Patience extended is an excellent training ground, the longer people need to be patient, the longer one finds out just where their true standards lie. A good place to perceive this truth is on the social media sites where the Charismatics congregate, those who need dreams and visions to strengthen what supposed faith in Christ they proclaim to have. They search high and low to find the next “unnatural event,” the next fire or flood, the next upheaval of mankind, the next new sign, and after a period of time, if they diminish, so does their patience.
These days we are in are in part to separate the chaff from the wheat, to separate those with patience and those who must have another sign, those whose faith is not in Christ, but in something, or someone else. “In your patience possess ye your souls.” (Luke 21:19) Those who wait upon Christ to draw us up into the clouds to be with Him forever (1 Thess. 4:17) must possess great patience, and they must not tarry long at the signs, that is not our responsibility any more than it is to search through the news reports for them. We are to be ambassadors for Christ to the glory of God, and that means not only warning people of these days, but of where they will spend eternity if they do not acknowledge Christ as Lord.
We do not need all the “signs of the times” to accomplish what has been set before us, the task that we are to be about on a daily basis, but it is how the human mind works. The greater the danger, the more desire there is to find a place of refuge. In times of plenty, in times of relative peace, most of those that we speak to have little need for patience, life is long, and time is relative, when happiness is the order of the day, the Lord is not the first thing on their minds, but it takes very little for these emotion-based individuals to take a turn for the worse, so to speak.
This supposed pandemic, which is not what the narrative says it is, is the perfect breeding ground for fear, and fear is the perfect place to lead many in a pre-determined desired path. But fear when prolonged does not remain as frightening, does not retain its effect upon us, in fact, humans can live quite well with a modicum of fear. Our adversary would rather see us despondent and in despair than in fear, and when we start to lose our patience, when we start to stop expecting that which we have hoped for, for so long, we become despondent, we despair for that which we hoped for.
Jeremiah warned the people of his day for more than twenty years, and I would presume that when he first began to do what the Lord commanded him to do, there may have been some that listened intently, some that may have feared what was approaching, but patience is fickle, and as time passes, so does patience.
These days we are in could last for quite a while, and while that statement for many in these days of the need for instant gratification, that could end up being quite discomforting, years can seem like a lifetime to some. Many will find that they do not have the patience spoken of in the Scriptures, they will start to flip through the channels instead of watching the current destructive event, they will go back to their cat videos and the idle banter on the social media sites, they will not persevere, they will find that they are not of the wheat. Two thousand years is a long time to be patient.