Skip to main content

Lawlessness and Disorder

One of the signs we are told will mark the last days is a 'secret power of lawlessness' (2 Thessalonians 2: 7).

Now there are powers of lawlessness that are not at all secret. Anti-social behaviour, gun crime and terrorism are some very visible examples. They are visible because they create not only lawlessness, but disorder.

But there are other powers of lawlessness that are less visible, and very ordered. For example, Iraq before the fall of Saddam Hussein was far more orderly than it has been since - but in terms of godliness and spirituality, it was equally lawless.

Saddam was a law unto himself, recognising no higher moral or legal authority, using fear and violence to control his subjects so that he could do as he pleased.

And that is the heart of lawlessness - to place my heart and will at the centre of everything, and seek to control my universe in my own way, with no reference to God, his will or his purpose.

May God open our eyes and expose that secret power wherever it is at work - and deliver us from falling into its trap.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Robbing The Poor To Feed The Rich?

Now that cuts in spending seem to be on the agenda of all the main political parties, the big questions still to be answered are: how much? And where will the axe fall? According to a recent poll by Ipsos MORI, published by the BBC ( http://bit.ly/d168R ), the most popular candidate with most people is overseas aid. That’s not really surprising. It’s understandable that during severe financial crisis most people want our government to look after our own affairs first. Charity, as the saying goes, begins at home. But is it really right for the poorest nations of the world to be penalised for a crisis that was brought on by the rich? The developing world already spends $1.3 on debt repayment for every $1 it receives in grants (Source: World Centric, http://bit.ly/b5C7f ). Every day at least $100 million flows from the poor of the world into the pockets of the rich. Existing problems like drought and famine will not go away just because there is a worldwide recession, and the poor are mo...
2 comments
Read more

A God Who Needs To Be Praised?

In one of the online forums I visit occasionally, someone recently asked the question, "How can I believe in a God who needs to be praised?" The short answer is, of course, "You can't". What's unbelievable is not so much that the creator of the universe might be suffering deep personal insecurity and be in constant need of affirmation. That would be odd, but not a complete logical impossibility! What's unbelievable is the ridiculous notion that his insecurity might somehow be compensated by a bunch of humans constantly telling him how wonderful he is. If there is a God at all, he surely does not *need* our praise. But if what he wants from us is relationship, that would really explain where praise fits in. First of all, praise is a vital part of any healthy relationship. It's so easy to tear down and criticise each other. We also need to take time to affirm and build each other up. If God has taken toward us the relationship of father, and our relati...
1 comment
Read more

The Ordinariness of Faith

I hit some traffic last Saturday. I don’t mean literally hit, but I do mean traffic. I was driving back from Barnes to Twickenham when suddenly the traffic ahead ground almost to a standstill. Seeing how long and slow moving the queue was, I took a leap of faith. I took a blind left turn and switched on the satnav. Without really knowing where I was going, I followed the satnav to Roehampton, where I hit another major jam. Fortunately on the satnav screen I noticed a side road heading towards Richmond Park. So I swung off-piste again and drove through the park, missing the traffic and enjoying an uninterrupted drive home. The leap of faith paid off.  How is it, I wonder, that some people can write off faith as some sort of mindless and mystical belief, and despise it as unreasonable? They reduce it to something ethereal and strange, and talk about ‘people of faith’ as though there is some other group of people who are not ‘of faith’. And yet we all exercise faith in very ordinary...
1 comment
Read more