When the Lord blessed Israel in the wilderness by giving them the meat that they demanded, was it actually judgment or a curse? Consider that if you give a child what they are demanding when they throw a tantrum, you are hardening their heart by causing them to think they can control others with their outrageous behavior. This may work on weak parents, but as they grow older, this will cause them increasingly serious problems with teachers, bosses, and even friends, possibly turning them into dangerous people.

      Are we not witnessing this on a wide scale by those who respond to not getting their way by destroying universities and cities? This destructive behavior will ultimately destroy their own lives and potentially the lives of many others. It is the devil’s nature to kill and destroy, and where this is happening, we know the devil is behind it.

      The lawlessness now manifesting can be traced back to parents who did not discipline their children. This is the result of a badly flawed, humanistic child psychology that is contrary to biblical wisdom. In the Bible, we see severe penalties for parents who do not discipline their children (for example, Eli the High Priest, who raised Samuel; see 1 Samuel 2:12 and 3:14). This psychology began to emerge in the 1950s, teaching that the strict discipline of children would inhibit their creativity and devotion to freedom. It quickly became apparent that the opposite was the case, as they became the lawless and antisocial generation that emerged in the 1960s. But we continue practicing this madness today. Why?

      What was Jesus’ instruction on this? In Matthew 5:37, He said, “Make sure your statement is, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil origin.” When we teach our children that we do not really mean “yes” or “no” until we have said it multiple times and raised our voices to a certain decibel level, they become increasingly sure that we do not mean what we say. Then, if we do discipline them after we have become so irritated that we do it in a wrong spirit, they begin to think those who use discipline are tyrants. This causes the lawlessness in them to grow.

      The ultimate result has been children growing up thinking that authorities in their lives are not honest, do not mean what they say, or they are tyrants. This is the way they start to view their teachers, professors, supervisors, and even the government, resulting in the growing conflict and confusion of a lawless heart. Then, they believe that increasingly outrageous behavior like destroying property or attacking the authorities will get them their way.

      As covered, the “man of sin” is basically a personification of the sin of man. The first lie of Satan was used to persuade Adam and Eve that God did not really mean what He said about not eating from the Tree of Knowledge. The devil’s most effective lie is to convince us that God did not really mean what He said and make us question how we can trust His word in anything. This little deviation from absolute truth brought death to the whole human race, and it will bring death to all who fall to it.

      It was said of the serpent that he was “crafty.” Craftiness is the tendency for someone to always push and manipulate boundaries to see how much they can get away with. Jesus was of the opposite nature. He always sought to obey the Father, and He would not do anything He did not see the Father doing. Who are we following—the serpent or Jesus?

      Jesus predicted the time when lawlessness would increase in Matthew 24:12, saying that those who practiced lawlessness would be commanded to depart from Him at the judgment. The apostle Paul wrote that at the end of the age children would be “disobedient to parents” (see 2 Timothy 3:2, Titus 1:16). This was a major sign of the end times, and it is now a basic characteristic of our time.

      In a few short years, this lawlessness has increased so dramatically that people can now escape punishment for the most heinous crimes and even “get away with murder.” What is the result? The most basic sin of man, lawlessness, is pervading every part of society, and true justice—having consequences for good or bad behavior—is considered tyranny. When President Donald Trump’s administration came in and said there would be boundaries, walls at the U.S. borders, and crime would be punished “to the fullest extent of the law,” they were called “worse than Hitler.” The very foundations of social order have been turned upside down. Now, good is called evil, and evil is called good, just as Isaiah prophesied (see Isaiah 5).

      This madness—lawlessness—has overplayed its hand in America, and the majority of the people seeing its fruit have begun to push back against it. The reaction of the lawless to this return to law and order has been for them to throw even bigger tantrums. This madness is increasing in those who hold onto the lie. We have yet to see how this comes out in our country, because the battle is far from over. We must study deeper both the roots and the fruit to understand, and therefore stand against, this ultimate evil that is manifesting in our time.