1. Degeneration of Faith and Morals in the Last Days
World Scripture
In the evil age to come, living beings will decrease in good qualities and increase in utter arrogance, coveting gain and honors, developing their evil qualities, and being far removed from deliverance.1
Lotus Sutra 13 (Buddhism)
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of stress. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it.
2 Timothy 3.1-5
The Hour will not be established until (religious) knowledge will be taken away, earthquakes will be very frequent, time will pass quickly, afflictions will appear, murders will increase and money will overflow amongst you.
Hadith of Bukhari 2.17.146 (Islam)
The time is near in which nothing will remain of Islam but its name, and of the Qur’an but its mere appearance, and the mosques of Muslims will be destitute of knowledge and worship; and the learned men will be the worst people under the heavens; and contention and strife will issue from them, and it will return upon themselves.
Hadith (Islam)
Rabbi Mikhal of Zlotchov told, “Once when we were on a journey with our teacher, Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, the Light of the Seven Days, he went into the woods to say the Afternoon Prayer. Suddenly we saw him strike his head against a tree and cry aloud. Later we asked him about it. He said, ‘While I plunged into the holy spirit I saw that in the generations which precede the coming of the Messiah, the rabbis of the Hasidim will multiply like locusts, and it will be they who delay redemption, for they will bring about the separation of hearts and groundless hatred.’”
Hassidic Tale (Judaism)
Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?
Luke 18.8
With the footprints [heralding] the Messiah, presumption shall increase and dearth reach its height; the vine shall yield its fruit but the wine shall be costly; and the empire shall fall into heresy and there shall be none to utter reproof. The academies shall be given to fornication, and… the wisdom of the scribes shall become insipid, and they that shun sin shall be deemed contemptible, and truth shall nowhere be found. Children shall shame the elders, and the elders shall rise up before the children. The face of this generation shall be [brazen] as the face of a dog, and a son will not be put to shame by his father. On whom can we stay ourselves? On our Father in heaven.
Mishnah, Sota 9.15 (Judaism)
Then property alone will confer rank; wealth will be the only source of devotion; passion will be the sole bond of union between the sexes; falsehood will be the only means of success in litigation; and women will be objects merely of sensual gratification. Earth will be venerated but for its mineral treasures; the Brahmanical thread will constitute a brahmin; external types will be the only distinction of the several orders of life; dishonesty will be the universal means of subsistence; weakness will be the cause of dependence; menace and presumption will be substitutes for learning… Thus in the Kali age shall decay constantly proceed, until the human race approaches its annihilation.
Vishnu Purana 4.24 (Hinduism)
There will come a time [the Age of the Degeneration of the Law] when… immoral courses of action will flourish excessively; there will be no word for moral among humans—far less any moral agent. Among such humans, homage and praise will be given to them who lack filial and religious piety, and show no respect to the head of the clan; just as today homage and praise are given to the filial-minded, to the pious and to them who respect the heads of their clans. Among such humans, there will be no such thoughts of reverence as are a bar to intermarriage with mother, or mother’s sister, or teacher’s wife, or father’s sister-in-law. The world will fall into promiscuity, like goats and sheep, fowls and swine, dogs and jackals. Among such humans, keen mutual enmity will become the rule, keen ill will, keen animosity, passionate thoughts even of killing, in a mother towards her child, in a child towards its mother, in a father towards his child and a child towards its father, in brother to brother, in brother to sister, in sister to brother. Just as a sportsman feels towards game that he sees, so will they feel.
Digha Nikaya 3.71-72 (Buddhism)
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
Today we face a serious youth problem. In the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve fell, they were teenagers. They planted the seed of free sex when they fell by engaging in an illicit sexual relationship in the shade. That is why now, during the harvest time of the Last Days, it was inevitable that free sex would become rampant throughout the world.
Satan knows that God is trying to bring all human beings to Heaven by promoting the standard of true love—absolute love without any trace of the Fall. Because Satan knows that the returning Messiah will carry out this plan, his strategy is to utterly dismantle this standard. Therefore, as there is no longer any basis for love, people today engage in all sorts of behavior, including free sex, homosexuality and lesbianism. Homosexuals and lesbians are seeds of the archangel; therefore, like angels they have no object partner of love.2
These are the Last Days, when everywhere people are stripping off their clothes and perishing. It is the end of Satan’s progeny. Now the earth has become hell, where life is in step with Satan’s world of hell. Therefore, if you seek and follow a way 180 degrees opposite the prevailing lifestyle, it will be a path connected to Heaven.
(279:121, August 1, 1996)
Adam and Eve distrusted God and betrayed God; this sowed the seeds of grief throughout the cosmos. Therefore in the Last Days, parents and the children will be in conflict. Just as the first human ancestors betrayed and distrusted God their Father, their descendants in the Last Days will likewise experience children rebelling against their parents.
That is why in today’s society there is a pervasive tone of distrust, between parents and children, between husbands and wives, and between relatives. People no longer have confidence about their purpose for living, so much have those who deny its basis obfuscated the matter. As you see this happening, you should know that the Last Days are here.
(2:330, July 28, 1957)
At the Fall, the archangel Lucifer acted to make Eve his enemy and Eve acted to make Adam her enemy. As a result, Adam, Eve and the archangel became enemies to one another. Therefore, in the Last Days everyone will become enemies to one another. Your children will become your enemies; mothers and fathers become enemies; brothers and sisters will become enemies. Nations will become enemies. All relationships will be torn apart, and you will not be able to trust anyone. What will become of ethics and morality? Such a hurricane of chaos will sweep the world that people will lose any sense of direction. People will not be able to tell right from wrong and good from evil. When that time comes, it is the Last Days. The Last Days are here right now!
You will see incidents where children kill their parents and parents kill their children. You will see ministers killing members of their congregation, and acrimonious battles between church members and their ministers. Everyone will be divided. Why is that? The seed of enmity sown by Adam, Eve and the archangel has resulted in the world becoming a battlefield.
(50:213, November 7, 1971)
All religions have lost their footing. Because Christianity did not completely fulfill God’s will, Buddhism, Confucianism and Islam are also going through a tough course. As a result, families, societies, nations and the world have become like hell. God’s ideal realm of love is nowhere to be found on earth.
Even in a vast country like America, God cannot find a true son or daughter whose mind and body are truly united. God cannot find a husband and wife who are united according to the original standard that God has desired since before the Fall. In every family, parents and children are fighting. The decline of religion has led to a world of selfish individualism in which everyone is divided.
(January 13, 2001)
Without a clear vertical standard, the concepts of male and female are hazy. That is why, along with free sex, we see so much sexual confusion in the Last Days. It is neither this or that, neither man nor woman… the Devil and evil spirits cause this devastation, leading people into chaos.
(189:127, April 1, 1989)
Since the Human Fall took place at the completion level of the growth stage, the completion stage remains unfulfilled.3 The period of that stage is seven years… We are indemnifying this with a seven-year course. The seven-year course is what Christians call the seven years of the great tribulation. The great tribulation is when a family, which is in the domain of the Fall, receives persecution in order to be restored and rise up to become a family that has nothing to do with the dominion of the Fall. It is the great tribulation because the families receiving persecution and hardships are the families with whom God longs to dwell.
When Adam and Eve fell in the period of indirect dominion, Satan invaded the domain that had been reserved for human beings and came to dominate the entire realm of indirect dominion. To restore this, the seven-year great tribulation is not a time of suffering for those who deserve to suffer. Rather, it is a time when suffering comes to people who do not deserve it.
(Blessing and Ideal Family 5.1.2)
In the free world today, many people are unwilling to marry. They live together without a legal marriage, jumping from one relationship to another… It seems like everyone is perishing, but through it God has a strategy to save them all. This trend somehow makes sense if you look at it from God’s perspective. In God’s view, our spirit and body is supposed to become one centered on true love, not on false love. Therefore, as people live together who have not found the origin of true love they will continue to be restless, with spirit and body divided. Once they pass through that stage, after awhile they will yearn for the marriage Blessing, the Blessing that only Heaven can give.
(91:184, February 6, 1977)