The Last Days Of The World XIII

The future should not be a mystery to the children of God, but by the same token, the children of God cannot manifest the future they wish for or envision by their will in contravention to the Word of God. Your vision of the future must be in harmony with what the Bible says about it. If the two clash or are antithetical, the Word will win out every time. Save for some egg on your face and exhaustion from repeated contortionist-like attempts to explain why what you thought didn’t materialize the way you thought it would, you’ll have nothing to show for it. We must accept what the Word of God says about the times we’re living in and what the future holds and prepare accordingly.

Whenever we plan on going somewhere as a family, the little one always checks the weather. Nobody asks her to do it. We can look outside and gauge whether or not it will be sunny or cloudy, but it has become her thing, so before we leave the house, she asks to borrow my phone and, at the ripe old age of six, goes onto the weather app and presents us with the weather report.

It’s an odd sensation because when my wife and I were her age, we were lucky to have electricity for more than a couple of hours each night, and even then, it was spotty. Times have changed, and so have our expectations, and now, if the power goes out for a few minutes, we start scrambling for candles and flashlights. Back in the day, when they turned off the power, it meant it was time for bed, whether it happened to be six or eleven.

If there’s a chance of rain, she insists we bring umbrellas, and if it looks like the weather will hold, she gives us the thumbs up and says that we’re good to go. Knowing what will be allows us to prepare, and there have been occasions when, due to her consistency in checking on the weather, we were walking around the park bone dry under our umbrellas while others were getting soaked or running to their cars.

We are given knowledge of what the future holds so that we might act upon it. You can know a storm is coming, but the knowledge itself does nothing for you if you don’t bring an umbrella.

It is incumbent upon us as individuals to act on the knowledge the Word of God reveals to us. When the rich young ruler came to Jesus asking what he needed to do to be saved, Jesus told him, yet the rich young ruler walked away because he was unwilling to follow through and do as Christ instructed.

If the Word tells us that we will see these things, but in seeing them, we should not be troubled, then the follow-through to the information we’ve received is to build up our trust and faith in God so that we might not be troubled. It’s not to obsess, grow anxious, or let fear dictate our actions. That’s the opposite of what Jesus said we should do.

Consequently, if someone comes along and lays out what the future holds but insists that your reaction should be something other than what Jesus said it should be, they have an ulterior motive for telling you what they’re telling you. Whether it’s to sell you a converted septic tank as your own personal doomsday bunker or buckets of gruel with a 300% markup, if you listen intently enough, you’ll spot the hook before it can sink in.

Not only are we supposed to be aware of the events of the coming season, but our reaction to them must be Biblical and proportionate to what Jesus said it should be. The storm of the century is coming; make sure you stock up on suntan lotion!

I keep returning to this point because repetition is the mother of learning. It’s one of those fundamental points that must become a reality in our hearts, lest we despair as the world and see no hope as those of the world.

Yes, all these things must come to pass because Jesus said they must, but see that you are not troubled. It doesn’t bode well for the church when we react to certain events in a far more chaotic fashion than those of the world. It speaks volumes about our faith and trust in God's omnipotence when our first reaction to the events unfolding in real-time is to grow anxious and fearful of what tomorrow might bring.

You are in Christ, and Christ is in you. What have you to fear?

We cannot approach the last days of the world with the mindset of a toddler, especially when we fashion our worldview through the prism of living in the West and, as yet, not having to contend with the reality of persecution. Last year alone, five thousand brothers and sisters in Christ were murdered for faith-related reasons. Currently, over three hundred million believers worldwide face high or extreme levels of persecution. Yet, we’re still prancing around beating our chests, insisting that we are the no-ouchie generation and Jesus wouldn’t dare allow us to experience anything more than indigestion from overindulging at the local buffet.

Every child falls when they first learn to walk. First, they try to stand on their own two feet, then take one tentative step, then two, and at some point, they get adventurous and start making their way from one side of the room to the other. If you happen to have children, you know you cannot navigate the learning-to-walk stage without a skinned knee or fifty. Every time it happened, after the initial shock and pain wore off, my wife would pull out the hydrogen peroxide, something her mother used to do whenever she skinned her knee. After the third or fourth time, when the kids caught on to what was about to happen, they’d start screaming, ‘No ouchie, no ouchie.’

Each time, my wife would explain why it was necessary and assure them that it would only sting for a minute, and then it would be all better. The ouchie was already there; what she was doing was making it better. It took my daughters a while to understand that and no longer decry the peroxide, the ointment, or the band-aid.

God is not a fan of needless suffering. He does not allow His children to go through persecution just to see them squirm. Our faith is tested for a purpose, and after the pain of it dissipates, we come to realize that in the midst of the suffering, in the midst of the persecution, our faith increased, our dependence upon Him increased, as did our intimacy with Him. Only in hindsight can we fully appreciate God's providence, provision, and protection and be in awe of His omnipotence.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.