Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
There are two truths that are especially clear to anyone who allows the Bible to speak in its context: (1) We are living in the last days just before the second coming of Christ, and (2) there is a special spiritual work to be accomplished for those who will stand firm for Christ in the "mark of the beast" crisis and be ready to be translated at His coming.
"There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time" (Dan. 12:1). It is spoken of as the "time of Jacob's trouble" (Jer. 30:7). No such severe test has ever come to the corporate body of God's people. Although their anguish will be great, God will not forsake them. Butit will appear to them that He has! In other words, there will be nothing to support them except their faith. This will be no test for "Christians" who are "lukewarm," of childish spiritual development! They will be the ones who will "drink" of Christ's "cup" and will be "baptized with [His] baptism" of spiritual test (see Matt. 20:20-22).
Anyone who feels competent to "drink" of that "cup" just doesn't know his or her own heart! Jeremiah says that in that day "all faces [will be] turned pale" (30:6). All will face darkness as black as that which enveloped Jesus on His cross when He cried out, "My God, why have You forsaken Me?" God will notforsake them, but everything will tell them that He has; and only their faith will pull them through. At last they will live 100 percent by faith and not even 1 percent by sight. And "let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall" (1 Cor. 10:12).
It's a cruel deception to lull sincere people to sleep with the thought that no special spiritual preparation is necessary! "Just say your prayers as usual, pay your tithe, try to be good, and you're OK. There's no difference in being ready to die and being ready for that final time of trouble."
But there is a difference and it is spelled out clearly in Day of Atonement living. These are the last days when Jesus' words make great good sense: "When you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near. ... Take heed to yourselves, lest ... that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth" (Luke 21:31-35).
The difference in spiritual preparation? Not a super-works trip, but a more developed faith--the key ingredient in experiential "justification by faith."
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: December 2, 1999.
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