Chapter Seventy:
I recently read this and it caused me to wonder if we, as believers and followers of Christ, are truly ready for the coming season of hardship, for the coming persecution that Scripture warns us will come:
"We are a woefully impotent and pampered generation who has God on our lips but not in our hearts, who desires only to receive but never to surrender; only to accumulate but never to sacrifice, only to laugh but never to weep.
We have erased the notion of suffering for the sake of Christ from our Christian lexicon, and replaced it with the notion that once we raise a limp hand in a tepid church service we are entitled to, and therefore can (or must) demand of God untold riches, impeccable health, immeasurable success and global acceptance.
It is because we are teaching a fraudulent gospel, it is because the gospel we preach is not the gospel of Christ, that the coming season of hardship that will cover the land will cause many to rebel against the self-same God they purported to serve, denying the Christ, and becoming the persecutors of those who having prepared spiritually will stand faithful and true in Jesus."
Michael Boldea, Jr.
I’ve been writing about this for years but only in the last year or so have I begun to wonder if perhaps we have reached a point of no return and eyes that are blind will remain blind “less they see”. I have to say it was a sobering moment when that occurred to me.
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Meema
Aside from the handful of still living men of God whose teachings I trust, like Michael Boldea, I tend to rely more on the old teachers, those long gone, whose teachings were/are ageless. The likes of A.W. Tozer, Oswald Chambers, David Wilkerson, and Vance Havner. I’m adding this comment because Havner’s devotional today, written decades ago, seems to apply to your post.
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Meema
Quote of the Day
Posted on August 23, 2014 by Vance Havner
The Christian’s view of the future is not a spectacular dreamed up by science or the brainstorm of secular historians. He gets it from an old, old book written by a solitary exile on a lonely rock in a restless sea. The Apocalypse is laughed at by this world and discredited even by some churchmen but it is precious to all strangers in modern Babylon who are looking for the City that’s soon coming down. Its strange, mysterious characters make more sense every day as the seven-sealed book opens the meaning of God’s history within history and the stage is set for the last chapters in the drama of this age. He does not argue with the wise-acres of this world, for that would be casting pearls before swine. Blind eyes cannot see this vision nor can dead men understand Scripture until they are born again. God goes His quiet way and lets the panels discuss and symposiums debate current events in all their learned ignorance. Headlines mean something entirely different to Him and newscasts tell another story to His ears. Blessed is the man whose vantage point is Patmos!
Thank you for sharing this devotional with me. It does certainly apply to this chapter. I agree, the teachers of old are who inspire me as today's "teachers" do not teach but what parts they agree with in the Scriptures. As things get crazier in the world, I am reassured when I know that God is in control regardless of what we see going on around us. Maranatha!
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