The Last Days Of The World IX

 Before we begin to look for signs in the moon and the stars or gauge where we are along the timeline of His return, Jesus says our foremost priority must be to take heed that no one deceives us. The one thing Jesus tells us to do first before anything else is the thing many believers today fail to do at all. We get caught up in dates, times, and seasons, we get consumed by signs and go down the rabbit holes of what people say the signs mean, and reserve no time for guarding our hearts, learning the Word, and making sure that we are on the path that Jesus laid out before us.

You are the gatekeeper of your heart. It is your duty and responsibility to decide what you allow to take root therein. Knowing that the enemy and his minions will attempt to deceive, not once or twice, but repeatedly, consistently, and with ever-refined modalities, we must be sober, vigilant, and cautious. Take everything with a grain of salt, even if it comes from someone you trust or someone others vouch for. God will not contradict His word. Whatever the message du jour is, however much you deem it to ‘bear witness’ with your spirit, it must be in harmony with the Word of God in order to pass the litmus test.

It doesn’t matter how nice a fish looks if it can’t pass the smell test. It’s a basic premise, but nevertheless true from generation to generation since the first fishmonger pulled a catch from the sea and began selling it to his fellow countrymen. It’s easy to fall into the snare of overanalyzing what we hear, making concessions for the things that don’t quite ring true, but we should aspire to get back to basics and understand that keeping it simple will likely spare us untold heartache and disappointment. If it stinks, it’s no good, and no amount of wishing that it were not so will change the reality of the situation.

We’re not starving. We can’t be. We have the Bible. It is easily accessible to anyone willing to take the time and read it. If reading is difficult, there’s the audio Bible. There’s even the Bible in braille. There is no excuse for spiritual starvation other than our unwillingness to prioritize the Word of God above other pursuits.

Only someone who is starving and has no access to any other kind of sustenance can begin to have an excuse as to why they’re scavenging bits, pieces, and chunks of a whole that, although spoiled, still has a few morsels that won’t send them into fits of projectile vomiting.

Some of the things Jesus mentions as signs of the last days also existed during his time. It’s not as though the concept of war or rumors of war were a reality only after the resurrection of Christ, so if He mentions those things specifically, we must conclude that there will be something unique about these wars and rumors of war. Whether the scope, brutality, savagery, the number of nations that will join in the fight, the intensity thereof, or how many will fall victim to these conflicts, something will be acutely different during these wars and rumors of war than during Christ’s day.

Thus far, we’ve seen two world wars, separated by some two decades between the end of the first and the beginning of the second. What we have yet to see is an all-out nuclear war, where it’s not one nation dropping two bombs on another nation that cannot retaliate in kind but a nation that has the wherewithal to reciprocate like for like.

Regardless of what will make these wars stand out, Jesus warns us to see that we are not troubled. Wars and rumors of war are just the beginning, the shot across the bow, the first contractions in a long and arduous labor, and if our heart is troubled and filled with fear over the first event Jesus points to as being a sign of the end of the age, how will we deal with all the other things He said would come to pass?

What we must keep in mind is that even people who don’t have a religious objection to submitting to the authority of the antichrist might bristle at the idea if the current situation did not warrant their swallowing their pride, bending the knee, and taking the mark so they could eat. It has to get bad enough that the average citizen will see no other way of surviving than by submitting themselves to this outwardly benevolent individual who is more than willing to share his bounty with those who bow to him. You can’t have a functioning democracy or an abundance of clean water and food and expect the vast majority to accept tyranny as the new norm.

It will likewise have to be a global crisis so that there’s nowhere to run, no nation to immigrate to, and no place where normalcy can still be found. The technology is already here. Even without improvements, we have all the technology necessary to implement a global system of governance, wherein unless you have the right mark that allows you to do commerce, buy and sell, or hold down a job, you will be shunned by society.

We saw a foreshadowing of this when the world went vax-passport crazy, and seemingly sane people only a few months prior were calling for the incarceration and extermination of those who didn’t roll up their sleeves like good little boys or girls. It didn’t matter what your objection was. Whether religious or otherwise, either comply or die. That was their motto, and we would do well to remember the madness that gripped those who now hope we’ve forgotten what they said about us.

If one good thing came of the last few years, it’s the dawning realization that fear will cause most to submit, comply, and go along with agendas contrary to their sense of self-preservation. We were witness to not only how quickly the world falls in line and accepts tyranny but also to how readily those sworn to protect and serve become the cudgel of despots, resorting to cruelty under the guise of following orders.

It has become glaringly apparent that, for the most part, men will do what they’re told in order to retain a job, a position, or the sliver of authority that has come to define them. If you think the words Jesus spoke could never happen in a civilized world, think back and realize they just did, but in a far less violent fashion than what the next iteration will bring. Once the birth pains begin, they don’t lessen in intensity or frequency. On the contrary, they increase in both, with the time window between each contraction growing increasingly shorter.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.