The Scourge Of Racism
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Faithful Christians that are almost always eager Bible students understand the times we are living in and what lies ahead if not in specific detail, generally. This is because they do not read into Bible prophecy to concoct theories, spiritualize, or reject it, but reverence the Source enough to allow His illumination and instruction (Mark 13:23; 2 Peter 1:19-21). They also understand and accept it as it is written along with all other objectively understood portions of the Bible. Finally, unlike some theologians of history such as Augustine that rendered allegorical what he could not understand, the faithful realize some Bible prophecy would not be opened up by God until now (Daniel 12:4, 8-10)!
Those professed Christians that are selling themselves out to rebellion against God’s program with the world in unbelief do not know what time it is.1 The Lord Jesus and His apostles repeatedly make it clear however, that the faithful--every aspiring strong man and great woman of God as I write in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics--must live fully by faith in Him; enduring to the end to obtain the promised salvation (Matthew 10:16-39, 24:13; Romans 1:16-17, 8:18-25; Hebrews 3:5-19).2 The Lord led me to write this edited 2012 Commentary to encourage aspiring strong men of God to remain faithful as Bible prophecy is fulfilled before our very eyes.
Originally Published April 2012
I stand amazed at our God who has made us both observers of and participants in the times such as are now unfolding. For unknown to the wicked and apparently even many professing Christians, the times we are living in were foretold millennia ago by the prophets of God in the Bible's Old Testament as well as Jesus Christ and His apostles in the New. This is all to the glory of God who reveals the end from the beginning and events long before they occur (Isaiah 44:6-8, 45:20-22, 46:5-10, 48:3-5)! God, the eternally living God who spoke time into existence (Genesis 1:3-5, 14-19) and fulfills His Word at the right time is resolutely ratcheting up this world's troubles (Matthew 24:6-7).
Not since the global flood of Noah's day had the world experienced a paradigm shift of such magnitude as the incarnation of the Son of God in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, now over 2,000 years ago. Planned from eternity (1 Peter 1:20), preliminarily announced by God in Eden on the day Adam sinned (Genesis 3:15) and fleshed out over time in revelation to His prophets, Jesus came to “save His people from their sins,” (Matthew 1:21, NKJV). In God’s perfect moment, at the right time He arrived to fulfill His mission as the apostle Paul later affirms (Romans 5:6). Interestingly, unlike the flood of Noah’s day, the world did not know He had come except those God revealed Him to.
For thirty years He grew up quietly in the ways of His people--a carpenter’s Son. After this, He engaged in a three and one half-year ministry of preaching, teaching and mighty miracles that authenticated His identity as God’s Anointed One. Then, before the eyes of His disciples, He was arrested and crucified. They did not understand that to save them from their sins, Jesus had to die in their place by divine decree (Romans 5:7-9). They buried Him the same day He died, but on the third day after, He showed Himself to His disciples alive from the dead and explained to them from prophecy all that had happened to Him in fulfillment (Luke 24:1-45).
The Lord then revealed to His still startled disciples that they were witnesses of all that had happened to Him. They would now take on the important responsibility to proclaim what they had seen and heard as well as the resulting good news to the nations in the power of God (Luke 24:46-49)! After leading them out to the appointed spot, the Lord ascended into Heaven with the promise He would be with them (and us) to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20b; Luke 24:50-53). The mission has continued through Christ's disciples in every generation since to this hour and will continue until the last soul known to God is saved; for He has a number in mind (Romans 4:13-18, 11:25-36).
Echoing his Lord, the apostle Peter in his first and second recorded sermons told Jewish hearers that what they had been witnessing in word, power and events concerning Jesus of Nazareth to that time had been foretold by their prophets (Acts 2:14-32, 3:18-24). They were living in a divinely ordained time of prophetic fulfillment with still more to come. It is for this reason that as led by the Lord I assert we have continued all of these years since in a time of prophetic fulfillment and therefore, remain in what should be properly understood as "God's times." This being true, those who walk by faith in His Son and obedience to God have never been out of step with or behind "the times!"
From the first appearance of Christ and His successful mission, “the times” have been “God’s times” in which He is presiding over His eternal plans and superintending His longsuffering work through the faithful to preach the Gospel to all the nations. God’s longsuffering has been of His unrelenting desire in love to save (Matthew 24:14; 2 Peter 3:1-9). While by His providence, men have advanced technologically during the last 20 centuries and exponentially so in the last two, they have made no self-generated improvement spiritually or morally. Indeed, lawlessness has been increasing, love decreasing and evil men grow worse as foretold (Matthew 24:12; 2 Timothy 3:13).
Confirming prophetic fulfillment shows us closer to the end of this present age than we imagined and the next great paradigm shift in God's program: the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ! In step with "God's times," we that love Him see that we are descending like an airplane into the foretold period of severe turbulence our Lord describes as an intensifying "beginning of sorrows” or “birth pains" to include global persecution caused tribulation (Matthew 24:8-9, 15-22, NKJV). However, it leads to a safe landing in His presence (Revelation 7:9-17). Every aspiring strong man of God will be very glad he did not sell the Lord out to be in step with the world's times (Mark 8:34-38). The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"
1 Read the April 28, 2019 post, God’s Program Matters!, under the category, Call To Repent.
2 The book is available at all major internet booksellers, by order at your favorite brick and mortar bookstore or in the Strong Man Store.
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