The wickedness our nation is drowning in would be unimaginable were we not viewing it with our own eyes. How, we once wondered, could the people of God sacrifice their children to Molech and other false gods? How could they worship those powerless gods that they had made with their own hands? How could they engage in public debauchery at the foot of Mt. Sinai where God was communing with Moses? Yes, we once asked those questions in absolute incredulity. But no longer. We see how. As inconceivable as Israel’s sin once was to us, we have now seen those around us surpass ancient Israel in perverseness and rebellion. We murder our own children in the womb; we practice eastern mysticism and worship at the altar of Self; and we have taken perversion beyond homosexuality to the extent that anyone may be a male today, a female tomorrow (if he feels like it), and some would have us believe that there are more than seventy possible genders. NAMBLA actively and openly lobbies for pedophilia, advocating that such relations are both normal and healthy. Our government legislates sin and enacts punitive measures against righteousness. Perhaps worst of all, mainline Protestant churches have embraced much of this agenda and often find themselves at the forefront of condemning righteous behavior.

            With the nation around us careering and careening at breakneck speed into sin upon sin and seemingly inventing new perversions regularly, where is God? Does He see this sin? Does He care about the wholesale destruction of the culture? Is He unable or unwilling to intervene? Actually, He has already made a few choice observations—prospectively—about times similar to our current state of affairs—observations that carry the weight of divine judgment in them.

            The sin rampant in our midst is being practiced by rebels against God who arrogantly believe themselves to be paragons of wisdom and brilliance. They believe themselves to be the most fully evolved creatures ever to inhabit planet earth, and, as such, their opinions and behavior are above censure. God, however, doesn’t mince words regarding such arrogant rebellion. He remarks that “A senseless man has no knowledge, nor does a stupid man understand this . . .” (Psa. 92:6). Neither a library’s worth of computer formulas nor multisyllable justifications of sin impress God. Without so much as a nod to political correctness or the slightest concern for the sensibilities of the beautiful people, He calls sinners who have sunk to the depths of depravity simply “senseless” and “stupid.” And of this we may be certain: no senseless or stupid person, not even a huge coterie of them, is able to disturb God, much less subvert righteousness or overthrow His rule.

            So what do those God has called “senseless” and “stupid” fail to understand about the wickedness that seems to have prevailed against righteousness? “That when the wicked sprouted up like grass and all who did iniquity flourished, it was only that they might be destroyed forevermore” (v. 7). So it seems that believers are on the defensive, perhaps, already defeated, and that full-blown wickedness has won the day. Like a hardy grass cover, wickedness appears to have snuffed out all other growth beneath. But God says, No. He has allowed sin its moment to flourish, to spring up above everything else so that it might the more easily be identified and chopped down. And when God finally judges sin, it will be “destroyed forevermore.”

            Yes, sin is raging; wicked men and wickedness appear to be prevailing. But as God once waited patiently to judge a heathen nation because “the iniquity of the Amorite . . . [was] not yet complete” (Gen. 15:16b), so God is waiting patiently for the iniquity of a rebellious people to reach its full expression of rebellion, all the while, giving space to repent. We are to “regard the patience of our Lord as salvation” (II Pet. 3:15a), while recognizing that sinners who fail to repent will ultimately “be destroyed forevermore.” Knowing the sure end of rebellious sinners, we should rest in God’s perfect work while earnestly giving the saving message of the gospel to any who will hear.