A LAWLESS WORLD

I expect that you, like many in what we call the western world, enjoy a holiday and once winter is past will begin to trawl through the newspaper holiday supplements to get some ideas of where to go for a relaxing break. Where will you go? Do you look for fun and a relaxing two weeks in Somalia? Or Uganda? Maybe you would consider a break in South America, perhaps Colombia! I would suggest that you won’t do that! Why not? What’s wrong with them? You would probably say that they are dangerous! And that you and those with you would be at risk from, at best, being mugged in the open, in broad daylight! But most likely, being attacked, robbed and left for dead. So you will look for somewhere else which has a reputation of being safe for tourists. Any intelligent person would not visit a country which is known to be violent and unsafe.

But what makes the difference! There is one simple answer. Is the nation you intend to visit, a law abiding, fairly well ordered society or not! There are still a few left in this present world! Getting fewer almost by the day however! Let us just widen the subject. Suppose there were a number of planets, similar to ours, spread throughout the known universe which were populated with intelligent beings. Interplanetary travel has been developed and a tourist trade beginning to be developed. Would the occupants of this, or that, planet choose to visit Earth? Unlikely! Why is that? Because this planet is a violent, lawless place and it has been for centuries. Every age in history has had the most horrific wars, rebellions, and total disregard for the health and well-being of others. It’s even worse when the government has little or no concern but instead seems to have more sympathy for the violent, for the criminal, than it does for the citizen or the visitor.

BBC radio just broadcast a warning to avoid visiting Uganda at present. It is too violent to be judged reasonably safe for foreign visitors. Very recently there was a documentary programme featuring Estonia and how it has suffered for years from occupation by first the Russians, then Germany, then Russia again and so forth and so on! Each time the citizens suffering the most dreadful oppression and cruelty; its women suffering constant multiple rape as a method of controlling the population. So much so that the trauma still lives on in the nation. Something which is repeated throughout the world in one way or the other.

In Britain and America today, law is not seen as something which is vital to the stability and well-being of society. Instead, it is something to use for one’s own benefit, and to twist or ignore when it isn’t! A simple and apparently inconsequential example is the one very familiar to most nations of parking regulations. The areas which have been designated not to be used for parking one’s car are normally indicated with clear signs. They have been designated in this way to resolve what would otherwise be a problem for everyone. There can hardly be anyone in the city or town who doesn’t understand the system. So why does the local authority then have to employ people to note those who park contrary to the regulations! It’s because there is an attitude within people which rejects law, any law! If it’s one that’s inconvenient to them. But just as long as they can get away with it without penalty. The bible has a lot to say about these attitudes. A passage in Proverbs chapter 12, verse 15 says “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that listens (and pays attention) to counsel is wise”

God made this clear from the very beginning. He mentions this principle in Deuteronomy chapter 12. In the New Testament in Luke 16:10 He says that the one who is faithful in the small things will be faithful in the big situations and issues. A further point is mentioned in that if one is not faithful in the small things then it is more than likely we won’t be faithful in the big things. This is the principle God applied to Adam and Eve. He told them that they could eat the fruit of any of the trees in the garden of Eden, except that of a tree in the middle. They disobeyed what was an apparently small instruction, but it had enormous implications and consequences. Mankind has never learned the lesson and is going to bring himself to the point of destruction, at which time God will step in.

There can, however, be very serious examples. One was recently in the news in Britain. One man was sent to prison for assault, he had a history of living by violence, and had previously been imprisoned for violent crime. Including violence towards his partner and her child. In time he was released. However, in the meantime, his girl-friend had left him because of his violence and was with a new partner. He was only out of prison for one day when with a shot gun he shot her, badly injuring her as he deliberately shot her in the stomach. He shot and killed her new partner and then, with no provocation, shot a policeman sitting in his car. The policeman was badly injured and has lost the sight of one eye. The criminal was finally trapped by the police and the incident ended by him shooting himself. The police who had the responsibility of apprehending this violent man were specially dressed for the dangerous task! With special forces helmets, body armour, high impact goggles, black uniforms and sophisticated weapons, including Tasers, the electronic stun guns. A specialist in police equipment said that “… normal policing was now over.” What, however, is truly alarming and does not portend well for Britain today, is the number of messages written in support of the criminal and his actions. A shrine even being set up outside his house. One euology was headed “A true soldier!”

The man was not a soldier, he was a callous, violent man. A man who was, as one newspaper commentator said “… a dangerous murderer…. someone who has become a hero to some white, working-class males who no longer have a role in our society.” The attitudes which are now showing themselves in a significant section of the British population will, if left unchanged, destroy the nation from within. It isn’t as though there is any excuse. God has given us his law which is easy to understand, you don’t need a degree in theology to grasp it. When did you last hear the commandments spelled out to the general public in any of the professing Christian churches and broadcast over the BBC. Commandments such as “you shall not commit murder,” as the better translation in the Amplified Bible renders it. Then there is “you shall not commit adultery” Everyone knows what adultery is – and it is directly and clearly stated as a law of God that no one shall commit adultery! Following that one is “You shall not steal.” Theft in the western world especially has become a major industry today.

The House of Commons of the British parliament has, I think they still have, what is called prayers before each session. Maybe there should be a reading of the ten commandments instead. It might have produced more honest accounting of their expenses by the Members. How many times do you hear God’s name taken in vain! It is used in profanity, used and abused casually; a day barely passes that you don’t hear it many times used in this way. Yet the book says “You shall not use or repeat the name of the Lord your God lightly or frivolously, in false affirmations or profanely; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.” Another commandment says “ You shall not witness falsely against your neighbour.” That would put a few lawyers out of work! Those five are not difficult to understand. All you have to do is to listen to the words, or read them.

Some like to excuse themselves and say that they were given to the Jews. They were actually given to all of the 12 tribes of Israel which not only included the Jews, but also those that eventually became the occupants of the British Isles, the Scandinavian nations and other European nations. The history is there for all to read and study. However, the commandments were intended for the whole of mankind. Eventually everyone who has ever lived is going to be faced with them. Some might say that the commandments were simply Old Testament. But Jesus Christ himself re-stated them and that is recorded for us in the New Testament. In the gospel of Matthew, chapter19, verse 17 Christ was asked by one man what should he do to attain eternal life! The immediate response from Christ was this: “If you will enter into life, keep the commandments.” The response was to ask which ones! Jesus Christ then begins to spell out to him the ten commandments.

We may be tempted sometimes to wonder if we, in fact, have a relationship with God. The apostle John addresses this question and in his first epistle in verses 3 and 4 of chapter 2 says to us this: “And hereby we do know that we know him (that is God the Father) if we keep his commandments. He that says, I know him, and keeps not his commandments, is a liar and the truth is not in him.” And by “the commandments” is meant all ten of them! This includes the Sabbath day. The Sabbath is the seventh day and is not Sunday. Sunday is the first day of the week. Even the BBC used to announce a bible reading early on a Sunday morning by saying “Here is the reading for the first day of the week.” There is no excuse whatsoever for not knowing which day of the week is the Sabbath Day that God commands. A keeping of the Sabbath day is said in Exodus chapter 31 and in Ezekiel chapter 20 to be an identifying mark of God’s people. Sunday does not identify God’s people.

So how is it so many people keep Sunday? Because at the Council of Nicaea under Constantine decisions were made as to what doctrines would be kept and which not. No one looked to the word of God, instead the council merged what the pagan peoples were doing, into smatterings of Christianity and thereby kept all the pagans in the fold. And it’s been that way ever since. The basic laws of God, laws which if kept and held on to will see us enter into eternal life, were given in the second book of the bible. They were intended as God’s basic system of law and what a different world it would have been if they had been kept. Part way through the last book of the bible in chapter 14 it says this: ” Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” What a wonderful world this could have been! But what a wonderful world it is going to be when God’s laws are finally kept by everyone.
John Jewell