Lawlessness

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said the earthquake in Haiti is the worst humanitarian disaster the world has faced in decades. The death toll could be as high as 200,000 with 1.5 million people believed to be homeless. A significant complicating factor there is the lawlessness. The Haitian government appears to be bunkered down in their own compound and there are not enough local police or soldiers on the streets.

Why must terrible humanitarian disasters inevitably lead to lawlessness?

When facing death, most people are reduced to their most basic instincts causing all pretenses of civility to break down. Since this response is so common, it is just accepted as the natural order of things. The assumption is that such catastrophes must reverse the progress made through evolution so that survival of the fittest rules behavior.

But what lawlessness out of fear illustrates is the natural depravity of mankind… “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, NKJ). We all have a sin nature that can only ultimately be kept in check by the power of the Holy Spirit. And this power is only available to only those who have yielded their lives to Jesus Christ.

People who have no faith in God are left with only their fears which when left unchecked will drive them to irrational behavior. Jesus said, “do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things” (Matthew 6:31-32). God has promised to supply the basic needs of those who trust in Him. So believers can turn to faith rather let their fear drive them to evil actions like trying to eliminate their competition.

Disasters spawning lawlessness is one more reminder how sorely this world needs Jesus to return. And the growth of lawlessness shows that His return is not far off. He said that during the Tribulation, “because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12). The more lawlessness we see in the world, the closer we are to the Tribulation when “the lawless one [the Antichrist] will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:8).

Thank God the most literal reading of His Word enables His followers to look forward to meeting Jesus in the air at the Rapture rather than having to dread the coming of the Antichrist!