Not only do faithful Christians seeking to obey Christ’s Great Commission face a steadily closing window of opportunity, hardening and cold hearts resisting the Gospel and our witness in these latter days as I have been writing about,1 but diminishing returns on the investment of time, energy and expense made in making disciples! Simplified, diminishing returns is an economic concept companies use to help them understand how costs increase and profit margins decrease over time producing their products. They can typically predict when they need to either make adjustments in their product, spending on it or consider the feasibility of abandoning it altogether.
Faithful Christians need to understand how our preaching of the Gospel and witness of Christ as a spiritual product is also subject to diminishing returns and be encouraged. In the first place, since our product is of divine origin in Word and Person, it has had and has staying power (Matthew 24:35, 28:18-20)! After nearly 2,000 years the Gospel still saves and the testimonies of the saved remain unimpeachable. So, there is nothing wrong with our product. No adjustments are necessary in the Gospel or our witness of its life changing results in Christ though, a number in these latter days have been foolishly and corruptly making them to build their own doomed made to order churches!2
Second, our Lord warned of such days as we live in where it would cost us more in time, energy and expense including blood to present the Gospel and witness Him making disciples (Matthew 24:9; Mark 13:11-13; Revelation 6:9-11). One reason for this is that the world is now, saturated with our product! There are relatively few major population centers left in the world where the Gospel has not been preached and a witness of Christ given.3 Spiritual apathy, increasing secularization and rising hostility greet bearers of the message in nations such as our own where Christianity as biblical or manmade religion with apostasy has been settled in for centuries.
Another reason is violent persecution brought upon believers in other nations as the Lord warned where once there was a toleration of Christianity, but now, due to a return to indigenous and national religions it is regarded as a threat to be destroyed. This mentality will reach its global zenith shortly under the auspices of the Antichrist (Daniel 7:15-25; Revelation 13:1-10). Consequently, nearly 2,000 years later our fishing nets are not as full as they once were as recently as the Billy Graham era just last century; diminishing increasingly until that “night” arrives and “no one can work,” (John 9:1-4, NKJV).4 Even so, all of this for us means the glorious Second Coming of our Lord with His eternal rest from and rewards for our Kingdom labor is closer still (Revelation 14:13, 22:12).5
1 Read the August 28, 2022 post, It Is Now Or The Peril Of Never, under the category, The Cause and Shaken, But Not Stirred, posted September 11, 2022, under the category, Biblical Worldview.
2 See the June 5, 2022 post, Made To Order Church?, under the category, Instruction.
3 Though these are minimal outcomes, they are important in the primary mission Christ has given His followers (Mark 16:15-16; Luke 24:44-49; John 20:19-23; Acts 1: 6-8). If after preaching the Gospel and witnessing Christ no disciples are made or churches planted in a locale (as is often the case in these latter days), we have done well since we are not accountable for the people’s response (Luke 10:1-12; Acts 2:36-47)! In the days of the Antichrist when his reign of evil globally ends the public preaching, witnessing, making, baptizing and teaching of disciples along with church planting by God's mortal saints, He will send an angel with only “the everlasting Gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth” a final time (Revelation 14:6-7, NKJV)!
4 This does not preclude spikes in the harvest of disciples made such as during the Holy Spirit sparked revival I joyfully await that ensues when He marks out the rem- nant of Israel as foretold in a second fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy (Joel 2:28-29; Revelation 7:1-8) before God’s severe trumpet warning judgments begin (Joel 2: 30-32; Revelation 8-9).
5 While as I write in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, the first motive of every aspiring strong man and great woman of God in serving our Lord’s Kingdom purposes is love for Him, His promised rest and rewards are excellent biblically taught motivators also (2 Timothy 4:6-8; Hebrews 4:1-13, 12:1-2)! The book is available with the companion Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study and Great Woman Of God Women’s Group Study in the Strong Man Store, at your fa- vorite internet bookseller or brick and mortar bookstore.
I have a brief word of encouragement from the Lord for all of His faithful daughters aspiring to be great women of God in Christ’s image and any other female that will receive it.1 Today’s cry from females that feel victimized and voiceless and demand a voice to be heard (along with all others that feel the same way for whatever reasons), the God of the Bible would have you to know He hears you! Truly, as it is written, “He who planted the ear, shall He not hear? He who formed the eye, shall He not see,” (Psalm 94:9, NKJV)? God hears every voice on earth whether spoken as an inaudible whisper from the heart or loudly shouted in the streets; He hears every single voice!
The response of the Lord is another matter. Indeed, for while He hears every voice, not every voice is calling upon Him. Some who have suffered an injury from living in this sinful, fallen and unfair world believe God is unconcerned and do not call on Him because He did not prevent their injury in the first place. So, they are angry with Him and the world and want someone to feel their pain with their bitterness through the outcry of the heart made visible in self-destruction or shouting upon every platform. Unfortunately, the sinful, fallen world from whence came their injury is limited in what it can and is willing to do to bring forth permanent readdress of evil and healing for its injured.
No such limitations are with the Lord God Almighty of the Bible (Psalm 146)! As it is written, “The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth,” (Psalm 145:18, NKJV). The Lord’s nearness is not just to hear and comfort, but to take action (sometimes before; at other times in His sovereignty, after the fact). But first, one must call upon Him “in truth”--transparency, true innocence and helplessness.2 If, for example, you are in a place where you should not be in willful disobedience to biblical righteousness, God is under no obligation to keep you from harm or provide perfect justice for your resulting injury. You purposely put yourself in harm’s way.3
Nevertheless, the righteous who fear the Lord are in peril of injury from this world ruled by Satan every day. It is written, “He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He also will hear their cry and save them. The Lord preserves all who love Him,” (Psalm 145:19-20a, NKJV). Those who fear the Lord are given the general promise of deliverance from evil and injury including its ultimate form, death, when we call upon Him. But we understand His promise is of a general nature and have already accepted the fact that He for His sovereign ends and glory may allow us to suffer affliction or death at any time and are okay with this because they are temporary--we live to Him forever (Luke 9:23-26, 21:16-19; John 21:18-23; Romans 8:18-39)! For this we shout His praise (Psalm 145:21)!
However, not so the wicked to include full throated victims! For whether you are the perpetrator of evil or victim that refuses to call upon the Lord in truth and for salvation; looking only to make people hear and/or pay for your pain, it is written, “all the wicked He will destroy,” (Psalm 145:20b, NKJV).4 This is His soon coming permanent readdress of evil! Therefore, let those who fear the Lord keep on calling upon Him no matter how dark the night; He hears you. Let all who feel voiceless “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near;” abandoning your wicked ways and thinking in all repentance so, He may hear with mercy and forgiveness through the Good News of His Son, Jesus Christ (Isaiah 55:6-7; Luke 24:46-47; Romans 10:11-13, NKJV).
1 Learn about the great woman of God in The Great Woman Of God Women’s Group Study He privileged me to create for females that will seek Him and those that already know Him and want to grow in their knowledge and understanding of biblical womanhood. The Women’s Group Study is available through your favorite internet bookseller or in the Strong Man Store.
2 You do not really believe the Lord will hear your demand for justice over the silent screams of the unborn being unjustly murdered through abortion you at the same time are vocally advocating for or carrying out do you?
3 This is not to blame the victim for the wicked deed done to them. However, keeping it real, just as warning signs are posted all over the world to keep people from possi- ble injurious situations, so, God in His Word! If you ignore His warnings from Scripture for whatever reasons, you must take responsibility for that and the consequences! Read my November 5, 2017 post, Sex, Power And Ambition, under the category, Biblical Worldview. Heed the warning signs of God and common sense. Speak up at the time of injury; seek forgiveness from God as warranted and His justice first in which He will help obtain whatever measure of it will come from Him through this world and His eternal judgment.
4 The bitter victim is destroyed with the unrepentant perpetrator because using any means including deceit in their vehement insistence that those who injured them pay for it somehow, they demonstrate their lack of trust in God and usurp Him in their actions who says as “it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’” (Romans 12:19, NKJV).
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