We our in the end of days, the Last days, the Apocalypse. The world is in a lawless and chaotic state, prophecised by Jesus Christ our God and His Apostles. The allusion that everything is going to get better is meant to deceive diciples so that they arte not ready to receive the Second Coming of Christ. The brief recovery and restoration of Christendom will be met swiftly with cataclysmic conquering of Christians everywhere by the Antichrist and Man of Lawlessness. The Scriptures tell us, "And the beast was allowed to wage war against God's holy people and to conquer them. And he was given authority to rule over every tribe and people and language and nation." (Revelation 13:7). The Beast or Leopard of Revelation is the Man of Sin and Lawless One, whom many call the Antichrist. The unlucky Revelation 13 tells us of the unholy triad, the Dragon (Satan), the Beast of the Earth (False prophet), and the Beast of the Sea/Leopard (The Antichrist). All of them are ultimately thrown in Lake of Fire at the Judgement Day (Revelation 20:10), however not until after they have been given free reign to rule over everyone with their tyranny, including us Christians (Revealtion 13:7). I believe this is already at work, that the Antichrist is starting to crush us through conforming to homosexuality and destroying Christians either literally via crucifixion, execution by rifle, and more in Iran, Syria, and beyond, or in a more political and social economic way here in the United States, where if you voice traditional values of the Bible on marriage, abortion, and etc you at singled out, black balled, and made into a villan, as Chip and JoJo Gains of "Fixer Upper" on HGTV are facing, and the Bendum Brothers experienced over their values.
The hard cold facts is that being Christian is going to be unpopular, and we are going to be persecuted, put to death, and put in prision. All nations are going to join the Antichrist to do a world wild program or pogrom of us believers, "Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me/Then you will be arrested, persecuted, and killed. You will be hated all over the world because you are my followers." (Matthew 24:9). A couple of notes on this, all nations did not hate and persecute the Apostles, in fact Asia, Rome, Egypt, Greece, Spain, Samaria, and many peoples were so enthuasitic about the Gospel and Christianity that they received it readily (Acts 2:5-41, Acts 8:26-40, Acts 28: 17-31, Romans 16:5, Galatians 2:9 >Peter apostle to Jews and Paul apostle to Gentiles<), and Jerusalem and Judea were overtaken by the Gospel (Acts 5:28, Acts 2:47, Acts 6:7 >most of Jerusalem came to believe and even Jewish Pharisee Priests!<). So for those Preterists reading this blog, you cannot claim all nations hated the Apostles, nor can you claim it was Four Hundred Year Great Persecution of the Church under Caesars, because again that was a Roman persecution, Ethiopia and other nations were not included.
What is startling for many post-tribulation people is that the End of Days chapters and books of the Bible do not say we are spared persecution and tribulation, "Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." (Matthew 24:29-30). Notice that it says after the Tribulation of those days Christ Comes on the Clouds, there is no rapture, because we are told in Revelation, "And the beast was allowed to wage war against God's holy people and to conquer them. And he was given authority to rule over every tribe and people and language and nation." (Revelation 13:7). How can the Antichrist rule over God's holy people, us saints and Christians if we are raptured before all the tribulation? And then how do you make sense of Christ saying, "I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8), and "In fact, unless that time of calamity is shortened, not a single person will survive. But it will be shortened for the sake of God's chosen ones." (Matthew 24:22).
We know we are living in the end of days because of the lawlessness, "At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
But the one who endures to the end will be saved." (Matthew 24:10-13). Cross reference "lawlessness and love grows cold" to these verses, "But understand this: In the last days terrible times will come, People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy (They will consider nothing sacred), They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power (they will act religious but deny the power that could make them holy). Avoid such people." (2 Timothy 3:1-5). Here we see how love is grown cold as Christ said in Matthew 24:12, and we come to understand the lawlessness that increases by these verses, "Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness." (2 Thessalonians 2:1-12). The Lawlessness is already at work the Apostle Paul says in this epistle, and that the constrainer (restrainer) is holding back the Lawless One (Antichrist) but he shall remove his constraining, I believe this to already have happened, "For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way." (2 Thessalonians 2;17). I believe as one Scientist Christian on radio claimed, that the constrainer or one who retrains the lawlessness is the Archangel Michael, for it was he that held back Satan in war in heaven and lead the fight against the fallen angels (Revelation).
The truth is that we have rude awakening coming to us. While Chinese, Iranian, Syrian, Sudanese, Russian, and other Christian brothers and sisters already are experiencing high levels of persecution and are equipped for the endurance needed in these end times to keep faith tell Jesus Returns, many of us Christians in privileged lands like the United States of America, United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, and more have lived with relatively little or no persecution (compared to countries in Middle East and China), and so preparing and enduring for us it going to require fast adaptation. We are suppose to be like the believers in Revelation: "Then I heard a loud voice shouting across the heavens, "It has come at last--salvation and power and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser (the devil) of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down to earth--the one who accuses them before our God day and night. They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death/And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony. And they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die." (Revelation 12:10-11). We are suppose to be ready to be so accused, persecuted, tempted by the accuser (Satan) and be willing to die for our faith in Jesus Christ, and love Christ so much we do not shrink from being martyred. This is why the Apostle Paul went this far in his profession of faith in Christ, "Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ," (Phillippians 3:8), "I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have complete boldness, so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.," (Phillippians 1:20-21), and "O death where is your sting? O hades where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ," (1 Corinthians 15:55-57), and Jesus Christ our God (Colossians 2;9) says, "I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades," (Revelation 1:18), "Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:24-25).
We are suppose to be ready to die for our faith and love for Jesus Christ. We are suppose to be ready at any moment, "but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect," (1 Peter 3:15) and "I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His kingdom, Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction/Preach the word of God. Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching." (2 Timothy 4:1-2). We must be ready to die for Christ and defend Him and our faith to point of being persecuted, put in prison, and put to death. As one Iranian Christian brother said to his torturer, "I will not give up my fellow brothers, but I will tell you who my leader is. [At this the torturer said, "who is he?"] I said to Him, His name is Jesus Christ, if you can catch Him then I will confess." This Iranian brother in Christ was then beaten, left wasting in prison, and only was released by Divine Providence of Jesus Christ. We must become bold, and be ready to be beaten, even unto death for Christ! We our Jesus' disciples, and He died for us, so we must be ready to die for Him! For in these end times we are told to be expecting Christ's return, "Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day--and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing." (2 Timothy 4:8). The time has come for us Christians in America and in privileged countries to toughen up, and to count "everything lost and worthless, but knowing Christ Jesus." (Phillippians 3:8). If we are to endure and behold Christ coming and destroying the Antichrist/Man of Lawlessness/Beast (2 Thessalonians 2:8), behold Christ set up His Kingdom (Revelation 20:4-8), and behold Satan destroyed (Revelation 20:10) then we must endure through the Great Persecution that is coming (Revelation 13:7, Matthew 24:9).
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