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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.
