The Reality of the Times

So often when we explain the numbering of the Days, listeners balk, especially young people. They want to live their lives, start careers, marry and have children, achieve their dreams, and so on. It’s understandable because God created us to grow and thrive. However, the Bible teaches that life as we know it in the Age of Mankind cannot continue because of the downhill spiral.
 
At an economic conference late in 2019, the highly respected British historian and naturalist, Richard Attenborough, announced that life as he’s known it has ended. “The Garden of Eden is no more,” he declared, warning that human activity has taken the world into a new era, threatening to undermine civilization. As believers, we know he’s a tad late in his announcement about the Garden of Eden. What he is recognizing about the times is what Romans 8:22 describes as the earth groaning.
 
It’s groaning from the accumulated effects of sin on the earth that started at the Fall in Genesis. Over the centuries the consequences of sin and rebellion have taken its toll on our physical planet as well as the foundations of every institution of civilization.
 
A key passage for Levelers is found in 2 Thessalonians 2. We’ll be looking at different aspects of this passage in our explorations. For now, it tells us that “the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way.”  The mystery of lawlessness is also known as the great apostasy; other translations call it the falling away.
 
This isn’t a future mass exodus from the Church that we need to fear. It is something that has been going on since the Fall and has continued through the last Days, including the Church Age. We’ll take a closer look at it when we “gather” again.

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