“And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.” (Isaiah 2:2)
The thing is, it has been over 6,000 years, and it has not come to pass yet. The Almighty does not look at the passage of time like we do, He is not trapped in the molasses of it, as I call it, this extremely slow-moving river of life that seems somedays to go on forever. We will fill our time in the hopes of death or the Rapture to be released from it, we suffer as best as we can through the trials, tribulations and temptations that assail us, we watch as evil abounds and becomes bolder each passing day.
We pray for the Lord to use us for His glory.
These trials of the mind are rarely felt by the young, but those who have seen many decades of life are well versed with them, and if blessed with wisdom from the Lord do all we can to warn not so much of the coming days of Jacob’s Troubles, though they are part of our ministry in these days, but of eternal damnation to those who see us as foolish. “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor. 1:18)
It is only the power of the Holy Spirit that allows us to see clearly these truths, that “For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity.” (Eccl. 2:23) That we are but dust, that every achievement outside of the glory of God will count as nothing.
The best that we can offer those who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior is the Word of God. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:17) Our transformed lives prove nothing of the Most High to them, at best we have simply finished sewing our wild oats, we have placed our priorities on a different level, we have only matured. History repeats itself; nations rise and fall, evil men come and go. That is why when we speak to them, we must make it personal, and the most personal aspect of any person’s life is their death.
I have personally witnessed the cessation of life both in man and beast, after that last breath they exist on this earth no longer. “For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.” (Isaiah 38:18) Until this truth has become a reality to you, that you will in fact die, you will never contemplate what comes after.
Part of what they call foolishness that they hear from us is that truth, that there is only one of two places available to the departed soul, there is no purgatory, there is no Valhalla or planet that you will become the god of, there is hell and there is heaven. There is a Sovereign Lord over all creation, and that creation includes these two places. The problem is, we cannot open the curtain and show them the fires of hell, we cannot remove the veil of heaven and say, “See, here is what could be yours.”
We can show them the Words of God, but only the Holy Spirit of God can convict them of these truths.
If you have been crucified with Christ this is a great burden and frustration to you, as Moses stood in the gap for the people, as Paul asked that he would be blotted out of the Lamb’s Book of Life if all Israel could be saved, we must love those we meet enough to at least offer them these truths, that they are going to die, and after that, if they will not acknowledge that the Lord Jesus Christ as the only way to the Father, all hope will be gone forever.
There is no second chance, this life is the only opportunity.
This too shall pass. Once we are home this burden will be no more, it will be left to those who still live here on earth. Today that is you, not your pastors, not the elders or deacons, not men who are “closer to God,” it is your responsibility, and you will be judged on your efforts in this area.
