Are we fully aware of the times we are living in today? Since the days of Noah, there have never been such times. End-time prophecies have never been fulfilled so quickly: The Roman Empire rising from the abyss one last time; pagan governments collapsing. It is all now only a matter of time.
We will experience worldwide droughts, as described in Joel 1:4:
“What the chewing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten; What the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten; And what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten.” Joel 1:15 adds, “Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is at hand; It shall come as destruction from the Almighty.”
There has seemingly never been a time when Christians have been so dependent on being in close contact with God. Perhaps never has there been a time when we were so much in need of faith, to deal with the trials that we now know are ahead of us. And there may never have been a time when it seems so hard to pray. And why is this the case?
This is the time as described in Revelation 12:12: “Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.”
The devil is loose. And he has a multitude of demons serving him – invisible spirit beings with great power.
One professing Christian turns against another. Churches get into quarrels, feuds, and rejections. They confess with their mouths and deny the Truth. And when Satan fails in driving people away from the Truth, he puts impressions of failure into their minds, designed to discourage them and make them give up.
The devil has many charms and tricks. He will cause most people to completely reject God’s Truth.
He will also try to mislead the children of God into accepting a corruption of God, instead of the true Original. On our website, we have posted an Editorial by Dave Harris on this topic (Update 58), which is entitled: “The True Original.”
Our foundation is the Word of God – the Sword of the Spirit – which is our only offensive weapon.
Paul tells us in Romans 8:1: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”
If we may stumble, trip, and fall on our Christian path, it must not mean that we should stay down. Let us not be discouraged by this. We must get up again and keep going.
In Hebrews 4:14-16, we read: “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
Therefore, let us come boldly before the throne of mercy, to obtain complete forgiveness.
If we have done an injustice to somebody, let us make amends for what we have done, as good as we can. What we cannot compensate for, God will take care of.
Let us repent and be encouraged by mercy, and we shall not feel lost.
Ephesians 6:10,18 tells us: “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might…. praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints…”
Let us be strong “in the Lord.” We are fighting against evil spirits “in heavenly places.” We need the whole armor of God to stand strong (Ephesians 6:11).
Let us examine our thoughts more closely. Let us resist the devil. Let us remove all evil thoughts from our minds by focusing our attention and thoughts on things above.
And most importantly, even though it may take a lot of strength at first, let us force ourselves to pray as we have never done before.
There is no reason to be afraid if we put on the whole armor of God, but if we don’t, we will definitely come out on the short end.
Initial translation from German: Daniel Blasinger
