As life rolls on toward the coming final one-world government headed by Antichrist, it seems clear the world is becoming much more comfortable with an emphasis on blasphemy. Not that many decades ago, any person who so blatantly blasphemed God in Christ was often excoriated publicly for their moral offense. Today, those people are not only not taken to task, but celebrated for their inspiration, boldness and critical thinking.
In a recent issue of Vanity Fair, Madonna was prominently on the cover as though the Virgin Mary (also called "Madonna"). The Vigilant Citizen [1] comments on this photo:
In Christian imagery, the Virgin Mary is sometimes portrayed as sorrowful and in tears, with seven swords piercing her heart. These swords represent the Seven Sorrows of Mary – sad events that marked her life (i.e. the Crucifixion of Jesus). With all of that being said, is this image of the Grand Priestess of the industry cosplaying the Virgin Mary blasphemous?
Because more and more people today are under a seemingly strong delusion (the one God says He will send in the last days? cf 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12), they have lost any fear they may have had regarding God. So coupled with their absent regard for actual truth and preferring pleasure in unrighteousness, God simply sends a delusion that will turn those people over to themselves. They will in essence, gain strength to be as blasphemous as they want to be because of the delusion God sends.
Some may wonder why God sends a delusion in the first place. Why isn't He more "loving" and "patient" with these people? Instead of drawing them to Him, He is literally pushing them away. Why? As stated, the reason is due to the fact that they prefer lies to truth, unrighteousness to righteousness. I believe God will give every person as many chances as they need to see the truth and ultimately embrace it. Once they have rejected the truth enough times, God will allow them to become thoroughly immersed in the lies they tell themselves.
This is also referred to as having a "seared conscience" by Paul in 1 Timothy 4:1-2:
Now the Spirit expressly states that in later times some will abandon the faith to follow deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, 2influenced by the hypocrisy of liars, whose consciences are seared with a hot iron.
If you've ever been unfortunate to "sear" part of your flesh, you know it doesn't feel good. However, after it "heals," feeling is often lost in that area of your body, normally because the nerves have been destroyed. This isn't always the case, but it can happen. So like the individual that accidentally burns themselves or part of their body so that they lose feeling there, the person who insists on continually standing against God's truth by deliberately believing lies will eventually end up with a conscience that is seared; lacking feeling and unable to offer warnings to the person.
People who arrive to this point where their consciences are seared are in a very dangerous place because they can now fully embrace lies without being hampered by a conscience that tries to warn them that they are moving away from truth. These people often begin to feel fully "free" from all sorts of constraints and nothing they do or want to do seems out of place to them. In fact, it can be quite "heady" to them as they falsely believe they have come to the point in life that has finally granted them freedom from the antiquated and claustrophobic way of life that they use to have to live under. People who arrive to the point where they believe God is "dead" or never existed see themselves as truly free unencumbered...