When the world was our “friend” everything was hunky dory. NOT! It was always a futile, forbidden friendship. We ignored wisdom. We found ourselves at enmity with God. “You adultresses!” charged our beloved James.
Praise God through Jesus Christ we are His by grace through faith and because of His free gift of righteousness CAN turn on a dime and agree with Him about any sin and move up in Him, being continually cleansed.
Tragically, those who do not know God are rapidly being hardened and fixed in their rebellion. For us it may end in martyrdom, but for them eternal destruction.
“Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart...”
It was, and is, an easy temptation. This doesn’t mean if you sin such sins you have been lost, but it means you are going to have to return in order to make it to heaven, so might as well let it be sooner, than later. (”Weep, wail, and mourn.”)
In the middle of all this mess, I take some heart in the story of John Knox era Scotland, where it was said at one point Christians seemed to be raining from the heavens. My personal hunch here... this was the result of some Calvinists who were so sure of God’s destining power that they asked Him to send the elect their way. And He did. We err to think we are in control of all the variables; only God is. By praying now, we get God engaged in setting up what we might call our “fixed past.” It is God who fixes it. Not some neutral entity that is as binding on God as it is on us.