OurIllegalSociety

"Dear World, it is my duty
to say to you this day
That all your dreams are hopelessness,
That all your dreams are fey.
I know how hard you've labored,
How long stood by the last.
Still soon will come the moment
When dreams and hope are past.

You see, all of your efforts
Are spent "beneath the sun."
The days of wine and roses
Are sweet, but soon are done.

They are but fond indulgence
Which vanishes with time,
Which dissipates the energies
And trashes the sublime.

Try as you will, you cannot,
You will not change the fate
Of all who build on swamp land,
Who sorrow, but too late.
You may as well just party,
And oil your fears away.
Tomorrow will betray you
As false has been today.

You're found already guilty,
Because you don't believe
That Jesus is the Savior.
You simply can't conceive
How desperate your peril,
How soon the fire will fall,
How fierce will be the judgment
On sinners one and all.

Your sons yet talk of glory.
They say, "All will be well."
Your daughters grow seductive.
Do they not know of hell?
Do you not know the outcome
Of this disease called sin,
Since even now you're playing
The game you cannot win?"
(Taken from the original poem, "An Earnest Call," by Dave Breese

The game you cannot win - it's best expressed by understanding what the Bible says. The Apostle Paul referred to the futility of the life that would come upon this world by saying:

"This know, also, that in the last days perilouse times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy," 2 Timothy 3:1-2.

Perilous times have indeed come upon us - not because of nuclear radiation or unclever economic theories, but because of what is taking place in the hearts of men.

You and I live in a society which is inauthentic, that is illegal. We have violated the rules by which God set up society, and therfore, we live in a society which cannot succeed in the promises that it makes to people.

If you are in a football game, and the team is offsides at the beginning of the play, no matter what you do, it's all for nothing. You may throw a long pass, you may run down the sidelines, you may do several dozen heroic things, but the play was already rendered illegal at the beginning of that operation.

The same can be said about our society. God has already "blown the whistle" on our society. The trouble is that we don't know it. But we continue with the attitudes that are illegal, that are violations of the law of God, despite the fact that they are bringing the progressive ruin that we now see upon us in these last days. These include self-love, covetousness, boasting, pride, blasphemy - attitudes that are the ruin of society.

I have mentioned all of these things, so we may understand why the world is what it is today. May I suggest something to you that perhaps many of us have not thought of? Perilous times shall come on the world, because we live in an illegal culture - a culture that has no standing before God. What it is doing is very wrong, rather than very right.

We live in an illegal culture, because what the world is doing today -every single thing by way of its attitude - is a violation of the very law of the eternal God. After the Bible says perilous times shall come upon us, it gives at least 15 reasons for this, eight of which we want to consider in this lesson.

First of all, the Bible says, perilous times will come because "men shall be lovers of their own selves." That is a vilation of the Word of God. The Bible ays:

"And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might," Deuteronomy 6:5

"This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you," John 15:12

But that now has turned into an awful reversal, so that men are characterized by self-love.

There are at least two things that this could mean, that we need to note today. One is the simple meaning that men will regard themselves above everyone else. They will not care about the things of others. But rather, they will look upon their own things. The Bible says:

"Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others," Philippians 2:4.

When peoole love themselves, they become a threat to society, and ultimately, a threat to themselves as well, because they are doing something very unnatural.

A second, terrible meaning of this statement as to what will happen at the end of the age is, that there will come upon the culture the fearful and egregious sin of homosexuality. Homosexuality has become endemic, a threat to the society in which we move. This is a violation of the law of God. The Bible says:

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections; for even their women did exchange the natural use for that which is against nature; And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burning in their lust one toward another, men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was fitting," Romans 1:26-27.

Secondly, men shall be "covetous." That grows out of self-love, does it not? Covetousness is a violation of the law of God. The Bible says:

"Let your manner of life be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have; for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me," Hebrews 13:5-6

When people become covetous, they become thieves. Once again, they become a danger to other people. Therefore, we have in the world many degenerate cultures, where people are unable to get anything beyond their daily needs (that's what they can eat and drink). If they acquire even one other thing, it will be stolen from them. A culture like that is reprobate, and will soon die.

When covetousness takes over a culture, growing out of men loving themselves rather than the interests of other people, you have a culture that is on its way to ruination. Covetousness is illegal. It is a violation of the law of the eternal God, states specifically in Scripture. In fact, the Bible says categorically, "Thou shalt not covet. . ." (Exodus 20:17). You have no right to the things that other people possess, to want them, and to be willing to do something illegal to get them. What our Society is doing, from the government on down, is to make that society declasse, having no stand before God.

There is a third cause of perilous times coming upon the world, and it is boasting. The Bible asks the question in the Book of Romans, "Where is boasting then?" (Romans 3:27). What right does anyone have to say, "I'm the greatest. I'm the most. I'm the best that ever was?" And then the Scripture says:

". . .It is excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay, but by the law of faith," Romans 3:27.

Are you a Christian today? I hope your answer is yes. My question then is, how did you become a Christian? Well, the Bible says that the way we become Christians is that we are justified by faith. As a result of that faith, we receive a free gift, the gift of God, which is everlasting life. What then do we have to boast about? The answer is, of course, nothing whatsoever. We are saved by His grace. We are daily sustained by the grace of God. When we become Christians, we are grateful to God and are plenty humble about ourselves. We know that our real source of everything is the Lord and not us. So the Bible says boasting is excluded. It is forbidden. "What hast thou that thou didst not receive?" (1 Corinthians 4:7). What single thing do you have in life, or do I have in life, that has not come to us as a result of Divine grace? The answer is nothing whatsoever. Therefore, a person who boasts is lying about himself. He is a liar. He is a hypocrate. He is a pretender.

Boasting is very debilitating, therefore, to the otherwise honest human personality. But rather, humility is the way to go.

Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips," Proverbs 27:2.

When we give ourselves to boasting, it ruins what we are internally as well as our reputation among people. In our time, there are people who say, "I am not a boaster." But they hire public relations people to do their boasting for them.

We have a famous athlete in our culture who said, "I didn't earn it, but I deserve it." He's the same one who said. "I am the greatest."

Boasting is ruinous, not only to the human personality, but to the culture itself. A culture that is filled with humble, competent people, rather than boasting, incompetent people - that is the culture that will make it.

We have another reasom why perilous times will come upon the world - an illegal attitude that is contrary to the facts and the laws of nature, and that is pride. Pride causes a person to say, "I am the best that ever was. Look me over. I am the smartest, and the most perceptive, and I am the most talented of everyone." When pride develops in the heart of a person, that person can't get along with anyone, because they feel so resentful at meeting anyone who might outdo them at anything.

We had a case recently, where a mother who wanted her daughter to be a cheerleader saw that the daughter actually supplanted by another girl who was a cheerleader, and she arranged for the murder of that other girl. That's what can come as a result of pride. Therefore, what does the Bible say about pride?

"Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall," Proverbs 16:18.

That's true about individuals; it's true about nations as well. We hear the call for "great national pride" in America today, and I'm sure in other nations of the world. But in actuality, the opposite is true. What we need is great national humility. The Bible says:

When pride takes over as a motivating feature within society, that produces social destruction before it is all done.

So, why will perilous times come upon the world? Will they come because of nuclear weapons, because of communist ideology, because of the AIDS epidemic? The answer is, "Not primarily." All of these are an outgrowth of the inner attitudes of people that resent and violate the law of God.

That's why we say again, that we live in an illegal society, and we are practicing another illegality, the Bible says, It says men will be "blasphemers."

Blasphemy is a very terrible thing when it comes to the hearts of people. Blasphemy is to speak presumptuously about God. Blasphemy is to tell jokes about sacred things. Blasphemy denies that God is the God of the universe, and is to be respected in every case without exception. Blasphemy forbids the possibility of the worship of God, because it has already denounced Him.

Blasphemy, the Bible says, will characterize the church at the end of the age. The religious world will invent new things about God that are so heretical, that are so terribly false from what the Bible teaches, that it will produce religious ruin across the world. The religion of the last days will be characterized by a blasphemous attitude about God.

In Bible time, people knew this. When someone spoke against God, he risked the possibility of being put to death for blasphemy. The Bible says:

". . .Thou shalt worship the Lord, thy God, and him only shalt thou serve," Matthew 4:10.

So, when we see the degeneration of religion to the place where it becomes so heretical, to the point that it's nothing but a pack of lies about God, that's blasphemy. That's happening today in the world of religion.

The next characteristic is one that can touch most of us. It is the resentment of parents. The Bible says that there will be young people that will be disbedient to parents" as a youth policy as we move toward the end of the age.

As never before, our society needs to hear the Word of God, which says to every young person:

"Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee," Exodus 20:12.

The first commandment with promise, the one that promises the reward of a long life, is for children to honor their parents. If you are a young person, I say that to you with great earnestness today. One of the things that is ruining society for us today, more than most other things, is the rebellion of youth against authority, and particularly, the authority of parents.

Have you ever heard such things as you hear going on in society today: drive-by shootings, murder in the schools, illegitimacy? 91% of the children born in a certain area of Washington, DC, are illegitimate. There is rebellion against the laws of God on the part of young boys and girls.

In fact, we've been recently made aware of two boys age 9 who killed a toddler 2 years old. They lured that toddler away from a crowd in order to kill that little boy. So there was malice of forethought, premeditated murder, on the part of 9 year olds.

What's happening to the young people of our society? Well, the terrible results that are taking place today started when they said "no" rather than "yes" to the law of God. There could be reasons for that, such as the fact that the Word of God is not preached in any kind of a degree that it was once upon a time. When you take the Word of God out of society, and especially when you do not teach it to your young people, what are you going to do to keep these young people from becoming terrible monsters before it's all done?

In fact, a major part of their resentment is coming because of the actions of the adults of America! What are young people being taught in the public schools of America today? They are being told, "You are an animal. You are a result of an evolutionary process. Your parents were only the accidental biological vehicle by which you came into the world. You have no obligation to them or to anybody else."

If we lose the argument to the evolutionists, then we are forced to concede that man is just an animal, the produce of an accidental chemistry that has made him what he is. And if we lose that argument, we are going to lose tomorrow, and today will be destroyed. We will not produce a generation of young people who grow up to be competent and capable adults. The resentment of young people against their parents - disobedience to parents - is forbidden in the Word of God. In fact, you know what the Book of Proverbs tells us:

"The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it," Proverbs 30:17.

Do you know what to do with our children in these days? Teach them the Word of God, without which there is no hope for tomorrow. All the fancy promises of education are nugatory activities. They are false. They will not work. Unless you produce the right concept in the minds of young people today, you will have perilous times come upon you, and finally, destruction.

The Bible says that men will be "unthankful" You will recall Jesus one day cured ten lepers (Luke 17:11-19). Only one came back to thank Him. He said, "Where are the other nine?" They weren't there.

The Bible tells us on many occasions in the New Testament to be thankful, to be grateful, to realize once again that we are the objects of the grace of God.

The person who either sits down to a thanksgiving dinner, or receives anything else in life anywhere, who is not thankful, is also very stupid. He is ignoring the fact that those beneficent things came into his life as a result of the gratuitous attitude of someone else.

God wants us to be thankful. Every single day, we should say, "Dear Lord, thank You for my existence. Thank You for Christ, who made it possible for me to be saved. Thank You for the provisions of life."

When we lose that attitude, we are turning into gross, insensate animals in our own hearts. It is an animal that is never thankful. It is a person who realizes that whatever he has, he has by Divine grace.

"Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord," Hebrews 12:14.

Holiness is conformity to the law of God, in external actions, and in the inner attitudes of our hearts. Holiness is attempting to be as much as possible like God as we can be. Christians are to be imitators of Christ. we are to follow Him as an example. If we don't, we will ourselves be the product of that ultimate result, "perilous times," that will come upon the world.

This would be a very good time to check our inner attitude and say, "Dear God, am I a person who is contributing to the dissolution of our culture, or am I a person who is a proper representative of Jesus Christ in times like these?"

The list as to why the world will come unglued as we come to the end of the age continues, for the Apostle Paul is not finished. He really wants us to understand that the external problems of the world come because of wretched human attitudes. So he says also that people will be:

"Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, Having a form of godliness, but denying the power of it; from such turn away," 2 Timothy 3:3-5.

That's what we need to think about,because that little list says more than may meet the eye for many of us. So there is a growing peril in our world. And that growing peril comes because of these very things of which the Apostle Paul is speaking.

Paul says that men will be "without natural affection." Do you remember, once upon a time in your life, when people seemed to be nicer than they are now? Of course you do. Once upon a time you could depend upon people to be relatively honest, relatively just, and kind to one another. But now, you can almost be assured of the opposite, because they may become criminals in an instant, busting through your front door, and doing all sorts of hideous things.

In the realm of Christian thinking, there is something we used to talk about once upon a time called "common grace." "Common grace" was the idea that there was a residue of goodness within the Church that spilled out into the world, and had a positive effect upon society. That effect is just about gone. People are more unkind, more surly, more hostile, more prone to do you wrong than once was the case. This will intensify in society as we move toward the end of the age. The Bible says it is a sign of the end time.

The Apostle Paul also talks about "natural affection" in the first chapter of Romans. He gives that awful list of what society will become when it is given up of the grace of God. It says they are:

"Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, whispers, Backbiters, haters of God, insolent, proud, boasters, inventers of evil things, disobedient to parents; Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection. . .," Romans 1:29-31.

So at least twice in the New Testament, the Bible says that whatever we may have thought to be the natural goodness of man will disappear, as we reach the end of the age. People may treat you nice, but don't count on it, especially as the Bible says that will start to erode and be gone in the last days of our society.

Men will also be "trucebreakers." That indicates, of course, that a vow means nothing. They have no qualms about breaking a promise. It was Nikita Khrushchev who said, "Promises are like pie crusts, made to be broken." Have you ever seen such a time as this one, when truces are broken on an instants notice?

Think for just a moment about the fearful wars in Eastern Europe, where the treaties are made concerning Serbia and Bosnia. These people get together and say they are going to have a truce as of tonight. But before tonight is over, the guns sound again, and they might just as well not have met, because the solemn promises made between nations mean nothing any more, and the killing goes on.

In fact, truces, or conferences, are no longer thought of as being something to end a war. Rather, they are themselves a military device, designed to lull the enemy into a false sense of security where he doesn't think an attack is going to take place. Then suddenly, the truce is broken. That's the way it is in our international society today.

It's going to take a strong man all that he has to put together a peace among nations, such as the world desires. That strong man's name is the Antichrist, and he will be made necessary by the very difficulties that now exist in achieving peaceful relationships between nations.

People will be "false accusers." They will accuse people of doing things that are very hideous, but not true. Do you see that going on in our society today? Yes you do. One of the things that I've noticed is how many people are coming to the fore and saying, "I was molested as a child by such-and-such a person." Often that such-and-such person is a well-known, respected person. I'm not saying that that person did nor did not commit an act of molestation against a small child or someone else. But I am saying that it is a perfect ploy for a false accusation, because of the media of our time, and its instant willingness to pick up on any provocative story like that.

The idea of molestation, or the exceeding of sexual license, is a perfect situation to make a false accusation with the goal of ruining someone's reputation. In fact, we've come to the place where, if I hear something about you, or you hear something about me, you and I had better covenant together not to believe it until perhaps there is overwhelming evidence, because the Bible says in the last days, false accusations will proliferate in the world. They are a product of hatred. They are calculated to ruin somebody's reputation. Society will lose that mucilage of confidence they have for one another, and that will be especially true as we move toward the end of the age.

We have another characteristic that the Scripture says will characterize the world at the end of the age. People will be "incontinent" - a very interesting word. We know that in the English language, "incontinent" means "unable to contain oneself." But in the Greek, it means something more than that. It's the word "akratos."

The word "kratos" means "power." There are several words translated "power" in the New Testament: "exousia" which means "authority"; "dunamis" which means "working power" - the Gospel is the "dunamis" of God unto salvation. But the Apostle Paul prays for us in Ephesians Chapter 1 that we may know "the exceeding greatness of his power" (Ephesians 1:19). The word for "power" here is "kratos." It means "Divine sovereignty" - the power by which God did make and does rule the universe.

The word "akratos" means, then, without such power. It negates the word "kratos." In other words, the world will lose its sense of the overarching sovereignty of God, of the majesty by which the creator runs the universe. When we lose the sense of the sovereignty, the authority, the presiding power of God, people come apart. Every man does that which is right in his own eyes, because he does not have this majestic God that made the universe. The society will become "incontinent," unable to contain and control and guide itself. That's the way it will be: a kind of public insanity, as we move toward the end of the age.

In addition, the Scripture says people will also be "fierce." The word "fierce" means to overreact. The word "fierce" means to become violent, despite a small provocation. People will be out of their minds, with an inability to contain their wrath over some tiny thing that happens.

I'm concerned about this. We have more and more illustrations of someone who, perhaps, was involved in a little inconvenience in traffic; someone in another car gets out and shoots him to death. That's being fierce. That's overreacting.

Somehow, God has built into the human personality certain inhibitions that are supposed to keep our temperament well-controlled. That will start to disappear. Men will become like animals: fierce, ravenous toward one another, totally without mercy. That's what the Scripture says will characterize this dangerous time at the end of the age.

A word of admonition there: watch out for overreacting. Most things in life are not that important, right? Most things in life are not worth tearing up the territory for, and the voluntary taking of life is forbidden. God has not put that responsibility in you or me. But people will forget that. They will become lawless and uncontrollable: fierce is the word. That will be so characteristic of society, as we move toward the end of the age.

There's another characteristic that we must keep in mind. After all of this, people will become "despisers of goodness." Literally, what the Bible says is "despisers of those that are good." In fact, we will see happen in society, the fulfillment of that truism that says, "No good deed will remain unpunished." People will be forgiven for every form of terrible degeneration imaginable to man. But find a person who wants to stand tall, who will be morally correct, who will represent a godly position - that person will instantly become the object of persecution in the society in the midst of which we live.

Look at industry today. Someone who points up some great thievery, or waste, or incompetence on the part of a company that's making, say, a military plane, and they report this to the authorities - they are thought of as being a "squealer," rather than being a custodian of the goodness of society. Men will despise those that are good. Do you want to be good? Yes, you do. Can you expect to be despised as a result? Yes, you can.

People will be "traitors." We've already mentioned that solemn promises mean nothing in our society. Can you depend upon the fidelity of your friends? No, you can't. Are you sure that a person who says he loves you today will not become a traitor to your cause tomorrow? No, you can't. And this is going to be the case increasingly, as we move toward the end of the age.

It seems like every other person in life should be named "Benedict Arnold." He is a traitor, and that will be one of the ultimate things that will subvert society, as we move toward the consumation of history.

Men wil be "heady." Now there's much that can be said about this, but simply let me say this: we have today a class of people that call themselves "academics" or "intellectuals." And I'm afraid one must say that the world is run by these intellectuals: people who think of themselves as being so sophisticated in mind, that their heads can run everything.

But the world of academia has been badly corrupted today by humanism, by existentialism, and by a set of evolutionary ideas. It has been corrupted so badly, that a high percentage of the revolutionary activity in our society no longer comes from the streets. It comes from the world of academia, from people who think that what one is intellectually is all that matters. People who think that have become controllers of society. Watch out for the heady ones - the pseudo-intellectuals.

Also watch out for the "high-minded." I suppose an English word to translate "high-mindedness" would be "stuck up." People will be pseudo-sophisticates. They will say, "If you live on Park Avenue like I do; if you had the money that I have; if you are sophisticated like I am; then you would really be something." And they have a way of looking with contempt upon the balance of society.

But God has a way of straightening out our priorities rather quickly. We recently had big fires in Southern California. Those fires consumed hundreds of homes worth millions of dollars. Suddenly, people who had lived on a very high level were reduced to standing in the ashes of their possessions, and it all happened in a matter of minutes.

While our hearts go out to those who lost their homes, the situation reminds us of the prophecy of an even greater conflagration to come. The whole world is going to stand in the ashes of its possessions one day.

". . .the earth also, and the works that are in it, shall be burned up," 2 Peter 3:10.

People will also become pleasure lovers, or, as the Scripture says, "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God." Every person has in life what we call a "hierarchy of values." What is of ultimate value to you? Well, the world's answer is, the ultimate value is pleasure. It is amusement. It is those things that make you feel good, that titillate you for a while.

Pleasure is what's going on in our time. Ours is called a pleasure-mad society, but the great problem of pleasure is, soon the law of diminishing returns sets in. Pleasure goes quite fast. It was Cowper who said:

Be a chaser of pleasure, and I promise you, by the authority of the Word of God, that you will be sadly disappointed.

Finally, the world will be characterized by a religion that is nothing but a facade. People will have a "form," or appearance of godliness, but they will be "denying the power of it."

Don't let your spiritual life have a second agenda. Go to church because you love the Lord, not because you can sell insurance to your unsuspecting brethren; not because you can sell automobiles or vitamin pills or whatever it is that you might be pushing. Be genuine about your faith. That genuineness about your faith will help you to be genuine about everything else as well.

A second agenda - that is, an inner purpose that is different from your outer appearance - that is deadly indeed! That will characterize things at the end of the age. People will have a religious facade; they will have a "form of godliness"; they will deny "the power of it"; surely that is true about the world of religious and intellectual sophistication in our world. Don't join that world. I pray that you won't.

Perilous times are coming upon society. Why? Because All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Everything that a sinner does is wrong. Finally, the composite of the impact of sin produces a fearful impact within society.

What is wrong with sin? Is sin wrong because it is a violation of the law of God? Yes, that's the ultimate wrongness of sin.

". . .Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures," 1 Corinthians 15:3-4.

It is the death of Christ that lifted the burden and penalty of sin from us. Now think with me about this for just a moment: when you do a wrong thing, you violate the law of God, which is already the object of the atonement of Christ. Therefore, in a very real sense, you add to the sin burden of Christ on the cross. You become another one who would drive another nail into the hand of Christ, and you can do that by what you do today. Therefore, your sin has a retroactive effect on the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary's cross, and it makes His sacrifice even more agonizing than it otherwise would have been. That is something to think about.

Sin is wrong because it is already the object of the atonement of Jesus Christ. Be thinking about that. Watch out for perilous times. Know why they are coming. And in the midst of it, let your life be a credit to Jesus Christ.

In times like these, every person needs to know Christ as his personal Savior. If you don't know Christ, you're probably asking, "How can I become a Christian?" The Bible says, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved" (Acts 16:31). Right now, open your heart to Christ, accepting Him. If you want to become a Christian, and know it, pray this prayer, and trust God to make salvation real to your heart.

"Heavenly Father, I know that I'm a sinner. And I know that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins, and rose again, that I might have everlasting life. I believe that, and I now want to accept Him as my personal Savior. Please bring to me the assurance of salvation. I pray in Jesus' Name, Amen."

If you've said that prayer, and meant it, then you have joined the Family of God and become a Christian. What a bright destiny is now yours, as our Lord guides you on your destiny through these perilous times to your exciting future which lies ahead!