I don’t much like reading about or thinking about violence. Torture, murder, war, vengeance, spitefulness, and the crushing blow from your blindside by an unexpected source leave me fearful and unable to shake off the helplessness I feel. Yet, our present difficulties do have a connection to the future, if we care to believe in prophecy and the words of our Lord.
“He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision…” (Psalm 2:4). We live in an age where it seems evil is called good (dealing drugs in order to pay for cancer medication is one relative truth put forth in the media), and there seems no stopping the spiraling down the immoral slide into a bottomless pit of everything anti – Christ. Prime time TV today looks like XXX movies of yesteryear.
What is more frightening is how many in this world are ‘hell’ bent on discrediting God, stifling believers, and threatening even the livelihood of the every-day Christian in order to wipe out the concept of sin and redemption. It sometimes seems that our prayers are bouncing off a force-field of unchecked deceit and selfishness, falling unanswered back to earth. Though we are to “fight the good fight” with spiritual warfare, I fear that we are in danger of being vaporized by the powers that be.
Often I think that we should be fighting by showing anger, using inflammatory words, and attacking those atheists and agnostics who damage the good Name of God. What is unlike my normal thinking (and isn’t that the purposeful way of God), I have recently wondered if I have been ‘fighting off’ the will of God. Doing so would be preposterous, yet prophecy tells us there is no turning back what God has ordained. Even the fallen angel “was given the key to the bottomless pit” indicating that his apocalyptic activity is under the Lord’s sovereign control.
Before you write me off as a pacifist or a weak Christian, consider that our world is destined to become more and more unmanageable and evil. God is allowing this to prepare us for that final battle, allowing this to give the ungodly a chance to know and accept salvation, and allowing this to set up the final judgment. Yes, we should pray for a stay from God’s hand so that we might buy time for others to be saved. We should work on the harvest of souls. Christians should have a hope that “on that day (the coming of the Lord) that [God] makes us His jewels,” He will spare us as a man spares his own son who serves him.” (Malachi 3:17).
Why should we persevere in the faith? Clearly the answer is so that we can be with Christ in Heaven. John 17:24 quotes Jesus Christ saying, “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.” This world hurls itself toward the Rock that will be a crushing force to those who refuse Christ, and a stable dwelling place on high for us who believe. Nothing can stop what God has put into motion. So why should we fear what is to come?
Sixty-six books in a year 