Nearing Midnight: Are You Vexed, Yet? – Terry James – http://www.raptureready.com/rap16.html

Biblical language when extracted from the King James Version has on occasion somewhat amused me. Like when it was said that David was “sore afraid” (1 Samuel 21:12, or when Saul was “sore afraid” (1 Samuel 28:20).

I once heard a comedian extrapolate on this term “sore afraid.” He said that when you are “sore afraid, you’re “flat scared…”

David and Saul, in their situations had every right to be thus as have many other people in their various situations throughout God’s Word─the Bible─as it recounted the dire situations in which those folks found themselves.

Now, I’m not meaning to be irreverent. I just find the language amusing, not the dire circumstances of David, Saul and the others. It was certainly no laughing matter to those who were sore afraid…

Another rather antiquated expression from the KJV amuses me, and again, I don’t mean to be irreverent. I had better view the term in question with great reverence, because I can’t think of a more relevant word for Bible-believing Christians of these increasingly troubled times.

The antiquated term to which I refer is wrapped up in the apostle Peter’s description of Lot, who, of course, lived in Sodom at the time of that wicked city’s impending Judgment from God. Peter tells of how the Lord looked down into Lot’s situation…

“And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds) (2 Peter 2:7-8).

The first thing that stands out in this condemnation of the citizens of Sodom (and its twin sister city, Gomorrah) was that the conversation was “filthy.”

Lot was vexed: By the cesspool language that surrounded him.

There is a direct parallel today in this nation we call home, in that even professing Christians are caught-up in using the same “filthy” language that was obviously repugnant to the Lord then─and is undeniably so today. God changes not, His Word tells us. Certainly the conversation that spews from the mouths of many of His professing children must grieve him greatly.

Here’s what James, the apostle has to say about this sinful language that must be a sorely vexing sound in the holy ears of our Heavenly Father.

“But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? Either a vine, figs? So can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh. Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom” (James 3: 8-13).

Vexing, too, is the deterioration of American culture and society. I wrote years ago for one of my books a chapter for which I gave the title, Days of Our Lives, as the World Turns. I found upon revisiting that chapter that much of what was written there is even more a part of the scene today. I share part of that chapter here:

Powerful forces are at work beneath the relative tranquility that masks the true state of our nation and the world. Ours is a society that boils with turbulence beneath a veneer of sophistication. It is a society mirrored by television soap operas and hedonistic movies, which have in turn mesmerized much of the American public. Life has indeed imitated art, while year after year morals have degenerated and the very concept of morality has been turned upside-down and inside out. We are a people given a thrill-a-minute fix to satisfy our insatiable cravings for instant gratification. We are a people all the while descending deeper and deeper into depravity.

Gleam and glitter and unparalleled technological gadgetry have procured for the American public hours upon hours of time for pleasure seeking, and it is more than abundantly obvious, for mischief making. While it is true that the moguls of science provide great benefits for human health, wealth, and achievement within the sphere of human potential, to see the direction in which all of this is truly sweeping us, one has only to consider any given local evening news broadcast. We are not as a society every day and in every way getting better and better, like the New Age evolutionary thinkers would have us believe. Feeding our voracious appetites for more exciting thrills and greater pleasures has served only to generate phenomenal growth in criminal activity.

Those who perceive themselves to be the have “nots, ravenously desire those material things which the American propagandists flash before their lusting eyes. Because Big Brother government has, in effect, destroyed work ethic through give-away welfare programs, but can in no way give this dependent class the shimmering lifestyle it lusts after. The rip in the fabric of society worsens daily as the ungovernable elements engage in the only occupation they believe can secure for them the thrills and pleasures they seek [the crime that grips our inner-cities, in particular.]

Can there be any doubt that conditions and activities which God’s Word predicts will be prevalent while the end of the age approaches are now being played out before our very eyes? The similarities between the biblical descriptions and the reports we witness on our nightly newscasts are stunningly evident. Man’s atrocities against his fellow man are pandemic. Stories of debased human behavior are so numerous that those items, which would have formerly been front page headlines now are relegated to pages farther back because even more heinous stories overshadow them.

Jesus Himself prophesied about the generation that would inhabit planet Earth at the time of His Second Advent:

“But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:37).

Jesus Christ, who is God Himself, gave with that reference based upon Scripture recorded in the past, and Scripture He knew was yet to be recorded─an unmistakable characterization of the generation alive at the time of His Second Advent…

Like was written about the days of Lot, we can say with conviction that it is all truly vexing. Christ’s call to His church must indeed be near!