The Direst Time...
- White Stone
- 7 hours ago
- 14 min read
In God’s mysterious plan each of us has a precise role to perform. Contribution to the fulfillment of God’s providential will, will be those whom God prepares to serve Him. God has a purpose in all that He does. And He calls forth in us full trust, a total abandonment to His divine plan. Nothing happens by chance in the history of salvation. Know that if you be God’s, you will not be relegated to the background in these final few days of time. Much self giving will be required of us. This is as an invitation to our humility in the last moment of time. We are to persist in studying the word of God knowing that scripture does not yield up all its riches, while having aspects that escape our understanding, and we must progress patiently without forcing the text into a ready-made framework. We must be cautious with hazardous assumptions. But let us welcome God’s mysteries as we are called to continually reason to understand His revelations. Let the Holy Spirit introduce us into the purposes of God through scripture. Full clarity will be given us when we faithfully walk in the truths offered to us. Truly scripture will serve to return us to our Creator Christ who unlocks the wisdom of the purposes of God for us, in the shadows of his return. He is the incarnate word. The wisdom and the truth that comes down to the night that is engulfing the world. We are coming to know him as he is one like us that we may know ourselves. Christ is the culmination of God’s purpose. We must contemplate his ways ceaselessly in the direst time. Brothers, sisters, what a mystery of this crazy love…God making Himself near, coming out from His inaccessibility to make Himself visible, tangible, knowable in Jesus. This uncreated light enters into the darkness. Such is the good news, the heart of our faith. He has shared our human condition and given himself that we may follow him in this final determination of time.
Extremely serious, calamitous, violent, ruinous, and dreadful are but the sane words of description for the time that is so very soon to come upon the world, and have a most distressing effect on God’s people. The world will come to know a clear link between disobedience and devastation. They will attempt to offer human explanation for what takes place to deceive the masses while God’s people will proclaim a divine causation. We must get ready for the invasion that's coming from sin. We must do some sackclothing and some serious weeping. Satan really isn’t that creative. Demonic forces exercising their power over susceptible human beings will cause these to oppose truths. Had they reasoned with God’s word and His people they would be under the safeguard of Christ. Defiant rejection of God's Spirit will result in the complete removal of His restraining power. The world is in unrest. The surety of war is enraging the people of all nations. And when the story reaches its worst, it will only get more worse from there. There will be a darkness that can be felt. God is going to get everyone’s attention. This will be God’s forsakenness. This is a mystery beyond our human ability to understand. The earth will be turned upside down.
Truth will reside only with those who source the bible as their only truth. The human mind has become so seared that it cannot contend with the pace of technological change. Mass manipulative narratives will cause broad swathes of people to simply give up on being informed. People are too polarized for any and every reason conceivable. We are in the country that promotes divergent points of view based on political and social subcultures; that champion false information. Belief systems – not ‘truths’ – help to cement identities, forge relationships, explain the unexplainable. Hatred has obliterated common knowledge. Sudden judgment is coming upon the earth, and it will change everything in a single hour. Within that short span, the whole world will witness fast-falling destruction upon cities and the world will never be the same. There will be no cure for the judgments of God. Utter chaos will erupt. All civic activities will stop, and society will descend into massive disorder. Government agencies will be helpless to restore any kind of sanity. No state troopers, no national guard, no army will be able to bring order to the upheaval. With certainty, this time will see calamity clearly beyond humankind’s capacity to respond. The economy will be devastated. In the midst of the terrible time, God’s people will message a truth and its sound will grow steadily stronger. The truth will be heard from the uttermost parts of the earth. East, west, north, and south — from Arab lands to China, Indonesia, Africa and all parts of the earth. Hypocritical veils are going to fall away. But God has a people not appointed to wrath. We are not to tremble or sorrow as the world does. Instead, we are to comfort one another in faith, knowing that God rules over every aspect of our lives. God has forewarned mankind of a great and terrible chastisement. Think not that these things are far-fetched and severe, but rather in face of so much impiety; blasphemy; desecration; corruption and immorality pervasive in our time; it wouldn’t be superfluous to surmise that the world indeed deserves such grave punishments. Thus, while the world faces a fearsome and terrible destruction in light of mankind’s insolence and impiety, God assures us that He will not abandon those who are faithful to Him. But let us understand this time. Central to our vision must be God on the mercy seat where His mercy met our sin and God judged it blotted out there. The
concentration of force against us will come with such cruelty and treachery that men will hate God and consequently those who remain faithful to Him, until even the atheist will acknowledge God’s existence, but question His sovereignty. There is going to be this seemingly suspension of order, as if God steps out of His creation and a cloak of darkness appears. Nothing in creation could have produced the darkness of these dimensions that will spiritually reflect the total abandonment of the spirit of God from man. Prepare my friends, for a silent sudden somber as we witness the last breath of many as God draws the curtain across His Holy of Holies so no outsider could see or hear within our cries. We will know of the desolate isolation and loneliness of persecution. This kind of loneliness – knowing our responsibility for what God is calling us to do no matter what, is an absolute truth of our faith. None of us will think to escape it. There is a unique burden that comes from knowing that God purposed this - that there is something that has been given by God for us to do, and that to renege would be akin to Jonah hiding out in the bottom of the boat trying to pretend that
he had not received a call from God. We can do what God purposes, but it may not leave us with much life. We are at the point where we can no longer distract ourselves from the disquiet sorrow that fills our inner being as we seek God in the here and now. Because this is the moment when we know to the fullness of our being that the nearness of God is for our ultimate good and we are not willing to sacrifice that for anything. The goodness of the Lord - which fills all emptiness - is with us. We will have faith to meet ourselves and to meet the infinite love and riches of God dwelling inside our beings. This transforms all loneliness. The sorrowfulness of the time will be extreme anguish of spirit. We will not seek community with others. This, that we be drawn intimately with God first and then wait to see how God meets us and who God brings us to, or to us. Prepare ourselves…the spiritual suffering we are asked to endure is to be so intense and terrible that God will hide it from the eyes of sinful people. Our cries will declare the unfathomable woe as such suffering is humanly inconceivable. But my God! Never before in our lives have we been more pleasing to the Father than at this hour of obedience to come to this climax and for Christ’s sake suffer grief, sorrow, and pain. This nation specifically intends to provoke collective fear and uncertainty among all peoples. This fear is today spreading rapidly and is not limited to those experiencing the events of today directly. Soon many more will be affected as God’s people are exposed through broadcast images showing the attempts of psychological suffering
before they revert to physical injury that leads to death. These events will produce individual responses. Some, few, will come to Christ. Societal functioning will be completely disrupted. Erosion of the sense of humanity will void all cohesions. The racial or ethnic, economic, and religious cracks that exist in our society, as evidenced by an increase in hate crimes, will so broaden the aftermath until adolescent persons will manifest traumatic violence against relatives, friends, schoolmates, rescue workers, witnesses who stand for godliness. Prepare yourselves; neither gender, age, experience, or personality will ward off the worse events to happen to God’s people until the retributive plagues of God befall the wicked. There will be no hoaxes and copycat events, actual terror will reveal the preparedness of God’s people to so identify with Christ that this purposeful act of God will bring conviction to the people who questions the severe tactics put upon a people of prayer. These will note the apparent shift in intensity from conflict to unprecedented concern for life or death toward targeted people. The wicked will all be devoid of any ethical compass. It is this critical moment in time that God knew our faith. We show to be no contradiction to His law, His love. This is the faith that sees eternity made real.
We are in an astounding time. God’s people must be strengthened by greater faith in the word of God. Our salvation cannot lie in addressing and alleviating the grievances being exposed by hatred. Consider the Israel-Hamas situation…is there a right side? The american people are being governmentally directed by a constant trickle of angry, bloody-minded individuals and groups, often in the grips of crazy ideological constructs, eager to kill and destroy for some ideal or cause. This will soon turn to what binds this country – worship and hate. Today, we are witnessing the unravelling of humanity. God’s people are about to face a very real and serious dilemma. Civil liberties in the sense we have known them, are inconceivable in this country. Government has the power to undertake secret investigations of individuals and groups that give off warning signs; bible studies, talk of Christ in the workplace, personal witnessing in public areas, sabbath keeping. Government thinks to have the power to collect information about what individuals are doing on the basis of mere suspicions or indicators that correlate with a disposition to differ from the norm. National and global instability are transparent. Sin is no small act. It is not a little thing. It was magnified greatly at the cross. God is done with sin. What Jesus went through, we could never go through. Salvation is not universal. Yes, God so loved the world but that does not automatically save anyone. If you have not the faith of Jesus in what Jesus did by faith, then you don’t believe. We have the end of the story. We know the difficulties we are to face in this lifetime. There is a deep mystery to suffering. While the bible makes it plain that we must expect to encounter times of sorrow and loss, of trial and grief, we often don’t know the full extent of this time to come. We do know however, that God is weaving together a marvelous
tapestry that will wondrously display His glory, we also know it is a time we will fully appreciate only when faith becomes sight and substance. Please understand this brothers and sisters, why would God choose this for us, and why would God choose us for this? Because we have friends who are alive and who have died, that we come to know through the book and through the studies that counsel and console us. This was purposed by God in His calling for those to endure loss, suffering or sorrow, not because there is any particular good in them, but because the Lord needs their witness to answer the question of faith. What is this question? Lovest thou me? In every age, we hear of professed believers who abandon the faith as soon as they are called to suffer. They are glad enough to express confidence in God as long as His will seems perfectly aligned with their own, as long as His providence decrees what they would choose anyway. But when they are called to lose instead of gain, to weep instead of laugh, to face poverty instead of prosperity, they quickly turn aside and fall away. Even we, as sincere believers wonder whether our faith is sufficient for times of deep sorrow, whether it could withstand a dreadful provocation. But here is our faith…being confident that God has important purposes for our suffering, and we can be equally confident that one of these purposes is simply for us to stand strong by faith. From the valley of the shadow of death we affirm faith in the comfort of God, for we know that His faithfulness is great. God does not have to account to us for His providence. Our faith rests not in His explanation but in His character, not in what He has done but in who He is. He has been true to His every promise. In this time we love Him more now than ever.
As evil escalades, those of us who are in Christ will cling to the truth. And God will not rescind the Holy Spirit. Throughout the entire history of the world, we can identify times of cruelty and periods when the most horrific deeds are perpetrated by evil men against the people of God, but the period that precedes the last plagues will be so intense that half of the world’s peoples will die by the sword, famine, pestilence, or demonic entities, except that number that was heard to be sealed. This time that God puts us through are trials such as no others go through. There will be such a spiritual dryness that we must learn to recognise. We must also accept that when we endure such dryness of soul that it is for a reason. The reason is to save souls through such suffering. Very few of us respond to suffering with resolved faith and hope. Pain and frustration are coiled together like thorn bushes, pricking us, drawing out blood. And with the sting fresh and the blood meeting the open air, we ask, “God, are you really in control? Are you really letting this happen right now? This is precisely when Christ, through the Holy Spirit, is closest to us. He draws near to our experience. He says, “I know…I know…I know.” It’s not a knowing that comes from some detached knowledge of human pain. It’s an intimate, personal knowledge. It’s a with-us knowledge.
It’s the knowledge that will bring others to him as they hear, “why are you persecuting me?” That’s how close he is to his people. He identifies himself with us. He suffers with us, even though he’s already suffered for us.
There is the external persecution we will suffer because of our work. Then there is the physical suffering, offered freely to us, as a gift, to be a witness to save the souls of many. Then the worst suffering of all is the spiritual emptiness where we cannot feel the love of Jesus, as we experience the trial he endured when he cried “my God, my God”. We will know what it feels like to be despised and rejected, to be someone acquainted with grief, to be a person of sorrow. We will think no amount of praying releases us from the prison of desolation. This will be the trial of our faith! Try as we will to feel love and compassion for others, we will struggle. This is the appearance of spiritual abandonment where we seem to be so far away that we can no longer reach out to Jesus. What we do not know is this: this suffering is a gift, a grace from God. It raises us up in His eyes and the trials and sufferings we endure are purposed and allowed by God because of our generous and pure love to save blackened souls. Keep in mind that our trials can be separated by not just days or weeks or months. It may seem unfair but the closer we come to Jesus, the more we will suffer persecution, because of the sins of mankind. This is our knowing the fellowship of his suffering and becoming like Christ. Only those with pure humble hearts, with no personal regard for themselves, when we place God before all that is of this earth, can endure what God purposes for our good. Such souls are chosen divinely by God and will work with Him, through the gift of suffering, to help Jesus in God’s plan of salvation. Our faith must be such where never fear enters our thoughts. We may not feel God’s presence in the darkest of trial, see Him or understand the deep love for us as we would do in normal times, but He is with us. Always trust in Him, even when we find it hard to pray in the depth of sorrow or pain.
Trust in God when we have a longing for Him, which cannot be satisfied or quenched, no matter how hard the trial. Know when this happens that He is much closer than we realize. Know that it is at these times that He elevates us to become a true friend. Never feel disillusioned. The day will come when the suffering will be forgotten. In its place will be a joy which will surge through the creation and which will only be possible because of our sacrifices, for all of God’s children who need our help in the last time. In this world, in this direst of time, suffering will be inescapable. Suffering is much broader than physical pain. Yet, we must not allow suffering to become a threat to our spirituality. Suffering will focus our attention on the moral evil of the time, while our spirituality will thrive upon truth and goodness. We are not to lose sight of the purpose of God, for that is to lose sight of the truth, and to open ourselves to the lies of suffering; that is, that evil is all-encompassing, that our life lacks meaning, that there is no benevolent God. Our faith defeats this lie, that others may view God’s goodness in strengthening us to endure, to overcome. When we defeat the lie, the killing begins. The enemy will seek to put us to death. And so we say, “whatever God allows”, and if this be the means of God saving others…then our suffering becomes a means of grace. Spiritual growth is a path we walk, not a moment we arrive at. We know this path
to be an extended experiment, offered to each one of us, with its twists and turns, dips and descents. Our entire life is a holy experiment as God’s hand shapes us into the image of His Son. A holy, Son-shaping experiment, that’s what’s happening. Right now. As we trod the path of our day, our spirit is being tended and pressed in the ordinary moments. As we walk, we’re molded. We’re shaped. We are being purposed. And suffering plays a major role in this divine experiment. We are coming to realize that our spiritual growth’s attainment is due, without question to God’s holy calling. It is our response to that calling that claims us as His election. It is our faith first to reason, secondarily to come to the revelation of his truth that, lastly positions us to enter upon to enter upon the suffering for God's sake as did His Son. This willingness to suffer for the purposes of God draws out true thoughts, attitude and desires of the heart, to not show what we want to be, but who we are. Suffering is the mirror that reflects our soul. That doesn’t mean we’re excited about suffering, but it does mean that if we can see what’s happening by faith, we can benefit God from it in ways we otherwise couldn’t. All of this resonates with our experience as being His election. And so, our eyes turn to others who might need the wisdom and encouragement we can offer. This is one of the ways in which God shapes us into givers after His own heart. He lifts our face and turns our eyes to others. As Christ encouraged us, we encourage others. We testify to the hands of the potter, even as we’re still wet from the water of suffering, even if we are meeting death.
We show others just how God can take something wretched and make something beautiful, how the muck and mire of pain can be shaped into a vessel that carries God’s beauty and redemption to someone else. We become cups of grace and hope, and the offering in the hand of God to those who thirst. We know the potency of the gospel message: even the worst things of the world can't ultimately destroy us. Our faith know who God is, and who we are in Him. When it's all said and done, the Holy Spirit within us holds us up.
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