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#263: WHAT IS THE PRESENT WORLD, THE AGE OF DECEIT LIKE?

WHAT IS THE PRESENT WORLD, THE AGE OF DECEIT LIKE?

Where is Justice? Where is rghteousness? ...
A sort of replacement by similar words, things, teachings, laws is a very trend of today's world, the Age of Deceit.

I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. “Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.
What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.”
The vineyard of the LORD Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines he delighted in. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress. …
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight. Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks, who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent. Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the LORD Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel.
Therefore the LORD’s anger burns against his people; his hand is raised and he strikes them down. The mountains shake, and the dead bodies are like refuse in the streets. Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised. ISAIAH 5:1-7, :20-25.



The song of the vineyard is one of the most passionate parables of the Lord, which Prophet Isaiah puzzlingly and beguilingly introduced to a nation who had no ear to listen. Isaiah’s task here is to expose the sins of his fellows and warn of judgment to come. It would be a very hard task for him to confront with his suspecting audience. What starts out as a love song soon turns into a severe, unpleasant message. ‘My loved one’ is the Lord and ‘a vineyard’ is Judah (Israel). The Lord lavishly cared for His vineyard only to find worthless wild grapes. In the following verses from 8 to 19, Isaiah explains what bad fruits the vineyard has produced, beginning with six repetitions of the term: ‘Woe to’.

After the introduction of the song, the Lord asks the audience, ‘dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah’ for a verdict, and then He announces His decision to remove his protection over them. Verse 7 is Isaiah’s interpretation of the Lord’s verdict. He loved the Lord so much that he could identify very closely with His outrage and grief against the willful sinfulness of the nation. He could literally share His heart, which is powerfully expressed in his usage of language;
‘he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress’ (Lines added). 
The Hebrew sounds of the first pair of the lined words and also that of the second pair were very similar, in which ‘justice’ is the righting of wrongs, while ‘bloodshed’ is the inflicting of wrongs. ‘Righteous’ is right living and right relationships, while to ‘cry’ indicates wrong relationships and the anguish of the oppressed, according to Motyer. J.A.’s comments. This is exactly what we are seeing in today's world, the Age of Deceit. The following article shows what the present world is like.
The victory of National Trust volunteers who objected to wearing badges showing support for gay pride was as welcome as it was unexpected – given the current politically correct climate. For those outside the UK, the National Trust is charged with looking after many of the nation’s great estates, particularly in cases where their upkeep is no longer economically viable for the original owners. Now, following an outcry to a new directive barring volunteers from public-facing duties at a Norfolk stately home if they refuse to wear the gay ‘rainbow’ symbol, over which dozens have quit, the Trust has backed down. Unpaid staff at Felbrigg Hall had been offered behind-the-scenes roles after saying they were “uncomfortable” with the idea – part of a six-week ‘Prejudice and Pride’ event marking 50 years since the de-criminalisation of homosexuality. …The BBC and other media are milking the ‘golden’ anniversary for all its worth, plaguing us with a veritable flood of gay propaganda - so much so that it seems hardly possible to find alternative viewing. Their clear agenda is to heap this new morality on millions of people, forced to pay for the ‘privilege’ with a hefty license fee. That is bad enough, but when the national body entrusted with the immense privilege of looking after vast swathes of our magnificent cultural and historical heritage takes up the same baton, for which they have absolutely no mandate (neither does the BBC, for that matter), things have gone too far. The courage of the National Trust workers is to be applauded. It shows there is still a remnant of decent folk – whether Christians or not - who have decided against having their hard-fought freedoms, principles and consciences dictated to any longer. The shame is that our spineless church leaders failed to lead the way in what could be the beginning of a fight-back for a recovery of Christian standards. …(http://prophecytoday.uk/comment/society-politics/item/790-workers-revolt-against-gay-pride.html)
This article above by Charles Gardner introduces a case in which workers boldly revolted against a trend of promoting the homosexual legacy linked with some of country houses. It also includes another decent folk’s voice: 
‘One of the biggest challenges hitting the church right now is the storm of secularism and humanism with its LGBT and transgender movements … The word of God is clear, concise and unambiguous: no sexually immoral person will have a place in the kingdom of heaven. Also among those denied entry to God’s eternal dwelling … “all liars”... willfully pursue what is in opposition to God’s will and practice it with pride. So it should be no surprise the LGBT movements hold what they call “pride” festivals… And church leaders who advocate in favour of such iniquity will be judged more harshly’.