FLOURISHING AMIDST CORRUPTION

We live in a fallen world, a corrupt world. It is a world in which those who are evil appear to flourish. It is a world ruled by Satan. However, the Prince of this World has no power over the Christian believer.

"Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." (John 14:30).

Satan is the “Prince of this World” referred to in this passage.  

And those who flourish exceedingly well in this world will have found a way to swim with ease in a sea of moral and spiritual corruption. They will be well-versed in making an accommodation with the Prince of this World.

I do not refer to those who reap merely the just and measured rewards of their honest labour, but to the billionaires and plutocrats; to those whose wealth is sometimes in the region of hundreds of millions of times greater than is the national average. To attain such wealth, to multiply it, to live cushioned and cosseted by it, marks you as one who is supremely at ease with the hold that the Prince of this World has over our society.

“And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24)

Frequently, the moral and spiritual corruption of such individuals cannot easily be disguised when they are actually seen, and heard speaking, either in person, or on the TV. Yet there are the many who are blind to the corruption that shrouds such individuals like a handsome cloak: rather, they are sucked in by these creatures’ dark charismas. And when such individuals decide to enter politics, it is this latter group - the gullible, the easily swayed, the morally short-sighted - upon whom they rely for their power base.

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” (Matthew 7:15)

Such individuals, with personal incomes that are tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of times higher than those of the people who work for them, are very much at ease in a corrupt world. And it shows: almost always they will have had multiple failed marriages (the latest inevitably being to a trophy super-model many years younger than they themselves); they will project a raging egocentricity; they will be caught out in shameless lies and extra-marital affairs; their close associates will bear witness to their bullying and aggressive characters. But above all, it is always their vast wealth that is the ultimate sign of a man who has made a lucrative accommodation with the Prince of this World.