The Daily Word of Righteousness

The Gap of Lawlessness, continued

Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. (Psalms 51:5—NIV)

The reason for the willful blindness is, first of all, that Satan is the spirit that works in people who are not part of Christ. Second, the recognition of a personal, intervening God leads directly to moral requirements. The scientists and university professors, like all other classes of human beings, will not accept the placing of controls on their moral, social, or intellectual behavior. They desire to be free to do whatever pleases them, particularly in the area of adultery and fornication.

People are not motivated by truth nearly so much as they are by their lusts. Their reasonings are not a search for truth but a device to justify their undisciplined behavior.

Experience and the Scriptures reveal that man is not basically good. The democratic nations will continue to permit immorality until the grossest debauchery, sorcery, and every other form of perversion and unlawful (in God's sight) practice will be protected by the laws established by the government.

The democratic nations, because of their adoration of their principles of human freedom, are unable to pass laws harsh enough to control crime. Therefore they will continue to experience the murder and rape of innocent people by the demon-possessed. Their worship of human liberty in place of the God of Heaven and His Christ will bring them down to moral and social destruction, and there is no manmade solution.

The secular governments apparently do not realize that whenever one person's rights are protected another person's rights are taken away. Whenever the rights of the criminal are lavishly "protected" the rights of the law-abiding individual are removed. Severe external punishment and guidance are necessary to control human behavior because of the lack of self-control. Many citizens will not and cannot control themselves.

The recent wave of drug abuse is another example of the unwillingness and inability of people to govern themselves. It is obvious that the use of drugs, including tobacco and alcohol, destroys the individual's ability to take advantage of his or her opportunities. But life without Christ, without God, is so miserable that people seek to escape through the use of drugs.

The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. (Psalms 14:2,3)

The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. (Psalms 58:3)

If self-government is based on self-control, and if the nature of mankind as described above is the fountain from which the self-control should be flowing, then the people leaving monarchy on their way toward self-government will fall into the gap of lawlessness.

Because people are not seeking the Kingdom of God and His righteousness but their own happiness and liberty, and because people are so created that they cannot control themselves apart from the Spirit of Christ, they will have difficulty forming a people-directed government that protects the innocent and punishes the guilty. They will fall into the gap of lawlessness.

They have left the external controls of monarchy but are not able to control themselves. Law and order will disintegrate. Every man will do what is right in his own eyes. Soon the land will be filled with moral filth, social conflicts, and crime, from the slums to the highest halls of government and law.

To be continued.