Friday, Mar 27, 2009

3/27 - Restraining Evil

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Well, good day. I’m back again. Yesterday I spent the day in the office trying to dig out of the mountain of work that I created for myself by being gone for three days. Did it work? Not really. Mike and Bill were in the new kitchen putting finishing touches on the last cabinet! Pretty cool. Evie dropped in to fax some stuff. I got Sunday Evening stuff started and worked on power point. Jayn writes… Am so glad to see you write about the antichrist. Those not in the Word will be deceived. And John wrote to ask what a Spiritual Anorexic is. I told him that it is secret knowledge only the initiated understand, too deep for anyone else (kind of makes you want to vomit huh?) At our conference the speaker "made up" two terms to explain some of the extremes Christians go to in response to the world and the people in it. #1 Worldly gluttons... those who gobble up all worldly stuff and want to be just like the people of the world. #2 Worldly anorexics... those who reject everything and everyone who is in the world... separating and distancing themselves from the people of the world "vomiting any worldly stuff" for fear it might infect their children etc. Thus anorexics. We need to be in the world, but not of it.

Today is March 27, this is time with God, I’m Pastor Dennis - I’ve been waiting here for you. Welcome to our life transforming community. TWG is a complete turn of events; it is a 180 degree turn around. God is changing us and turning us around as a community. This is not business as usual, this is life transforming, this is spiritual, this is essential.

Today's Scripture reading is Judges 16; Proverbs 11; Luke 15
To Listen to Today’s Reading http://timewithgod.podbean.com
Archives can be found at http://timewithgod.mypodcast.com

Today’s thought comes from 2 Thessalonians 2: 3 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… 6 And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. 7 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. 8 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.

I suppose it is possible that we may recognize the beginning of the end before “the day of Christ” occurs. Two events will happen almost contemporaneously… There will be a falling away from the faith and the Antichrist will become a prominent world leader. They are indicative of the end. But there is a third event which takes place at the same time. The Restrainer will get out of the way, allowing for this series of events. There is something that restrains lawlessness in our world today… and to many, this principle is a mystery. Why aren’t people as evil as they could be? Is it because of conscience? Yes. That is one factor. But conscience can be muted. That’s why killers can kill without remorse and why immorality is justified by those who practice it. Is it because of social pressure? Yes. That is another factor. There seems to be a general agreement of baseline morality in every culture… don’t murder, don’t sleep with my wife etc. But even those mores have some variation. But once you get past the obvious baseline evils, every culture has different taboos. In some it’s ok to drink, in others not. In some it’s ok to lie, in others not. Social conscience varies from place to place. Is it because of Christian influence? Yes. The Christian ethic has been quite influential at restraining evil. After all “We are the light of the world and the salt of the earth.” That influence is waning and appears to be on the way out. But neither one of these three are the principle or the person we call the Restrainer. The Restrainer is a person… the person we call “The Holy Spirit.” He is behind the scenes, hidden from the view of the average man, yet powerfully and certainly restraining evil. The law unknown to empirical science is the law of the Restrainer. While we can’t out and out “prove” His existence and power, the day will come when his restraint of sin will cease and all hell will break loose on earth. If you think people act like savages today, wait until the restraints are cast away… unseen, undetected, but a sudden radical change in the world like the loss of electricity or gravity. This will be the trigger point, signaling the beginning of the end.

Dear Restrainer, I ask for your strength in my life. Please keep me from temptation. Please strengthen my resolve to follow you. Thank you for your influence of conviction of sin in our world. Without it, the world would be a very dark place. Help me to continue to depend on you.

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.

Posted by Dennis Kreiss at 10:40 AM |  MAKE A COMMENT  

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