The Increasing of Lawlessness

On Friday, as I begin to write this blog, we get the news that the MP David Amess was stabbed to death in his constituency.  Sir David became the second MP to be murdered at a constituency meeting in the last 6 years, after Jo Cox, M.P, for Batley and Spen was shot and stabbed also while at a constituency meeting.

It is extraordinary how much division and hatred politics can cause. And why the young killer targeted him I do not know.  Sir David seems to have been known as an excellent and caring constituency MP.  Which, very depressingly, could be why. He was accessible, kept in touch with his constituents, and was therefore an easy target.   I imagine much the same was true for Jo Cox, also known as a caring MP by her constituency - helpful, available and therefore easy to target.   

What is it these killers want?  A sort of Hitler/Stalin/Mao figure instead?!   If they succeed in killing off all the politicians who do not surround themselves with an armed militia, isn't that what we will get?

When asked by his followers, how they would know the sign of his presence, this is one of the things Jesus told us to watch out for:

• "And because of the increasing of lawlessness, the love of the greater number will grow cold." Matthew 24:12

There has been lawlessness since Eden, when our first parents decided to rebel against God's law.  But what we were to watch out for is a startling increase in it, worldwide.   The Book of Revelation explains why this would be.

And certainly in my lifetime, I have seen this increase.  Here is just a small thing, but... when I was a child in the 1950s (almost pre-history now), the milkman called every day, left the milk and picked up the empty milk bottles.  On Friday we used to leave his money out with the empties on the front step.  Every Friday, all along the road, there would be the milkman's money on the front doorsteps.  Its hard to imagine that would work now.

Also wouldn't there be glass all over the place, as vandals went down the road smashing bottles as they went?

Also we children did not need a housekey.  The back door was usually unlocked. And if it was locked, the door to the basement cellar was always open, so you walked through the cellars, past the dark bit (never explored) at the bottom of the cellar stairs and up to the unlocked cellar door.  I made that entryway a focal point of my first book Till They Dropped.   You would not knowingly leave a door unlocked in a city these days I don't think.

This is not by the way a call for the return to "the good old days". They were not the good old days. We had just been through a second world war - and bomb sites, shellshocked survivors, and DPs ("displaced persons" like my father) were everywhere. I am just noting the increasing of lawlessness in the small details.

Pat rang on Saturday and we had a long chat. She is still waiting on a date for the first of her knee replacements, and is of course in a lot of pain.  Poor Pat.  I remember it well!  From my experience, it is not a nice process, but is well worth it.   

She too is asking what is wrong with the world.  The Bible answers.  But will people listen?  Jehovah is reaching out to everyone.