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So He told us what was coming and THIS is our strategy…really?

By C. J. Refsland on May 4, 2013 • ( 2 )

RE-Blogged From Durable Faith

^{Rev 13:16 ”}He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, ¹⁷so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. ¹⁸This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man’s number. His number is 666.”

^{Matthew 24:}⁷Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. ⁸All these are the beginning of birth pains. ⁹“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.

¹⁹How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! ²⁰Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. ²¹For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. ²²If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. ²³At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. ²⁴For false Christ’s and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible. ²⁵See, I have told you ahead of time.”

Jesus went to great lengths to make sure we knew IN ADVANCE that the days would come when…

1) All nations of the earth would eventually unite in their hatred and persecution of Christians (MT 24:9)

2) A leader in this united world government would emerge and would deny people the right to buy or sell anything unless they trade in their faith for allegiance to the beast. (REV 13:16-17)

3) He also made it clear that we should seek wisdom and use it to navigate the challenging times and that we should attempt to endure to the end. (REV 13:18, MT 24:25)

So, we had a 2,000 year head start, we knew what was coming. We had time to develop strategies, to set plans in action, to position ourselves as well as possible. How are we doing so far?

Let’s put it this way, if we were living in Noah’s times we would drown. If we were living in Joseph’s time, we (and all of Egypt) would starve.

We do of course have a strategy. Based on our actions (and lack of actions) our strategy appears to be:

1. Work hard to blend in with the lost world around us.

2. Become utterly dependent on said world and get addicted to all of its conveniences.

3. Pretend that the daily news has no resemblance to prophecy and hope that we will be long gone before times get really bad.

There is one potential problem with our plan, Jesus just might be right…and if He is, our paperbacks, movies, and our end-time-prophecy charts aren’t going to give us much comfort.