The Last Days Of The World XXXI

 A servant has one function—to serve. Whatever the title or distinction given to a servant might be, or however powerfully they are used, it does not alter the servant’s primary function, nor does it make him greater than his master. It’s not as though a servant who is entrusted with much can ever eclipse his master or choose to withhold obedience because they deem themselves in authority to do so. Everything a servant has comes via the good pleasure of his master.

If he is loved by his master, the servant can entreat the master regarding certain things, but never from a position of demanding something of him but rather from one of request and petition. There is a stark difference between ‘ask, and it shall be given to you’ and ‘demand it, manifest it, speak it into existence, stomp your feet, and hold your breath until you get everything you want and a little extra to boot.’

God’s will is sovereign, and whenever we encounter situations we can’t understand in the moment, we must defer to the promise that all things work together for good to those who love God and to those who are the called according to His purpose. Yes, that includes persecution, sometimes even martyrdom, and it is not within our purview to decide what the good is. Rather, it is within His.

The only choices we have at our disposal are to either submit to His will or resist it, thinking we know better than Him. You are a vessel of honor, set apart, to be used by the Master in whichever way He sees fit.

Servants cannot have fundamental disagreements with their master and still serve him dutifully, faithfully, and wholeheartedly. Likewise, a servant cannot undermine or ingratiate themselves to their master’s enemies while maintaining that they are loyal, faithful, and true.

When we disregard what Jesus said about the timing of His return because we want to believe something more palatable to the flesh, it opens us up to deception and to the voices crying He is here, or He is there. Jesus already told us not to go. He already told us that they would be false christs attempting to distract us from the singular purpose of walking faithfully with our God, but for far too many, the heart wants what the heart wants, and since we so readily disregard the words of Jesus, ignoring the words of Jeremiah is even less difficult or troubling.

The second time a servant disregards his master’s warnings or commands, it’s always easier than the first, and the third is easier than the second. Because there was no immediate chastisement or rebuke, the servant surmises that the master didn’t notice or he was too busy with other things to take notice of the disobedience or rebellion. That in itself is a deception perpetrated by the enemy, and the more acts of disobedience and rebellion a servant is talked into performing, the easier it becomes. The size and scope of the offense toward the master also increase with each iteration because the more an individual is drawn away from the light, the greater the darkness in their heart.

Deception is not benign. One small deception will lead to ever greater ones because the purpose of deception is to ever so slowly draw you away from the truth to the point that there is more darkness than light, and what you believe becomes less and less harmonious with what the Bible says.

Matthew 24:29, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

Given the technological timeframe we live in, we can more readily understand how the words of Jesus could come about in our day than the disciples could have perceived in their day. Even so, they didn’t arch their eyebrows or ask how this could be. They didn’t discount Christ’s words because they couldn’t explain how what He said could come about; they took Him at His word and believed.

Modern-day scientific models have concluded that in case of nuclear war, some 99 percent of the sunlight would be absorbed by the smoke and soot introduced into the atmosphere. What Jesus was referring to was not an eclipse but something far more detrimental to humanity. Not only would the sun be darkened, but the moon would likewise not give its light. This will not be some astrological event, like a planetary alignment or an eclipse, but rather something that would bar both the illumination produced by the light of the sun and moon.  No sunlight would mean no crops, no crops would mean worldwide famine, and what mankind thought was terrible would turn downright nightmarish.

On the heels of the wars, pestilences, earthquakes, famines, and fearful sights and great signs from heaven, while those who are still left are roiling from the aftermath of these things, the addition of the sun being darkened and the moon not giving its light will be another sign.

Cataclysmic doesn’t begin to do it justice if we read the words of Jesus and understand them through the prism of modern-day warfare and man’s ability to utterly destroy everything with the push of a button. What seemed improbable, even impossible, two thousand years ago is within the realm of possibility today.

This also brings understanding to Luke’s description of the last days of the world wherein men’s hearts will fail from fear and the expectation of those things that are coming on the earth. It has become apparent that certain governments are slow-walking the world to the next global war. Even those who don’t keep up with what’s happening in the world are starting to take note, and those who think that the next world war will be akin to a video game, with drone against drone somewhere over an unpopulated desert have yet to take into account the words Jesus spoke, and so fail to understand the magnitude of what will be.

Everything’s a sign for those looking for a sign unless the sign contradicts their preconceived notions or worldview. Then, even though the sign might be something Jesus said we should be on the lookout for, we try to explain it away and justify our unwillingness to gauge how close we are to the end. It’s an odd dichotomy that can only be remedied by individually walking humbly with our Lord and knowing His Word and His voice.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.