“Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.
And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD.” (Jeremiah 9:2,3)
Whenever evil is tolerated and excused; whenever it is covered for fear of consequences, or minimized because others are doing the same or worse, men are on the slippery slope toward a degraded society. Alexander Pope well wrote:
“Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”
Lying has become a minor thing in our day; likewise, adultery. But both are no small things in God’s eyes. “Everybody does it, to one degree or another” is the excuse whereby the law of God becomes slacked, and right judgment never goes forth. (Hab. 1:4)
The greatest problem of our day is not found among those of the world; it is found in the churches among those who say they know God. Lying, stealing, adultery, fornication, drunkenness – all while saying, “We know God and are His people.” But God says, “They proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me.”
Jesus calls those who are His, the salt of the earth, who become good for nothing, cast out and trampled underfoot if they lose their savor. We are the light of the world that God calls to reprove the darkness of this present evil world. We do so by having no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.
The time is come for judgment to begin at the house of God. All who live godly in Christ will face the world’s judgment and wrath. But that is far better than facing the judgment and wrath of God.