Habakkuk 2

Then the Lord replied: "Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay."

Friday, December 27, 2024

When Their Hour Comes

“I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.


“I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” (John 16:1-7 ESV)


What Jesus Did For Us


Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, who is God, the second person of our triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – left his throne in heaven, came to earth, was born as a baby to a human mother, but was conceived of the Holy Spirit. So when Jesus lived on the earth he was fully human and fully God (God incarnate, in the flesh). And during his 3 years of ministry before his death, he performed many miracles and he preached repentance for forgiveness of sins.


Jesus was loved by a few, and he was temporarily followed by the multitudes because of the miracles that he performed. But many leaders in the temple of God, who were in positions of power and rule and influence over the people, hated Jesus. They opposed him, and they harassed him and tried to trip him up with his words, and they falsely accused him of wrong he did not do. Partially this was because they were jealous of his popularity, and they were threatened by him, but they also opposed what he taught the people.


They could not get him to give up, and they could not silence him, and so they plotted his death on a cross, and they managed to turn the crowds against him to where they all cried out for him to be crucified. And so they persuaded the Roman government to put Jesus to death on a cross, although he had done no wrong. But when Jesus died he took our sins upon himself and he put them to death with him, and then he was resurrected from the dead in victory over sin, death, hell and Satan, on our behalf.


Because of what Jesus Christ did for us on that cross we can now, by God-persuaded and God-gifted faith in him, die with him to sin and now live with him in walks of obedience to his commands (New Covenant) and in holy living – all by his grace and in his power at work within us who believe in him. And because, after his death and resurrection, he went back to the Father, we now have the Holy Spirit living within us who believe in Jesus who serves to guide, instruct, teach, and counsel us in the way we are to go.


[Isaiah 53:1-12; Matt 26:26-29; Lu 17:25; Jn 1:1-36; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 8:24,58; Jn 20:28-29; Rom 5:8; Rom 9:5; 1 Co 11:23-32; 1 Co 15:1-8; Php 2:5-11; Col 2:9; Heb 1:8-9; Heb 2:14-15; Heb 4:15; 2 Pet 1:1]  


Persecutions on The Rise


When we believe in Jesus with this God-given and God-persuaded faith in him, and we are crucified with him in death to sin, then we are raised with him to walk in newness of life in him, no longer to live as slaves to sin but as slaves to God and to his righteousness. Sin is now no longer to be our master, but Jesus Christ is to be Lord (Owner-Master) of our lives, and our lives are to be surrendered to him to do his will. And part of his will for us is that we are to be sharing the gospel of our salvation with other people.


But we need to be making sure that the message that we are sharing is the biblical gospel taught by Jesus and by his NT apostles, taught in their appropriate context. And that message, in a nutshell, is that Jesus died on that cross, and was raised from the dead, in order that we might now die to sin (put sin to death in our lives) and now live for him in walks of surrender to him and in obedience to his commands and to the ways he has for us to live, as his disciples (followers). This is the essence of the gospel message.


But in our day and time, at least this is so in America, not many are believing the gospel that Jesus taught and that Paul and the other apostles taught (IN CONTEXT). But the masses appear to be teaching/sharing and/or believing a very diluted and altered gospel message meant to appeal to human flesh. For it makes no demands for its adherents to deny self, put sin to death daily (die daily to sin), and to walk (in conduct, in practice) in obedience to our Lord and to his commands as part of faith which saves.


So, if you are a genuine follower of Jesus Christ (one of his disciples) whose life is committed to serving the Lord, and so you are also one who is deliberately and habitually sharing with others the truth of the gospel, then expect to be opposed, rejected, persecuted, hated, falsely accused, and cast aside as unwanted and unnecessary, and perhaps even put to death, because you are following in the footsteps of Jesus in sharing what he taught with the people of the world and with professing Christians, too.


And you may even be put out of some institutional market-driven churches or any gatherings of what are called “churches” if what you are teaching is the truth of the gospel and not the lies which tickle itching ears. Same may apply if you stand up for truth and righteousness and you speak out against deception and trickery and the manipulation of people’s minds, for you cannot agree with lies and trickery and deception and mind manipulation as a means to attract the people of the world to these “church” gatherings.


I have been banned from one church property for speaking the truth of what the Scriptures teach (in private with a woman’s Bible study group). I have been forced to lie in order to have a meeting with church leadership, and when I refused, I was put on church discipline for not coming to their meeting. I have been screamed at for testing what I hear taught as truth, against the Scriptures, and for opposing false doctrines, and told I must be like the majority, not the minority. And I have been judged falsely based on the opinion of others, too.


And that is only a small sampling of what I have endured at the hands of “church” leadership or my “fellow Christians,” because I stand for truth and righteousness and I oppose lies and deceptive practices. But Jesus told us ahead of time that if we follow his example that we will also be treated as he was. And I have been treated like he was treated except I am still alive. But I have encouragers, too, though I have not had them all the time, but they are few in numbers (the ones I know of). But what did Jesus say?


Those who hate and persecute those who are genuine (biblical) followers of Christ do so because they don’t really know God – Father, Son Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit – intimately. They are not in personal and private fellowship with the Lord or they would see that their actions are wrong. I can’t say whether or not they were ever of genuine faith in the Lord Jesus, but they are not in deep fellowship with the Lord or they would be following him and not the flesh, and not these false gospel messages to appease the flesh.


Now persecution is to be defined by God and by Jesus Christ and how they have (he has) been treated by many who oppose him and the truth of his gospel. And the gospel is to be defined by Jesus and by the apostles as taught in the appropriate context, and in comparing Scripture with Scripture so that you don’t believe something which can be out of context of what the whole of the Scriptures teach as the gospel message. And they teach if we continue in sin and not in obedience to God, we do not have eternal life.


[Matt 7:13-14,21-23; Lu 9:23-26; Jn 10:27-30; Ac 26:18; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 12:1-2; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 10:1-22; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:1-17; Tit 2:11-14; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6,15-17; 1 Jn 3:4-10]


Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,

Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;

Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;

Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrYhiK2nQBg 


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