The Mystery Of Lawlessness

The rising tide of lawlessness, world-wide, threatens society in every country, causing deep concern to all who have responsibility for law and order.

In many nations there's special concern about the growing rate of juvenile crime, reflecting lack of parental control and the influence of TV or video programmes featuring violence and crime. Added to this is the loss of the restraint which used to derive from knowledge of the Bible, respect for God and a sense of accountability to Him. Ignorance of God and departure from the fear of the lord, have had a profound affect on many modem nations. People grow up with no spiritual convictions, leaving them more prone to unrestrained evil. There results the dismal catalogue of social ills so common today - dishonesty, alcoholism, drug addiction, muggings, child abuse, murders and the like. Which nation today is exempt from these sad trends?

At all too frequent intervals the headlines are captured by dramatic acts of terrorism. Even super-powers find themselves in situations where their nationals are at the mercy of a few determined gunmen, and little can be done about it. Aircraft and even an ocean liner have been hi-jacked, individuals murdered and the lives of hostages threatened. Punitive actions tend to provoke even worse acts of lawless violence and terrorism.

Then we have increasingly seen episodes of violent rioting, so frequently reported from many different lands. Whatever the basic causes of this riot or that, the method of protest expresses an attitude of lawlessness which often results in injury or even death for innocent people. There's extensive loss through damage to property when buildings and cars are set on fire or shops are looted. When such mob violence breaks loose there seems to be mindless disregard for others. How relevant the words of Romans 3:14-17!

"Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness,

Their feet are swift to shed blood;

Destruction and misery are in their ways;

And the way of peace have they not known'.

Tile lawless trends of our time remind us of the remarkable statement in 2 Thess. 2:7 "For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work". Sinister mystery! Through divine revelation in Scripture the fearful fact is revealed that there is a spirit of lawlessness pervading our world. That same spirit was expressed through Satan's challenge to the Most High when he declared: "I will ascend... I will exalt my throne above the stars of God ... I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High" (Isa. 14:13,14). Divine judgement followed: "How art thou fallen from heaven, 0 day star, son of the morning!" wrote Isaiah (14:12); and the Lord Jesus looked back on that dramatic crisis when He said: "I beheld Satan fallen as lightning from heaven" (Luke 10:18).

Tile Devil has remained true to his fallen character since iniquity was found in him (Ezek. 28:15). He has imbued fallen mankind with his own spirit of lawlessness. As we're reminded in Eph. 2:2 "... aforetime ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of power of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience". There has been restraint on that spirit of lawlessness (2 Thess. 2:7) but it will be expressed with growing intensity as the end4ime approaches. The world is being conditioned by Satan today in preparation for the climax of lawlessness which his strategy has in view. Behind the news headlines, behind the crime-wave, the rioting or the international terrorism, Scripture reveals the mystery of lawlessness. It becomes to us a marked sign of the times.

What then will be the ultimate in lawlessness? Tile revelation of the lawless one, the man of sin, the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or is worshipped (2 Thess. 2:4).

Today's lawlessness casts its black shadow menacingly towards the time of the end!

unknown | Feb 1986
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