Why Our Character Nowadays Signifies the Last Days as Foretold by Apostle Paul

“In the last days…, men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, haughty, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, disloyal, having no natural affection, not open to any agreement, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, without love of goodness, betrayers, headstrong, puffed up with pride, lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God, having an appearance of godliness but proving false to its power.”

2 Timothy 3:1-5

When apostle Paul wrote the letter to Timothy, his main aim was warning him about the perilous period coming before the 2^nd coming of Christ and how people’s faith, character, nature will be corrupted making them to turn away from the ways of God. Fast- forward to 2018, almost 2000 years later it seems we’re living the last days as apostle Paul had predicted in his letters to Timothy.

For instance nowadays major religions worldwide have been infiltrated by an army of false messengers twisting it for their own benefit, from Islamist fundamentalist brainwashing gullible followers in carrying out deadly attacks on innocent civilians and white supremacists believing they’re God’s chosen race viewing others as inferior, lesser, weaker humans. God’s beloved creation has quickly through time changed from the pure, loving, kind, faithful, honest, content, patient, pious being to a lying, greedy, pride, hateful, violent species capable of carrying out genocide against fellow men in the pretext of conquest and looting of public coffers by corrupt leaders to satisfy their uncontrollable love for pleasure.

The Rwandan genocide of 1994 best exemplifies the end times Apostle Paul foresaw, where an estimated 800,000 – 1,000,000 Tutsis & moderate Hutus were massacred by their fellow countrymen in approximately 100 days translating into 10,000 deaths daily and nearly succeeded in exterminating them. The hate towards the minority elite Tutsis by the majority disillusioned Hutus had reached astronomical levels after independence in 1962 as their former colonial masters deliberately favored them in education, leadership and every other aspect of life. The Germans believed them to be racially superior because of their somehow distinct features resembling Cushitic Ethiopians which in turn led to their dominance in Rwanda and disenfranchising others. The Belgians further exacerbated the volatile situation by introducing mandatory identity cards with the main aim of dividing them according to their tribe leading to a widening rift among the populace and fuelling hatred, suspicion & mistrust.

In the Bible, it is said that man was made in the image & likeness of God and was His supreme creation until after being kicked out of the Garden of Eden. From there, things went south very quickly as man turned from the loving, kind, honest being to hateful, greedy, dishonest character whose capacity for violence and destruction has been unparalleled.

According to a Credit Suisse report, the wealthiest 1% of the world’s population owns more than half of the world’s wealth meaning they have a combined wealth more than the poorest 4 billion people worldwide with Jeff Bezos of Amazon leading the pack amassing a whopping 108.9 billion USD and 88% of global assets firmly in their control. Out of the 36 million millionaires worldwide as of 2017, the U.S.A leads with 15.3 million followed by Japan, U.K, with China having 1.9 million and the numbers are expected to rise in subsequent years. Apostle Paul foresaw how man’s love for money became their only occupation in the end times just as the popular adage; man made money, money made man mad. With 1% of the wealthiest controlling 50% of the world’s wealth, today the world is more unequal than ever before from someone earning less than a dollar daily to a person having a combined wealth totaling 108.9 billion USD. Our quest for riches has become an obsession turning us into heartless, back-stabbing, greedy species and will do anything in satisfying the unconditional love we have for money.

World Health Organization estimates every 40 seconds a person commits suicide while one person is murdered every 60 seconds and one person killed in armed conflict every 100 seconds. Men are 3 more times likely in committing suicide than women with the vice prevalent among European countries. Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world at 90 homicides per 100,000 people according to the United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime and in India it’s estimated every 22 minutes a new case of Rape is reported with 33,000 sexual assault cases reported in 2014. Truly we’re on the end times as we’ve lost self-control turning into fierce, heartless, hateful people replacing the loving, caring nature that God had implanted in us during creation, our love for money and pleasures has eroded any trace of Godliness as it has fuelled man’s violent, hateful nature turning them into murderous possessed beings.

Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy during the turbulent times where Christians were persecuted en-masse by the Roman Empire on orders of despotic Emperors like Nero whose appetite for blood was unrivaled and convinced his people that Christians were to blame for any misfortune befalling their Empire. It’s widely believed that he caused the great fire that devastated Rome and unjustly accused Christians for starting it. Such paranoid, self-serving, greedy, slandering, heartless people who were leaders led Apostle Paul to believe that the end times was near and cautioned Timothy to be wary of such men.

Sadly, Nero was just the beginning as throughout history; we’ve seen the rise of brutal, despotic and blood thirsty leaders with a penchant for killing en-masse their own people. With a shared trait of loving themselves, without self-control, greedy, head-strong, without any natural affection they commanded absolute obedience from their subjects and any whiff of opposition was met with extreme violence. For example Kim IL Sung of North Korea, who caused 1.6 million deaths of his own people by carrying out mass purges and sending them to the numerous prison camps where they died of starvation. But Mao Zedong took the cake for being responsible of a staggering 78 million deaths during his tenure as the leader of China. Apart from establishing execution quotas, organizing mass purges, Chairman Mao introduced some bizarre policies like the Cultural Revolution where he encouraged the youth to violently take power from the old guard by any means necessary in the guise of re-building a new China and leaving in its wake almost 7 million dead.

If you observe keenly throughout history, man’s character has sharply deviated from the one God had intended for His beloved creation and become an uncompromising, proud, materialistic, self-centered being whose quest for power, wealth at the expense of others has led to an ever widening gap between the rich and poor, and created a heartless, dishonest society bent on destruction signaling indeed the end-time Apostle Paul foresaw is at the door.