The Last Days Of The Church XVII

 Once the stain of unholiness makes its mark upon a heart, it tends to bring along friends. It doesn’t like being alone and fears that the individual in question might see the error of their rebellion and seek repentance, returning to the light. As such, it is often that the tendency of the unholy is to likewise be haughty, headstrong, unloving, and unforgiving. They are so certain of their truth and the deception they’ve allowed to take root in their heart that they will not hear any contrarian voice without growing exceedingly angry and bitter. They are quick to slander anyone who points to sin and calls it sin, calling them unloving, while they themselves exhibit the characteristics of the unloving.

It’s a trick that is also successfully implemented in modern-day politics, wherein those accusing the other side of the most treasonous crimes are usually guilty of them and worse. You don’t have to be obsessed with the day-to-day goings on of the power brokers of our day to see that the most vocal detractors of some individual or another are later found guilty of doing precisely what they railed against with such vehemence.

The church has followed suit, and there are certain practices, sins, and vices regarding which dissent is no longer allowed in certain denominations because those at the top are openly practicing them. If you are unwilling to toe the line and agree with the lunacy being peddled as normal, you are summarily shown the door and asked never to return. We don’t need your negativity, no sir. Who are you to judge? I’m nobody, but the God of the Bible is somebody, and He judges without regard for men’s opinions or how engrained their deception might have become. You can’t identify as a believer; you must be a believer in word and deed.

An unholy individual will always strive to satisfy the desires of his flesh. He is by all accounts a slave, shackled to the thing that has brought him low, always attempting to excuse and justify the vapid emptiness of their existence, pretending that a momentary, fleeting sin satisfies the deepest longing of their soul. It is a lie, for sin can never satisfy the overriding need for the presence of God in a man’s heart. The absence of God makes man less than a man, and that some are willing to turn their backs on Him in order to satisfy urges and desires, even among those who name the name of Christ, is the emblematic tragedy of the last days of the church.

The unholy feel no shame and lack decency. They seek pleasure in abnormal and unnatural pursuits, surrendering their hearts to them. Eventually, that perversion or unnatural pursuit becomes the core of their existence, and everything revolves around it. Their identity becomes synonymous with their proclivity, and they become subject to its whims. That’s not to say the unholy can’t feign religiosity when it suits them or even quote scripture out of context to bolster their arguments. They are well versed in appearing to be something they are not, and whenever they feel as though they are losing the argument, their fallback is always victimhood. It is neither hateful nor unloving to call sin what it is, nor is the individual practicing the sin being persecuted when they are called to repent of it.

When preachers, pastors, or evangelists go out of their way to mollycoddle sin, prioritizing feelings over men’s souls, they are not doing the lost any favors, nor are they exhibiting the love of God. To the world, it may seem thus. To God, it is a betrayal of one of the fundamental tenets of the faith, wherein an individual must repent and be born again into a new life in Christ.

An infection requires antibiotics to go away, and sin requires repentance to cease having sway over the individual. If repentance is not forthcoming, the person in question will eventually return to it and grow ever more in thrall to it because once it returns, it brings reinforcements. It’s no mystery why so many today return to bondage, sin, and ungodliness. There may have been an emotional response to God, but there was no repentance, and so the sin lingered, latent for a time but ever ready to resume its corruption.

That the unholy would not be outside the camp but within is the new wrinkle that will appear and become ever more evident during the last days. Again, because context matters, and when these things were written undergirds their prophetic nature, Paul wrote these words some two thousand years ago.

It used to be that the godless and reprobate remained so until stirred to repentance, but once repentance occurred, their lives were forever transformed. They walked in the light, pursued holiness, desired godliness, and grew in God. That has been turned on its ear in our modern age, wherein men want the security of the promise of heaven while remaining fully shackled and subservient to hell.

Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

When Jesus said no one could serve two masters, He did not intend it to be taken as a challenge to try and prove Him wrong. Evidently, that’s what much of the church took it as. We know what you said, but we think we can swing it. It’s not so much about having hate for one and love for the other; that’s so binary and minimalistic. Why can’t we view it more along the lines of joint custody? You get us on weekends; the world gets us the rest of the week; that way, everyone’s happy.

We’ve convinced ourselves God is willing to play such childish games when He clearly isn’t. When He declared in His word that attempting to serve two masters never turns out well, it was not because it wasn’t His best for you but because it was impossible. To put it into perspective, while one gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life, the other walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Who do you think has your best interests at heart? Who do you think wants the best for you? Is it the one who seeks your destruction or the one who seeks your salvation? Even so, the unholy will find a way to justify their rebellion because the singular desire of their heart is not to serve God but rather their flesh, and if disregarding the consequences of their actions is required in order to achieve their goal, so be it.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.