According to the Book of Enoch, God punished and banished those angels from heaven who corrupted their former estate by breeding with humans; a fact also mentioned in the Bible. At a later date, according to the Bible, God destroyed the known world of the time for the corruption found therein: the violence and lawlessness that abounded therein, through the great flood; the only survivors being Noah and his extended family. This is all to say that God has established boundaries and limits to his creation that includes his created beings: angels and humans.
Further evidence that God extablishes boundaries and limits over his creation can be found through his interaction with humans over the years; of note is the ten commandments provided to the children of Israel through Moses….to mention only one instance. There are many other instances; a notable example being the story of Belshazzar’s (the son of Nebuchadnezzar) feast described in the book of Daniel, chapter 5. Belshazzar had crossed a boundary by using vessels that had been looted in the destruction of the first temple in Jerusalem to drink from during a great feast he hosted. Consequently, a hand with four fingers appeared and wrote on the wall; words that no one could read. Daniel was called before the king and interpreted the words saying: “God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; you have been weighed and found wanting; and your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians”. That night Belshazzar was killed and Darius the Median took the kingdom.
In the rush to abandon all constraint these days, we find our society foundering with respect to its cultural norms. The question is whether, in the same rush to abandon all constraint currently underway, we are also foundering with respect to the boundaries and limits that God has established for his creation. An even greater question and one soon to be answered, found in the minds of those rejecting constraint, is the reality of God. One resultant characteristic of the crossing of the boundaries and limits established by God is the onset of troubles that accompanies it; whether on an individual basis, a national basis, or a worldwide basis. The reality of the “onset of troubles” as a consequence of crossing the boundaries and constraints established by God is clearly evident through the history of the interaction of God and Man recorded in the Bible.
2 Chronicles 7: 11-14 puts it this way: “After King Solomon had finished the Temple and the palace, successfully completing all his plans for them, the Lord appeared to him at night. He said to him, “I have heard your prayer, and I accept this Temple as the place where sacrifices are to be offered to me. Whenever I hold back the rain or send locusts to eat up the crops or send an epidemic on my people, if they pray to me and repent and turn away from the evil they have been doing, then I will hear them in heaven, forgive their sins, and make their land prosperous again.” The italics are for the purpose of showing the association between crossing the “boundaries” and the “onset of troubles”.
We all have troubles from time-to-time and not all troubles represent the “onset of troubles” as a result of evil in our lives or in our nation; nevertheless, the Bible is clear. When evil is present in the land, when the boundaries and limits set by God are crossed; one can expect an onset of troubles as noted in 2 Chronicles. Another thing is true; God does not deal in half measures. As the scripture says in Isaiah 55:11: “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” Paraphrasing that scripture; it says that what God starts, he finishes.
If, for example, the troubles we are experiencing in the United States are troubles originating from God due to evil in the land, we can expect those troubles to multiply and bring us to our knees….as opposed to being transitory.
