Your righteousness is like the great mountains; Your judgments are a great deep; O Lord, You preserve man and beast. (Psalm 36:6)
When mankind was created it was in the image and likeness of God, meaning that the Creator’s intent was that we would be sons and daughters. When He breathed His Spirit into us, we were imbued with the power and potential to emulate His character and attributes. Unfortunately, by allowing sin into the world, Adam and those who followed him began to more closely emulate the attributes of the serpent. In other words, since we were exiled from the garden, fallen man has possessed the potential to be man and beast. Underscoring this notion, the Bible records that one of the most powerful kings that ever existed, Babylon’s Nebuchadnezzar, was reduced to behaving as a beast for seven years. Couple this with the fact that the future AntiChrist is regarded as a beast.
The point is that when the fool and the rebel take their wickedness to its’ extremes, they have the tendency to behave more like an animal than a civilized human being — if you don’t believe me, just read the news. As wickedness abounds, so does the lawlessness that goes with it and, so then, behavior that has long been considered immoral and indecent is now trendy and acceptable. In short, what the Bible would define as lawless has now become lawful. The problem, is that sin reigns in the lives of those who have not repented and come to faith in the Messiah.
Mortal, corruptible bodies are quick to satisfy the carnal inclination embedded within and slow to recognize the part of us that is conscious of God, that is our soul and spirit. But because we were created with an eternal component, the Eternal One cares for all of His creation. Because He cares for all men, “He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). Because His righteousness far surpasses ours, He gives His enemies — even those acting beastly — an opportunity to mend their ways, be reconciled to Him and be regarded as the sons of God. And so it is written, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).
Blessings and Shalom,
Bill
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