When we wake up each new morning, we face bewilderment and confusion all over the earth. We humans cover the earth like little ants running around when you disturb them, and yet we humans are the family of God. We are created in His image; the glorious Creator of the vast universe left His high and holy place and became one of us. We are not "ants," we are sons and daughters of God "in Him." We are fellow-saints with Him engaged in the greatest struggle that has ever been waged in the universe--the controversy between Christ and Satan. We are not spectators at the arena; we are players on the field.
What's happening around us is the closing scene of this titanic war between two "spirits"--the One designated in the Bible as "Holy," and "the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience" who is inspired by "the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world" (Eph. 2:2; Rev. 12:9).
How can "the whole world" be deceived? Jesus says that so terrible will be the deception that it will come "on the face of the whole earth" like "a snare" (Luke 21:35). It's happening now. But thank God, not everyone will be deceived.
Think what it was like when Jesus was born; the masses knew the inspired prophecies of the Old Testament or at least had ready access to them if they didn't want to be deceived, yet how many recognized the Messiah when He came as a humble Baby in Bethlehem? Some did, but only a few.
So today; there is for sure "a remnant" (Rom. 9:27); "few that be saved" (Luke 13:23), who have learned the lesson of Bethlehem, who "walk softly" (1 Kings 21:27), who respond to "the still small voice" (1 Kings 19:12), that calls them in God's word, who choose to believe every truth that the Holy Spirit teaches as "He guides you into all truth" (John 16:13), who "follow the Lamb [the crucified Christ] wherever He goes" (Rev. 14:4, 5), who are "with Him" as He takes His final stand in the struggle of the nations of earth (Rev. 17:14) , who identify with "the Lamb" so closely that they penetrate His thinking and His feelings as a bride penetrates her husband's deepest yearnings.
Amid earth's clash of arms and the din of its endless traffic, LISTEN.
Copyright © 2009 by Robert J. Wieland.
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