Captive to Whim – Our Lawless Age (10)

Captive to Whim

Our Lawless Age (10)

Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. 2 Thessalonians 2:11, 12

The lawlessness which characterizes our age in flight from God has become enshrined in the minds of many Americans. It has also officially become the law of the land.

Our Supreme Court has declared it a cardinal American right that every American should be able to live as he chooses. In the “mystery clause” of the case Planned Parenthood v Casey, the Court, somehow deriving this from the Constitution, declared that it is each American’s right to determine his own worldview without undue pressure from outside forces.

Of course, that idea is utter nonsense, or why do we have police, courts, and prisons? Why are there public schools? Why is it necessary to put restraints even on freedom of speech (hollering “Fire!” in a crowded hall, for example)? The Lie insists that there is no God; He is merely a construct of the human imagination, a source of comfort and security for weak people. Nor is there any truth, save that which each individual determines to be necessary for his own happiness.

Therefore there can be no law except provisional law, law that is subject to change whenever a consensus of society agrees that the law must change. But to live by laws that are always subject to change is to live by no law except the law of the spirit of the age, that “rough beast,” as Yeats had it, which rises from the deserts of unknowing to tyrannize the very people who created it.

In our lawless age people gleefully declare themselves free of God, truth, and Law. But free unto what? Only the whims of an age fettered to sex, success, and supremacy over our neighbors in one form or another. This is an age, not of Law and love, but of fear and the Lie.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.