Submitted by Terence Blackett
As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will all these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the world?” Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in My Name, claiming that ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come…”
“So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ [as] spoken of through the prophet Daniel – let the reader understand – then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now – and never to be equaled again. “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the Elect those days will be shortened. At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the very Elect. See, I have told you ahead of time…”
“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man…” Matthew 24:4-26 (New International Version, ©2010)
“As it was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulphur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed… (Luke 17:28-30 Ibid, ©2010).
Can anyone deny that we are indeed the Matthew chapter 24 generation? At no other time in all of recorded human history has there been a need for a more urgent call to arms. Yet the weapons of our warfare are NOT* guns and bullets but the last bastions of “TRUTH”, Righteousness, Morality and a decision that “If God be God – then serve Him – but if Satan be ‘god’ then serve him”. There can be no sitting on the fence any longer. There is no middle ground or 3rd way!
Clearly this is an “Age” of so-called faith without works; men want freedom without accountability; seeking happiness without holiness; searching for riches without a moral compass of integrity and knocking on the door of “Paradise” but without having soul purity. This is the days of Lot!
In our modern world, men have seen the graphic nature of an exploding nuclear bomb and the horrific devastation it can cause, but who has ever heard of fire and brimstone raining down from the heavens completely annihilating the two cities of Sodom & Gomorrah because of its inhumanity, its treatment of the poor, its licentious perverted sexual appetites and its false economic security caused by affluenza and the need to get rich or DIE* trying. Science can give us natural (if not inhuman) phenomenon but the destruction wrought in the days of Lot was a “supernatural” act of God-like proportion brought to bear upon men because of disobedience and a complete disregard for the Law of God.
One writer puts it so succinctly – “Never did this message apply with greater force than it applies today. More and more the world is setting at naught the claims of God. Men have become bold in transgression. The wickedness of the inhabitants of the world has almost filled up the measure of their iniquity. This earth has almost reached the place where God will permit the destroyer to work his will upon it. The substitution of the laws of men for the Law of God, the exaltation, by merely human authority, of Sunday in place of the Bible Sabbath, is the last act in the drama. When this substitution becomes universal, God will reveal Himself. He will arise in His majesty to shake terribly the earth. He will come out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the world for their iniquity, and the earth shall disclose her blood and shall no more cover her slain.”
Yet with all the warnings, signs, wonders and portents we are witnessing today – men’s hearts are still hardened against the things of God. Let it be clear that God shall act decisively at some point in the near future just as He did in the days of Lot. When earthly rebellion has reached tipping-point; where political leaders in cahoots with religious false prophets do malicious violence to God’s Holy Law by instituting man-made laws and decrees such as laws that redefine marriage and the family; legalize the killing of helpless babies through abortion and infanticide; gives a nod of approval to rampant prostitution through salacious pornography, paedophilia and incest and where the ultimate worship of Sunday is enacted as the law of the land and men both great and small are expected to worship according to the legislation in the land – hence we can see why God uses the tragedy of Lot as a viral resource reminder for us to understand the gravity, parity, polarity and the penalty for devilish transgression.
As we survey a postmodern world in major social, economic and religious upheaval, it is easy to see the correlation between the days of Lot and the days we now live in. We are reminded that “In the last days will come (set in) perilous times of great stress and trouble [hard to deal with and hard to bear]. For people will be lovers of self and [utterly] self-centered, lovers of money and aroused by an inordinate [greedy] desire for wealth, proud and arrogant and contemptuous boasters. They will be abusive (blasphemous, scoffing), disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane. [They will be] without natural [human] affection (callous and inhuman), relentless (admitting of no truce or appeasement); [they will be] slanderers (false accusers, troublemakers), intemperate and loose in morals and conduct, uncontrolled and fierce, haters of good. [They will be] treacherous [betrayers], rash, [and] inflated with self-conceit. [They will be] lovers of sensual pleasures and vain amusements more than and rather than lovers of God. For [although] they hold a form of piety (true religion), they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of it [their conduct belies the genuineness of their profession]. Avoid [all] such people [turn away from them].” 2 Timothy 3:1-5 (Amplified Bible)
Just as in the days of Lot, he escaped the inferno with his wife and two daughters – so we too must do the same. Sadly, Lot’s wife disobeyed the commands given to her and perished as a result. Lot’s wife is representative of that major class of people in the last days who are “almost saved but entirely lost” due to compromise, wanting to do things their own way and really didn’t have a true change of heart.
Rampant sexual perversion, socio-material affluenza compounded by moral and religious breakdown epitomizes the days in which we currently live and just as Sodom was given a long rope – it had to be reeled in. Finally God had heard the prayer requests of Abraham and would not have destroyed the cities of the plain had He been able to find even [10] righteous people there – in the end, their cup of iniquity was full and annihilation and complete destruction was the only just course of action for a God who will only tolerate so much and no more!
So there’s no counter-argument, “For God’s [holy] wrath and indignation are revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who in their wickedness repress and hinder the truth and make it inoperative. For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God [Himself] has shown it to them. For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made (His handiworks).”
“So [men] are without excuse [altogether without any defense or justification], because when they knew and recognized Him as God, they did not honor and glorify Him as God or give Him thanks. But instead they became futile and godless in their thinking [with vain imaginings, foolish reasoning, and stupid speculations] and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools [professing to be smart, they made simpletons of themselves]. And by them the glory and majesty and excellence of the immortal God were exchanged for and represented by images, resembling mortal man and birds and beasts and reptiles.”
“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their [own] hearts to sexual impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves [abandoning them to the degrading power of sin], because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, Who is blessed forever! Amen (so be it)…”
“For this reason God gave them over and abandoned them to vile affections and degrading passions. For their women exchanged their natural function for an unnatural and abnormal one. And the men also turned from natural relations with women and were set ablaze (burning out, consumed) with lust for one another – men committing shameful acts with men and suffering in their own bodies and personalities the inevitable consequences and penalty of their wrong-doing and going astray, which was [their] fitting retribution.”
“And so, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God or approve of Him or consider Him worth the knowing, God gave them over to a base and condemned mind to do things not proper or decent but loathsome, until they were filled (permeated and saturated) with every kind of unrighteousness, iniquity, grasping and covetous greed, and malice. [They were] full of envy and jealousy, murder, strife, deceit and treachery, ill will and cruel ways. [They were] secret backbiters and gossipers, slanderers, hateful to and hating God, full of insolence, arrogance, [and] boasting; inventors of new forms of evil, disobedient and undutiful to parents. [They were] without understanding, conscienceless and faithless, heartless and loveless [and] merciless. Though they are fully aware of God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them themselves but approve and applaud others who practice them.” Romans 1:18-32 (Amplified Bible)
This is the pathetic state affairs our world finds itself in and if Christ is not the answer – then tell me what is!!!
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