted in the rock of our salvation. This is not what saves us, but it is the testimony of our genuine salvation. Amen.

G. Martin