ALL AROUND US - PEOPLE PERISHING IN OUR MIDST

In our day many people are perishing because they refuse to love truth and so turn and be saved. Despite God’s great patience, they just never recognize the truth of life – e.g., God and the gospel message of the Bible. So God gives them over to a depraved mind and they do what ought not to be done. He gives them over to a spirit of delusion. 

These few sentences summarize the essence of 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 and Romans 1:28-32. There is more to read in both chapters about the subject. But this certainly gives an explanation for many of those in society who seem truly lost, unable to engage in rational discussion of issues and unable to see and recognize basic truths, at times leading very bizarre lifestyles. We see these troubled people in our daily lives, in the news, in their at times violent and irrational behavior in support of dangerous ideas. God has given them over to a spirit of delusion, and that is the dark place from which they view life and the world. To the extent any of these achieve any positions of power and authority in government or other significant organizations, all people are at risk. 

Here are the core scriptures: 

… and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness. – 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12

 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. – Romans 1:28-32 

Of course there are still many more who are just spiritually lost and have not yet heard or realized the truths of Jesus and the gospel. And many of these have been led astray by the deception that Jesus warned all of us of in these last days.

[This article is taken from the March 2025 John Newlin Ministries newsletter]

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