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The impact of the fall on human existence is apparent in the various predicaments and afflictions that affect our daily life. There is pain and suffering, illness and death, wars and divisions, famine and poverty, and the like, which affect our physical well-being. But the most dreadful thing to which mankind has been subjected since the fall is the ugly battle against the enemy within, that is, sin and the flesh, and the enemy without, that is, the world and Satan. Sin, the flesh, the world and Satan are man’s cruel enemies. They all have one goal: to destroy the soul of man.
From man’s first cry to his final breath, no respite is known by his soul, because of these fierce enemies who constantly wage war against him. His daily life is marked by sin because he easily gets enticed by the sinful desires and lustful passions of his flesh, due to his fallen nature. On the other hand, he is constantly fed with lies and deceptions by the evil world system and enticed to do evil by Satan the Tempter. Everyone with a sound mind would confirm this. Moreover, it is clear that in this day and age the evil world system and Satan have inflamed their attacks on souls. They resort to very subtle, but sophisticated ploys, to entice hearts. Over the last few decades, the evil world system has enacted all kinds of so-called human rights legislations that subvert God’s sovereign decree and give men the freedom and right to conduct their lives as they please.
We now live in a world where truth is trampled on and every precept instituted by God to define human conduct and action is drowned in the sea of lust, at the peril of the souls of the sons of men. Never before has the world celebrated sin so much and desecrated the hearts of young people through indoctrination. Leaders who operate under Satan’s influence have elaborated all kinds of schemes to encourage self-gratification and rebellion against God and His Son. As it is written, “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us’” (Psalms 2:2-3). They claim to promote freedom and human rights, when in reality they are taking souls captive to make them obey Satan. Not only do they rebel against the Lord, but they also encourage their subjects to follow them in their villainies, at the peril of their own souls.
The attack on the soul by the evil world system today stands as the culmination of a long-standing battle. Nowadays, more than ever before, the world has managed to make its abominable practices more appealing by decriminalizing them. Drug use, homosexuality, transgenderism, prostitution, bestiality, the killing of babies in the womb, and many other dark practices condemned by the Lord are legalised in many countries today, in defiance of the decree of the Creator God. Thus says the Lord in Leviticus 20:10-21, “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. If a man lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man takes a woman and her mother also, it is depravity; he and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no depravity among you. If a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal. If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.
“If a man takes his sister, a daughter of his father or a daughter of his mother, and sees her nakedness, and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace, and they shall be cut off in the sight of the children of their people. He has uncovered his sister's nakedness, and he shall bear his iniquity. If a man lies with a woman during her menstrual period and uncovers her nakedness, he has made naked her fountain, and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood. Both of them shall be cut off from among their people. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister or of your father's sister, for that is to make naked one's relative; they shall bear their iniquity. If a man lies with his uncle's wife, he has uncovered his uncle's nakedness; they shall bear their sin; they shall die childless. If a man takes his brother's wife, it is impurity. He has uncovered his brother's nakedness; they shall be childless.”
Thus, the Lord outrightly condemns any licentious conduct and unnatural sexual act among men. But the evil world system has set itself up against the commandments of the Lord, commandments meant to curb sin and its destructiveness in the realm of mankind. What God condemns, the world has declared legal, thereby making abominable acts desirable. Which gives free rein to carnal men and women to indulge in wickedness without restraint, at the peril of their souls.
In the Garden of Eden, Satan told Eve that eating the forbidden fruit would not result in her death, but rather that she would be “like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). But Eve’s obedience to the voice of Satan brought curse upon the earth and upon the entire human race (see Genesis 3:16-19); she and Adam lost Paradise and forfeited the sweet fellowship with God, His blessings and His fatherly love. They became spiritually dead because of their rebellion against God and also subject to physical death and eternal death. Moreover, the consequences of their obedience to Satan’s voice extended to their posterity, that is, to the entire human race. As it is written, “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).
Today, Satan’s world system is spurning God’s creative order. It is claiming that every person has the right to choose to be a man or a woman, and is expressly commending unnatural sexual acts and degrading conducts, which are not only sinful but an expression of God’s abandonment of those who reject Him and suppress the truth. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:18-32).
1 Corinthians 6:9-10, “neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the Kingdom of God.”
Satan, the all-time murderer, and his emissaries have baited their snares to attract more prey. In their hands is a shackle for the neck of men’s souls, called decriminalization. To the eyes of those who are spiritually blind, it has the appearance of a jewel – a crown of freedom. But in fact it is a deadly weapon against the soul. Laws that condemn the truth and encourage people to freely indulge in sinful practices and to subvert God’s instituted order – nothing is more deceitful and wicked.
Decriminalization is an overt act of hostility and affront toward God and a very subtle means of seduction used by the world to seduce the hearts of sinful men and spur them to continue in rebellion against the Lord. And the main purpose is to keep them at enmity with God and slaves of darkness, in order that they may incur condemnation and eternal destruction; “for the devious person is an abomination to the LORD, but the upright are in His confidence” (Proverbs 5:32). Psalms 1:1-6, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.”
By validating the lascivious desires and vicious appetites of the flesh, the ruler of this world, through the agency of his emissaries, has further clouded the minds, stopped the ears, blinded the eyes, and hardened the hearts of those who walk according to the flesh against the Lord. By means of lying speech and promises of false hope, carnal men and women – especially young people – are drawn into the snares of the devil, the ruler of this world, and are held captive by death. They blindly engage in unprofitable acts, having lost all sense of their purpose in life. And to ensure his dominion over them and a furthered hardening of their hearts against God and His Son, Satan relentlessly works through his minions to lead them in this unavailing quest.
There are a multitude of secular books, videos and writings on social media today that advise people on how to find their purpose in life and on other related topics. They are empty teachings, devoid of knowledge and truth. The objective of the minds behind these ploys, although some of them may not even be aware of it, is to keep people in darkness. For what they teach is not rooted in objective truth, that is, the Word of God, but in falsehood. They have exchanged the Word of God for demonic doctrines that exalt man and make him the centre of all things.
On the other hand, many political, social, economic, and religious figures as well as show-business celebrities who despise God and His Word are using their influence and popularity to fiercely promote the licentious conduct and abominable acts condemned by God. And their main target is young people and children. In many nations today, young people and children from kindergarten are being imposed a sex education curriculum, which is mainly built to force into their immature brains the abominable practices and licentious lifestyle condemned by God, and to entertain in their little hearts hatred against God’s Word. The proponents of this diabolic plan are cleverly positioned everywhere by the ruler of this world to do his bidding, and their aim is to keep souls captive to him. They are using all sorts of tools – advertisements, TV shows, movies, cartoons, street parades, drag queen shows, rainbow-colored posters and flags, books and other media – to peddle their villainies.
These men and women are Satan’s mouthpieces: promoting lies and deceptions, they encourage people to indulge in the evil desires of the flesh rather than pursuing the glory of God. They claim that man’s purpose in life is his self-esteem, self-fulfillment, self-exaltation, self-determination, self-sufficiency, self-interest, and self-gratification. This is the devil’s lie, intended to keep man captive to sin and death, forever at enmity with God, away from His glorious presence forever.
“It is [the Lord] who has made us, and not we ourselves” (Psalms 100:3). He made all things – the heavens and earth and all that is in them – for His own glory. Therefore, anyone who does not pursue the glory of the Lord, by his self-seeking shall he be destroyed. The Bible is full of records of judgments that serve as precedent for God’s future judgment on the ungodly. Through the precedent, God warns all generations that the pursuit of lustful passions and insubordination to His authority results in judgment and eternal destruction. For instance, Jude 1:5-7 tells us “that Jesus [the eternal God], who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, He has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day – just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.”
2 Peter 2:9-10a reads, “the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.” Romans 2:6-8, “[God] will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, He will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.”