3-28-19 How Far Will the Falling Away Go?
How Far Will the Falling Away Go? :: By Gene Lawley
When I first began to pay attention to the Scriptures where Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, saying, “Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4), I assumed it meant a “falling away” from the faith, a denial of Christ and rejection of church affiliation. Yes, but much more, as current events and trends are showing. It is a turning away from morality and lawfulness, and that includes many in the “Christian” category, no less.
How many mainline churches and high-level clergy are embracing with welcoming arms the raging sexuality movement? The gender manipulation frenzy, the clamor for acceptance of homosexuality as a normal lifestyle, the hard-driven demand that abortion of babies in the womb, even partially born, is fully acceptable and legal—these trends have grown exponentially like a brushfire in these past few years. It is indeed like a frenzy.
The abortion issue ties in with this sexual revolution, for it has all the markings of nothing more than a major birth-control method. How to have all the sex experiences possible without any responsibility, that seems to be the hidden reason. How many of the 61 million abortions recorded in America since 1973 (Roe v Wade) were actually due to the health of the mother?
Oaths of office to uphold the Constitution mean nothing anymore. Gangs in streets opposing lawmen, destroying property and human lives, demanding open borders for illegals and providing safe cities for killers—the signs of a dying society are enormous.
What is to become of America? What is to become of the world?
In the “rat race” of this world, the rats seem to be winning. But when God shows up, the rats will race for the darkness, just as they have been for centuries. When Peter wrote these words in his second epistle, he revealed a great truth that holds up, and has held up for these centuries, of God’s purpose over all that time:
“…Knowing this first, that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.’
“For this they willfully forget, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
“But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:3-9).
In spite of scoffers and naysayers, God is fixed in His patient desire that all can be saved who would be saved, that is, willing to repent and be saved. The current question, then, is how long will He wait in these days for that final one to be born again before He returns for all those whom He has bought with His own blood?
In the days of Noah, all of the world except Noah and his family were in rebellion against God. And in the days of Lot, the whole city of Sodom was totally saturated with evil when Lot went out of the city and sudden destruction came upon it and its inhabitants. Luke 17:26-30 tells us that the Son of Man will come for His own, just like in the times of Noah and Lot, but during a time of economic and social revival or seemingly “well off” times, especially in America.
When Noah and his family entered the ark and God closed the door on them (Genesis 7:16), there was no more representation of righteousness left among physical mankind. Evil had won its final and ultimate conclusion. God’s judgment had also arrived, for the flood came and took away all evil in a cleansing of the whole earth. In 2 Thessalonians 2 we have looked at the compounding of a “falling away” comparable to, so Jesus said in Luke 17:26, “as it was in the days of Noah.” Further in Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, verses 5-8, he writes this:
“Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? 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 born-again believer is described and identified in this way in 1 Corinthians 6:17, “But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.” Thus, the “One who restrains, the restrainer” is the believer in Christ, indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The Lord has said to those who have accepted Him into their lives, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). (I quote these references to assert more forcefully that this passage, presenting the fact of the Rapture of the saints, is clearly the taking out of the earth the true body of Christ.)
It is comparable to the time of Noah in that, following that exit, there is no more representation of righteousness left on earth. Only left behind is the conclusion of evil—God’s judgment in the sudden destruction to follow, and then, seven years of tribulation judgment.
In this Trump administration we have seen a reversal of the deceptive plan to destroy the sovereignty of the United States and initiate a New World Order that would front for a one-world government. That is clearly the underlying plan subtly pointed to when President Obama spoke at the 2016 DC Correspondents’ Dinner on April 30, 2016. In the video produced by C-Span and online on YouTube, he greeted the guests with, “You are all looking great…the end of the Republic has never looked better!”
Perhaps the guests, all news correspondents, thought this was a joke since that was somewhat the format of the evening. Yet, throughout his talk, he revealed his certainty of the coming results of the 2016 election…as he was so sure who would win it. One of those references went like this: “I don’t know who the next president will be, but I’m sure she will be a good one!”
But God had other plans, according to His long-suffering for those who would become born-again believers before His Appointed Time for that 7th head of the Beast of Revelation, the one-world government. He said, in action if not words, “Barack Obama, you will get your one-world government, but it will be in My timing, not that of mankind.”
Take a look again at Luke 17:26-30 and see what happened, apparently, because the raging fight against the reversal of their intentions has never been so intense anytime in recent decades. The “falling away” from lawfulness is so deeply embedded in our governmental bodies, in society, in every corner of life that it is beginning to look like those days of Noah and of Lot and their surrounding conditions. The bowing down to the demands of pro-abortionists and their determined ally, Planned Parenthood, and the perverted sexual and gender manipulation frenzy is nothing short of astounding. As Romans 3:18 declares, “There is no fear of God before their eyes!”
It is not likely that God will come to earth and bargain with anyone, like He did before the judgment of Sodom (see Genesis 18). He will come like a thief in the night, and sudden destruction will follow immediately, according to 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3.
The remaining question, again, is “how full must the cup of God’s judgment be before the Son of Man comes?”
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