What We Can Expect

What We Can Expect

In the days of Noah, God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Gen. 6:5. “And as the days of Noah were, so shall be the coming of the Son of Man; for as it was in the days that were before the flood until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came and took them all away, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.” Matt. 24:37-39.

What similarities are there between our days and the days of Noah? The wickedness of man is great in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of men’s hearts is only evil continually. They are eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage; they get divorced and remarry, which is in direct contradiction to God’s Word. Wickedness is great in the earth; people are living according to their carnal lusts with no regard for their conscience, not considering Him who holds everything together what would otherwise perish. There is a lack of respect for the laws; lawlessness is subtly gaining new footholds everywhere. Parents are ungodly, and they naturally raise their children to be like themselves. Innocent children must suffer because of their parents’ sins. When punishment comes in the form of unemployment, famine, earthquakes, wars, and pestilence, people are speechless that God, who is love, can allow such things to happen. The earth became cursed when one person sinned. How much greater the curse when hundreds of millions of people sin? God is love, and He severely punishes those who transgress the laws of love. This is only just, for God is just. There are abundant opportunities to repent from evil, but people choose not to. They want to revel in their sinful lusts, thinking that the flood will come after they are gone. But they are mistaken in their thinking, because there is a personal judgment awaiting them. “But he who sins against Me wrongs his own soul; all those who hate Me love death.” “Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine; the soul who sins shall die.” Ezek. 18:4.

When it concerns their body, people do everything they can to avoid suffering want. They buy life insurance and insurance for their material possessions; but when it concerns their eternal well-being they compete in destroying themselves. They do whatever they can to assure themselves a few years of temporal comfort and pleasure, and gladly sacrifice the eternal salvation of their souls on the altar of pleasure—to the great joy of evil spirits. Should God simply allow this to happen without sending serious warnings and punishments now and then? We need to be wise and realize that He who created heaven and earth and formed us from the dust of the earth knows quite a bit more than we can comprehend. Yet one cannot expect people who are conceited and wise in their own eyes to acknowledge that they are utterly incapable of understanding anything, unless it has been given them from above. The Lord would have spared Sodom and Gomorrah if He had found ten righteous people in that place. Gen. 18:32. From this we can see that God will spare a city or a country from disasters if righteous people live there. However, there were not even ten righteous people in Sodom. “Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens.” Gen. 19:24. God is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. From this we can understand the following: Who destroys the home? The ungodly! Who destroys the earth? The ungodly sinners! Who causes punishment to come from the Lord? Those who live according to their lusts.

On the other hand we can ask: Who brings a blessing? Those who fear God. Who makes it possible that a nation and a people are spared? The righteous! Who are the best defenders a country has? The people of God!

We can find proof of this in Deuteronomy 28. Read this chapter thoughtfully. If Israel obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, they would be set high above all the nations of the earth, and the Lord would command a blessing on them in their storehouses and in all to which they set their hand. But if they refused to obey the voice of the Lord their God, all sorts of curses would come over them until they were utterly destroyed.

Exactly the same principle applies to us today. God has not changed, and He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. Ps. 121:4 (see also Luke 2:28-32). When the kings of Israel were ungodly and drew the people away with them, punishment followed almost immediately, and when the people denied their Lord and King, our Lord Jesus Christ, hanging Him on a tree, they were driven out of the land and have had to suffer for it until this day.1

God has a tremendous love for mankind, and the boundless salvation that He has provided for us in His Son proves it. He wants to make us heirs of all things in Him. Rev. 21:7. Consequently, when people reject such a great salvation for the momentary pleasures of sin, it should not surprise us that God is aroused to zeal against such blatant ungodliness.

However, we do not just have to wage war against ungodliness in the world. Also among Christians the way is being prepared for “the lawless one.” A “Christ without commandments” and a “gospel without commandments” is preached almost everywhere. N.P. Wetterlund, a former priest in the Swedish State Church, writes: “There are 111 verses in the Sermon of the Mount. Out of all these, people have retained one half of one verse, ‘Forgive us our sins.’ The rest they have sent to Sinai.” People are quick to send Jesus’ commandments to Sinai. How can the law of the Spirit ever transform them so they become a “man of God?” They consider the law of the Spirit bondage; they mock and scorn it and “send it to Sinai.” Christ is also supposed to be without commandments in those assemblies where they should know better. This is why the flesh does not encounter any significant opposition, and this is also why it is able to exert its influence both within and outside the churches. People are opposed to the commandments of Christ—commandments that were intended to hold the flesh with its lusts crucified—and they proclaim that this is liberty. For this reason, true Christianity is waning. People are left with half a verse, “Forgive us our sins.”

Satan and his religious helpers use this as an opportunity to preach liberty and lawlessness, so that even many of those who once had an upright beginning are drawn into the false liberty and lawlessness of the Antichrist. This is the state believers will be in when the hordes of the Antichrist will possess the harlot and make her into their dwelling place.

But thanks be to God, there are souls in this lawless time who keep the commandments of God and love His light and truth. They dwell on His holy mountain—high above the harlot’s sorcery and fornication with the spirit of the world. It is they, and only they, who overcome in our time. For only souls who have offered their own Isaac can be found on this heavenly Mount Moriah. This is where you find the altar of God; here is His tabernacle. Ps. 43. Those who are further down must drink the wine of the fornication of the great harlot. They cannot avoid it. The inhabitants of the earth are made to drink of it.

Therefore let us obey the Lord who says, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Render to her just as she rendered to you, and repay her double according to her works; in the cup which she has mixed, mix double to her.” Rev. 18:4-6.

What we can expect is the judgment of the harlot. The beast (the world) upon which she rides and from whom she receives her support will soon begin to hate her and make her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh and burn her with fire. Rev. 17:3,16. The beast on which she rides is scarlet. We can already see how the beast is beginning to hate the harlot; and the moment the red beast gains power, the harlot with all her sorceries will meet her end. Her judgment will come suddenly, and all those who dwell in heaven will greatly rejoice over it. Rev. 19:1-3. All the upright souls whom she has tortured and tormented and excluded will rejoice with them. Her flattery of the beast had a disastrous end. All those who do not love God with all their heart and with all their strength will also suffer a disastrous end.

As for those who dwell on His holy hill, they will stand on Mount Moriah and Mount Zion as overcomers on that day when the harlot must drink from the cup of the Lord’s wrath, because they distanced themselves in time, and allowed the Spirit of Truth to lead them away from everything else to Him who will one day place His feet on the Mount of Olives so that it shall split in two. He alone is the Conqueror, and no one who puts his trust in Him shall ever be put to shame.