THEME: HUMAN SIN AND POWER STRUGGLES UNLEASH THE BEAST 

The Bible has taught that the world is covered with darkness.  That disobedience, wickedness and death are the ruling spirits that have dominated the world since Eve and Adam decided to flout the commandment of God in the Garden of Eden. War, human weakness, economic scarcity and death have become the reality on earth. 

Adam-Eve sowed disobedience and reaped a harvest of pain, sorrow, tears and death.  Instead of the sought-out liberty, power and glory captivity, defeat and death, desolation and impermanence have become the order of human existence. 

Man has known no peace, fulfillment nor joy.  Everywhere man is caught in pains.  Even his own creation has gotten dominion over him.  Man’s creation controls him to the extent that man does not just adore his creation, he actually worships them.  As if his creation is God.  And that his creation is the source of life, joy and hope. 

It only shows that the soul of man is in complete captivity, overtaken by passions, depravity and fears, darkness, uncertainties and death.  Impermanence, death, decay and desolation are the reality. 

In other words, the kingdom of man is a kingdom of wars, sorrow and tears of darkness and death, decay and impermanence.  There is no light, nor life, joy, rest nor hope except transition unto eternal oblivion.  There is no permanence for the city of man. 

The Bible gives clue as to this sad phenomenon.  “Thou turnest man to destruction and sayest, Return, ye children of men.  For we are consumed by Thine anger, and by Thy wrath are we troubled.  Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance.  For all our days are passed away in Thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told” (Psalm 90:3,7-9, 103:15-16) 

The life of man is full of woes, especially in the culture, time and place where there is no knowledge of God, where idolatry, darkness and ignorance is the ruling spirit, where men spend their time, substance and fortune in unrighteousness and injustice, wickedness and violence, where life is traded with death and exploitation, oppression, blood and war are the reigning sports. 

In Africa for example, where idolatry, witchcraft and sorcery rule, where blood sacrifices and dark spirits dominate religion, politics and culture, where exploitation and oppression, wars, violence, wickedness and blood have determined and dominated life experience for centuries, human wickedness and iniquity only but perpetuate, multiply and intensify human tragedy.  Africa has been held in captivity for ages on end. Such also is the experience and history of many nations and continents. 

On the wider plane of kingdoms and thrones, dominions and empires, man’s inhumanity to man, violence, wickedness and wars with city against city, tribe against tribe, nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom, these constitute the open manifestation of human depravity, satanic captivity, idolatry and impermanence, in short, Divine Wrath. 

Thus, instead of ploughshares and pruning hooks, pleasant gardens and plenty, instead of  kingdoms, thrones and empires of peace, righteousness and justice where truth, life and liberty, mercy, goodness, happiness and prosperity societies and nations have tended to be dominated by swords, horses and chariots, political and economic structures and culture engineered after silver and gold and idols of the works of men’s hands. Life is dominated by human pride and arrogance, philosophies and religions of darkness and falsehood, social ventures of darkness, exploitation and oppression.  Rulers oppress “their” peoples; companies come into alliance with governments to exploit, oppress and kill.  Democracy has become the dictatorship of the opportunist.  This has made life to be uncertain and brutish, full of woes. 

With these forces of disobedience and rebellion, wickedness, robbery and oppression, Divine wrath seals all things with futility, death and desolation.  There is no peace.   

It is these forces of human depravity, satanic captivity and Divine wrath that have brought the world to the present generation and age of wars and rumours of wars, backwardness and poverty, political confusion, economic disequilibria and global uneasiness. Human propensities of corruptibility, vanity and wickedness have been let loose in affairs of nations. Thus, wars of attrition and terror, movements of economic and territorial ambition, money and power have taken centre stage in global affairs. 

Accordingly, all over the place blood is flowing like floods of water in many nations, whether they be of natural disasters, drought, famine and wars, political and economic policies of deprivation and subjugation, exploitation, oppression and outright robbery.  Man’s inhumanity to man and the multiplication of sin and wickedness are now globalized through corporate ventures and the operations of international agencies.  Might is made not just right but God. 

These and all have caused the explosion and intensification of divine wrath.   The rejection of the knowledge and fear of God and closure against divine light, wisdom and power that when released would work to restrain and contain human propensities to sin and evil have compounded things.  There have therefore now arisen kingdoms and empires of oppression and wickedness through manoeuvres of economic and military might, politico-economic and socio-cultural arrangements of desecration and disharmony, destabilization and disintegration, exploitation and assimilation. 

There are many actors in this theatre of sin, wickedness and perversion with their thrones and kingdoms of silver and gold, swords and chariots, human pride and arrogance, blood and death.  There are owners, lords and grand masters, executives and manipulators of finance, multinational corporations and international agencies.  They occupy themselves with globalized wicked works.  There are political, religious and cultural movements of human degradation, robbery and lies, destruction and control of the resources and peoples of the world.  There are operators with national, international and world organizations set in motion to control the destinies of nations and peoples, and cause men everywhere to submit to the Satan-Wicked Man Alliance in defiance of both God and human conscience and hope. 

The Bible reveals in this direction the Dragon-Beast power system that dominate the world, that men bow to uphold with glee and cling to instead of God the Creator.  Many nations and peoples of the world submit to this power system and worship the Beast.  But some people do not, those people whose names are written in the BOOK OF LIFE OF THE LAMB slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation Chapter Thirteen (13). 

In this theatre of life drama and human history, the Osama Bin Laden, Bush and Hussein, Iddi Ammin, Diamonds and Charles Taylor phenomena are but scenes in an unfolding drama.  There have been, there are and there will be many actors in this drama. 

It is true in this respect that the days of empires and kingdoms, of great kings and great warriors, of human voices that compete with the voice of nature and make nonsense of natural calamities are gone.  Nevertheless, man seems ready to conquer nature to the extent that the laws of nature seem to be bending to the rolling steam of human ingenuity. 

Yet this tide of human ingenuity instead of breeding peace and security of life is rather helping to create a new scene of human helplessness, sadness, mourning and sorrow due to human weakness and wickedness and propensity to corruption, infidelity and vanity in the human genre. 

The human propensity to sin, wickedness, vanity and disregard to God and nature is leading to new developments of infidelity of man to man, of man’s inhumanity to man, of the rejection of natural laws, wisdom and safe balance between man and his natural environment.  In the end, man is now standing as it were on a high and strong pedestal of opposition to God and his own good. 

In this heightened drama of man in opposition to God and nature, of man’s infidelity to himself, coupled with his greed and wickedness, the Dragon-Beast Power System is running the show.  This will continue yet, but for a while.  A New Heaven and a New Earth is in the offing.  Thanks be to God. 

This is the ultimate response of God to this state of blood, darkness and death, wickedness, destruction and the culture of rebellion, disobedience and desolation dominated by political, economic and military power and false religion. 

In this regard, blessed be the people who acknowledge and honor the only true God, respect His will, light and way, and are faithful to His Law, commandments, wisdom and counsel.  Blessed are those who in spite of all the attraction of political and economic power, and the fame and fun of silver and gold undergirded by weapons of war, religion, lies and deceit will continue to keep faith with man, such as the lamb slain to the cross. 

Blessed be those whose Names are written in THE LAMB’S BOOK OF LIFE.  BLESSED BE THE NATION and PEOPLE WHOSE GOD IS JEHOVAH. 

Tuesday, October 07, 2003