15 Minutes
Prophecy is not so difficult that we can’t understand it, or else God would not have put it into scripture. Prophetic passages confidently reveal something about the role of America in the end times. After all, God, who exists in all times, who sees the end of history from the beginning, who indeed sovereignly governs every moment of history - God, who reveals key end- time events in the prophecies of scripture, can’t possibly have omitted from His opus the most powerful, most influential, and by many counts most God- blessed of all nations that have ever risen. There has never been a more urgent time when God’s people have need to know of the last days. The best of our knowledge cannot fathom what the great time of trouble will be like even as we head into the little time of trouble. The most vivid presentation cannot reach the magnitude of the ordeal. There is no degree of insightfulness that we can stretch our mind to manufacture the atrocities to be put upon God’s people.
These words have no intent to frighten you. The intent is to accelerate the understanding of the necessity to take a full account of how God sees you. Please do not think to believe that God sees you as you see yourself. God sees us through the blood of Jesus. We will either have a right standing in His sight owing our life to Jesus or we will be condemned by the blood of Jesus. We need to have a greater want of that wisdom and love which would prevent all discord, and keep God’s people in unity in Christ with themselves. Please understand that we will need an experience which we do not now possess. We will need the enabling power of atonement. Though defeated and cast down at the cross, this once before covering cherub is a fierce foe. Please keep in mind the purposes God has for this period of time. Examine yourself. Enduring times of trouble is an opportunity to demonstrate the level of faith and strength God gives us; God’s glory revealed in us. We will not be brought from the time oftrouble...we will be brought through the time of trouble. We have patience and faith to the uttermost. Time must be cut short else none would survive. Every opportunity to become well instructed in every word of God is to be seized upon with no disputation.
Romans 14:1
There is a time of trouble that is soon to break upon this world, and the main force of it will be directed at God's true commandment keeping people. And we’re not talking about the effects of the plagues on mankind, we are talking about the end time demonic activities that will see all but 144000 of God’s last day people choose to die rather than renounce their belief. The power of a single angel destroyed seventy thousand men. What might be the results when Satan and his millions of powerful angels have full control of the earth? And the second phase of his war is poised to resume against God’s elected multitude and very elected remnant people. The time of trouble will inscribe the wickedness of the world to such an extent that God’s patience cut short will usher in the weightiness of the plagues. His patience is immeasurable and matchless, but not endless. Demonic assaults will overcome untold numbers of the wicked and all the world will be hardened in their sin. The people of God will be sustained and shielded by the sovereign grace of God from granting the wicked the satisfaction of enjoying the afflictions placed upon them preparatory for their sacrificial offering. Here is the entering in of the vindication of God’s holiness. We must begin to understand why this time of trouble is going to be so much worse than anything this world has seen as it develops into the great time of trouble. If our experience is not now daily with Christ, then when the time of trouble hits and we find ourselves under great persecution, we will find it difficult to stay true to our faith.
Please have this understanding...as faithful believers there is a difference in our position and in our condition. Sin will affect the condition. Faith can make certain the position. Please know that righteousness is a positional performance. The time of trouble coming upon the world will be but a moment, but the intensification will wrap a lifetime in a meditative experience. Life will be lived one moment at a time. As a day is as a thousand years to God so will every moment of trouble be to God’s people. Morbid and surreal thoughts will attempt to detach our minds from transcendent love that immerses our faith even deeper beyond our circumstances, our abilities and weaknesses, tragedies, regrets, guilt, shame from our past and our fears about tomorrow. We will know that God is greater than anything we are facing and anything we will ever encounter.
Sorrow will fill our hearts. There will be so many enemies to come against us. We will guide them forward and repay them with comforting words. Our righteousness will not be sealed up. We will not be shy to talk about our love for Christ. Our faith and compassion will be bold even in the face of their growing hate. Pause and reflect on this...find yourself the kind of friend who builds your faith in God...find this friend now! It will prepare you to cling to Jesus when the time comes. Compel yourself to practice the word of God. We are going to be hurt in the process of loving others, but that is what it costs to serve God. The time of darkness will not define the people of God. And those who refused acceptance of the truths of God, and those who so pretentiously veiled themselves in righteousness will have not even a wisp of hope. The time will be the darkest period of the world’s history, in
comparison with which the cruelties of the Assyrians, the fearful sieges of Rome upon Jerusalem, the Siege of Masada, the tortures of the Inquisition, the campaigns of Napoleon, the transatlantic slave trade, the Trail of Tears, the conflicts of the Haitian Revolution, the bloodshed of two World Wars, the Asian american experience, the terroristic devastation of the Tulsa, the Colfax Louisiana, the Wilmington, the Atlanta, the Elaine Arkansas, the Rosewood massacres, and the atrocities perpetrated under the Nazi regime will fade into insignificance. The ending of the little time of trouble, at the beginning of the plagues, will see God’s last day remnant immersed into the terrible time of godliness, that great time of trouble that will culminate in the fearful battle of Armageddon.
I Thessalonians 5:1-11
SOP - The events connected with the close of probation and the work of preparation for the time of trouble, are clearly presented. But multitudes have no more understanding of these important truths than if they had never been revealed. Satan watches to catch away every impression that would make them wise unto salvation, and the time of trouble will find them unready. {Great Controversy, page 594.1}
Spiritual darkness results in spiritual death which is distinct from physical death and the second death. This is the degree of sinfulness willfully desired by the wicked. Before the plagues there is this great purge that brings many out of Babylon. The final crisis will be initiated by the urging and enforcing of the mark of the beast. A strong source of motivation for many to repent and turn to faith in Christ is what they observe the people of God willingly enduring for the sake of Christ. They remember the messages heard upholding the law of God. They saw faith lived by defeating death.
SOP – (excerpt) The commencement of that time of trouble, here mentioned does not refer to the time when the plagues shall begin to be poured out, but to a short period just before they are poured out, while Christ is in the sanctuary. {EW 86}
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