1 Thessalonians 2:16
16 Forbidding [koluo] us [hemas] to speak [laleo] to the Gentiles [ethnos]
that [hina] they
might be saved, [sozo]
to [eis] fill up [anapleroo] their [autos] sins [hamartia] alway:
[pantote] for [de] the wrath [orge] is come [phthano] upon [epi] them [autos] to [eis] the uttermost. [telos] KJV-Interlinear
16 hindering
us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved; with the result that
they always fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them to the utmost. NASB
To the uttermost, telos, means to continue through each succeeding generation
until the end of time, and until all wrath actions of God have been completed
in history such that there will never be any need for Gods
wrath ever again.
When looking at
history, you need to back away from its details, and observe the entire
timeline of history, from the beginning until the end. There is a dispensation chart or timeline, on
the web site, which shows the overall picture of history. And then you can get down into each component
of history to see what impact that particular portion has on history.
But why is history
continuing?Because mans iniquity has
not yet been completed.
God is allowing
humanity to perpetuate from generation to generation, giving everyone the
opportunity to turn to truth and live their life to the absolute fullest and
beyond.However, humanity continues to
ignore and reject truth and God, and therefore humanity turns to ideas and beliefs
that are not truth, but lies.
Do the tyrants of history
know of Gods plan, and know what they are doing with respect to that plan, and willfully
and consciously pursuing things that
oppose God?Well no, not exactly.
The present government
is doing what they are doing in order to maintain their control and power,
their wealth and popularity, as they see it.
For some, the actions
they are doing are intended to help people. For some, the actions they are doing are
intended to suppress people, such that they can stay in power and control the
activities of the masses.
For some, the actions
they are doing are intended to create two classes, the lower and the
elite.They of course are the elite and we
are the lower.Government is the medium
of power and control and wealth.
So, what people are
doing in life are not conscious decisions for fulfilling Gods plan pointing
toward mans self destruction, but their decisions are in fact made as God has
foreseen them, and thus are fulfilling the many prophecies that God has
made.People see their actions as self fulfilling
for their own agendas and desires, not as a part of Gods plan.
Evil people simply want
their wealth and power and control, now.
They are absorbed in their own self importance, in their own plans for
success, and see this mechanism (government), as their path to their own
contribution to history as well as their own personal wealth empire. They are ego driven, lust driven, and
everyone in the world is merely a pawn, or an inventory of resources, to accomplish
their objectives.
Evil people do not do
what they are doing in order to destroy humanity, but only to fulfill their own
greed and lusts.
But of course all of
their plans will fail, and all they are doing will lead eventually, to mans destruction.
Satan is the only
person who has an agenda for destroying humanity, and he is using the elite of humanity
as his pawns, just as the elite minded folks are using the masses, in order to
fulfill his plans.So you see, even the elite
of history are dumber than dumb.
So, from Pauls day until our day, and until the end of our
dispensation, through the Tribulation, and the Millennium, God is allowing
humanity to have their way, in order to prove that people cannot rule or lead
or set a proper course for history, without it all falling apart.
Only with doctrine can
humanity have any semblance of wisdom, and even then, it is God who does the
driving, not us.Unbelieving humanity,
and back then Paul refers to them as the unbelieving Jews and the gentiles, who
have no truth in them, will try to prevent truth from entering into anyone
else.
In pursuing their own
way, and demanding that they have the freedom to chart their own course through
life, they will deny anyone else that right.
Hypocrisy, insincerity, duplicity, pretense, violence, double standards are
all common elements of the person who lacks a spiritual life. They will accuse others of that which they
themselves are guilty, and they will deny rights to others that they demand for
themselves.
Paul was persecuted. Paul was prevented from preaching truth. Paul was resented especially for even
suggesting that the gentiles had the right of salvation by faith alone, and not
by circumcision, not by conversion to Judaism, not by becoming a proselyte of
the Jews or of the Laws of Moses, Acts 17.
And today, we see these
attacks all around us.Some are obvious
and most are subtle, but the biggest attack against truth is the attack against
the Laws of Divine Establishment volition and the right to makes ones own decisions, marriage alternatives, family
fracturing, free enterprise being replaced by alternative philosophies,
government control expansions, internationalism verses nationalism, setting
aside sound economic principles for expediency, and so forth.
Until mans iniquities
are fulfilled, all of these things will continue to occur as God allows the
ingredients of history to come together.
You might want to review the study of first few chapters of Revelation. Jesus Christs arm and hand are on the lever
of history.He has his arm flexed tight
with a tremendous grip with flexed and bulging muscles on that lever in order
to throw it immediately when the order comes from God the Father.
And when all of the
components of history have been completed, then the Rapture will occur, and not
a moment sooner or later than the precise moment of its schedule.
Then humanity not
realizing what they have done by fulfilling Satan s purpose and not their own, will be taken over by Satan, having fulfilled his
purpose, and the real horrors of history will begin to unfold. In the first six
years of the Tribulation, over half of the worlds population will be dead. People will be buried in disasters, with no
one to rescue them.Public roads and
bridges and power lines will be damaged with no one to repair them. Famines, food shortages, inflation, crime and
violence, and disease will be running rampant and out of control.
And
all of this, simply because people have rejected truth.
The choices of
alternative lifestyles, of using illegal drugs, of pursuing do-gooder agendas,
all may seem harmless, but they are a pattern or mold out from which there is
no path, except drifting further and further away from truth. And that is the decline that disorients and
detaches people from reality, that will lead them cluelessly to fulfilling Gods plan, and sealing up their own
doom.