Evil Times to Come

How do we prepare for worse times to come? And specifically, what if those times bring Christian persecution here in this country as there has never been before? Will we stand up in defense of the Lord even at great cost to us, or will we deny Him, thereby bringing upon ourselves the Truth of His Word that says He will deny us before the Father (speaking in terms of the day we stand before God to be judged)? We will either have the Great Advocate on our side, One for Whom we were also an advocate here on earth, or we will not.

The Bible says we cannot serve two masters at the same time [Matthew 6:24], for we will either hate the one and love the other, or vice versa, but never can we love both at the same time. We were created to have only one master, and No – it wasn’t meant to be us “being the master of our ship”. It was always meant to be God, the One who created us for HIS purposes!

The struggle is simply stated as this: God or self; Spirit or flesh [Galatians 6:17] (with Satan on the side of flesh adding fuel to the fire, literally).

At times the Bible calls SELF, our FLESH. How far will we go to protect our SELF? What discomforts are we willing for our FLESH to go through for the honor of defending Christ?

Well, let’s consider the discomforts we are already going through for His sake, in preparation for the really evil times to come:

- We daily deny our flesh by spending time reading His Word rather than spending that period of time on the internet, or watching TV, or reading other more interesting books, right? [John 15:4-8]
- We daily spend time on our knees in prayer to Him (a great privilege we have been given at the cost of Christ's death for us by which we were given access to the very throne room of God, imagine, such a gift to us whose sin He died for.) So, we honor that great hard-won gift of God by utilizing it to the max, right? [Hebrews 4:14-16]
- And no matter how hectic our schedule, we put Him first, right? We serve Him in ways that add to His kingdom, more than we serve ourselves and others in ways NOT adding to the kingdom, right?[Matthew 13:22]
- We always manage to speak of the Lord to whomever we talk to, right? Because He is the most important thing in our lives, and we always talk about the most important thing in our lives…and He is more important to us than even our families, our children and grandchildren, our pets (that's a big one these days), our accomplishments, our politics, our hobbies, our jobs (or lack of), right? Sometimes it feels safer just to spend a lot of time talking about our church or even about our pastor and the loving members of our church...but do we talk to those who are perishing about Jesus and the Good News He has for them? Or are we afraid to be labeled a fanatic, and so we avoid using His Name, and we speak only of "church" instead. [Mark 8:38]
- We give of the firstfruits of our financial increase (and more!) in humble thanksgiving to Him for all His blessings, right? And we would rather spend HIS money (for without His mercy and grace, we would have none at all) on things that will increase His Kingdom, rather than buying more stuff for us, right? [Matthew 6:19-21]
- We always do exactly what Jesus tells us to do in the Bible, in obedience to Him, we never rationalize our way out of His commands, right? [John 15:14]

That's my list. You can grow your own list, but, believe me, the more honest we are, the more it will grow.

So, if we cannot deny our flesh enough to do the few things listed above for His Name’s sake, how exactly will we willingly sacrifice our livelihood, our freedom, or our very lives, for His Name’s sake? How is it we will be overcomers when told “Deny Christ, or have your head cut off”? [Revelation 20:4] If we give our flesh what it demands in easy times, how much more so in hard times?

Would we willingly stand up in a classroom when crazed gunmen ask who believes in Jesus, and say “I do”, only to be gunned down immediately because we spoke faithfully and did not deny Him? [Columbine]

If you are like me, you have to wonder how it is that you will be able to overcome. But, if we are willing, we will be able to say, as Paul did:

“O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” [Romans 7:24-25 and Romans 8:1-4]

[This blog is an ongoing study of the lives and the faith of Christian women who have experienced and demonstrated victorious living through Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The current study is about Corrie ten Boom which began on September 21, 2009.]