Strong Man Of God Blog

          Among the epidemics of just this 21^st century caused by things naturally unseen is the most deadly of all: unbelief in God!  After nearly 2,000 years of being “to God the fragrance of Christ” as His faithful spreading the Gospel and witnessing Him throughout earth, the world is still wicked and growing worse; having rejected His faithful, our message and witness as an “aroma of death leading to death,” (2 Corinthians 2:14-16, NKJV).¹  Indeed, this is happening despite more than a millennium of dominance by Christianity as manmade religion over most of the world starting from the Middle Ages when men at least outwardly professed a belief in God.  Now, they are turning even from this!

          The turn away from a general belief in God can be traced to the 14^th century rise of humanism during the Renaissance that made man rather than God the center of existence.²  This philosophy elevated human reason as more authoritative than the Bible and religion and spurred such critical historical events as the 17^th century European Enlightenment as well as the divorce of science from a biblical worldview of creation beginning earnestly with Charles Darwin’s “Theory of Evolution” in the 19^th century.  Today, all of our nation’s secular and not a few professed Christian educational institutions operate with the mindset God’s existence is only a faith construct of the religious.

          It is one thing for the unsaved world to be turning away from belief in God with a corresponding rejection of His Word including prophecy, but it is another over the top thing for anyone claiming they are Christians to do so!  Nevertheless, I have pointed to recent research in other posts that shows the epidemic of unbelief in God fully infecting the unsaved population of our nation is growing too, among many that profess to be Christians who are de facto apostates.³  I am convinced of the Lord that this epidemic of unbelief with its beginnings in the Renaissance which was certainly in part a freeing reaction to corrupt, stifling, dead manmade Christianity the religion, is also a satanically cultivated outcome of it!⁴  Truly, He foreknew these days and wills that His faithful not be discouraged by them.

          Speaking of Himself as the manifestation of God’s Kingdom, His glorious future return after enduring Israel’s rejection and warning that it will be “as it was in the days of Noah” and “Lot” (Luke 17:20-37, NKJV), the Lord Jesus Christ “spoke a parable” to His hearers encouraging “that men always ought to pray and not lose heart,” (Luke 18:1, NKJV).  The Lord compares the response of an unjust judge to a persistent widow and that of God to “His own elect” waiting on Him and vengeance on the faithless wicked who have mistreated them a long time (Luke 18:2-8a, NKJV).  God’s elect and faithful are to wait on Him in persevering faith which tragically, the Lord laments in a rhetorical question He will not find in predominance on earth at His return (Luke 18:8b).⁵

1 As I write in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics and will not cease declaring, God’s faithful are always going to include every aspiring strong man and great
   woman of God in the image of Jesus Christ!  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 favorite internet bookseller or brick and mortar bookstore.

2 Use your favorite search engine for articles on the origin of humanism.

3 See the 2019 Pew Research Center article, In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace.  Also, learn how lack of a biblical worldview is widespread in professing
   American Christianity and among its leaders in a recent study by the Cultural Research Center directed by Dr. George Barna at Arizona Christian University.

4 Read  the  two-part  post  beginning August 21, 2016, Christianity The Religion Of Men, under the category, Instruction.  Religion constructed and controlled by men is a fully
   inferior  substitute  for  relationship  with the living God whose reality in “wrath” is near to being displayed because they purposely “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” a-
   bout what can be “clearly seen” of Him “in” and all around “them,” (Romans 1:18-21, NKJV).

5 The  Lord’s  lament affirms what He has repeatedly led me to write concerning the number of those “who are alive and remain until” His coming as being very small (1 Thes-
   salonians 4:15, NKJV).  Indeed, He even speaks to this remnant in advance warning them to stay alert in their persevering faith near the time of His sudden appearing (Rev-
   elation 16:15).

          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.