“Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength.” (Prov. 8:14)
If you are the strongest person on your block, if your physical strength far outweighs all that you know, you have a choice to make, you can either rule with fear or with compassion, you can lead by strength of character for the benefit of others, or you can rule by shear force.
Pay attention to the last part of this verse. “The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” (Jer. 31:3) It is love that stays the strange work of the Almighty, His wrath and vengeance, but only upon those He loves.
The man that rules by fear will not rule for long, for someone, or perhaps a large group of people, will end his rule, but the one who rules with compassion will not rule for long either, for those that love are hated by those who are of the world. Satan is well aware of these truths and has emboldened those who follow him with a false love, one that enables them to believe they are performing deeds worthy of acceptance, deceiving many with promises he cannot fulfill.
“Free” money, allowing the “poor” to steal, enabling protest groups, those that stand against the will and Word of God, to act as they will and setting into law protections for them.
“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20)
To stand against what is being called loving today is called evil and will be punished by the strong in society.
“For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.” (Mark 11:23)
So why don’t we? Either we do not have this miniscule amount of faith, or we are not being allowed to perform this deed.
Satan’s power is beyond anything conceivable to us, but we have the Holy Spirit of the Living God within us, He is the strongest one on the block, and He has chosen to use compassion in these days of grace. No matter how frustrated we become, no matter how much we are angered nearly every day by what we are witnessing in the world, we are not allowed to cast those evil men to the depths of the ocean by a single word.
The power we have been blessed with is to be restrained. But not inhibited.
If you have noticed, about the only thing our adversary has as his greatest weapon is words, deceitful, subtle, lying words that he is extremely well versed in applying.
“For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.” (1st Cor. 2:16) Not the attitude of Christ, not the emulation of the life of the Savior, not the character of His actions, but the Word of God is our sword, and to stand in these most evil of days you must wield those words with wisdom. You cannot offer your opinions on them, you must speak the words of life, the words of power, that is not only your shield in these days, they are your strength to stand.
The two witnesses will perform mighty deeds during the Tribulation, the 144,000 will do what we desire to do today, see the evil destroyed, cast into the depths of the sea, but we are not allowed to. We stand on the Rock, and the Rock of Ages has commanded us to act in love.
Some who have been crucified with Christ are as much of a warrior as Caleb was, with the same desire to go and kill the giants, but in one respect we have been told to stand down.
There is as much honor in dying on your knees praying as there is dying standing in the battle.
