Light in the Lord

Do we ever ask when the chaos in the world is going to come to an end? How our Father will bring about His kingdom on earth? This Kingdom, brothers and sisters will eventually be established, but it will be with the sudden coming of Jesus, as a thief in the night, when the world is unprepared for him. But first we must be convinced that there will be nothing but violence in the beginning in order to crush and punish tyrants, and prepare the way for the amelioration of society. The establishment of the kingdom was planned by God Himself from the very beginning. But people do not understand this. They are blind to the scriptural teaching and cannot see the difference between near and far objects. They cannot comprehend.

Jesus himself said “O you hypocrites. You can discern the face of the sky, but how is it that you cannot discern the signs of the times?” God is saying to the nations with a voice of thunder that the time has come when He will intervene and destroy the wicked. “The nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time of the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints and those who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth” (Rev 11:18).

Animal man does have a chance to read God’s word but when man’s wickedness and stupidity become obstacles to God’s purpose, He removes them out of the way and replaces them with others. In this way He regulates and controls the world.

We must still keep on loving each other, brothers and sisters, even though the world is going from bad to worse. We hear every day about war, people crying for food, unemployment – so many bad things are happening to the earth. What is the cure? “For a long time I have held my peace; I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will gasp and pant.” (Isaiah 42:14).

Brothers and sisters in Christ our King, we must cease to take an interest in human affairs. Many men and women of this world never think about the return of our Lord to the earth. They speculate upon passing events as though they were formed for no noble destiny but to fret out a brief and crushing existence in a precarious competition for food and raiment. They labour with asinine endurance at the whim of those who by violence, avarice and fraud have gained ascendancy over them. The men of this world do not have God in their thoughts when they treat the affairs of men.

The way of the world is sin. The despots reign with heartless and hateful deformity. They are enthroned, and decorated with crowns, tiara and coronets for their superstitions of a dark age, linked with fraud, hypocrisy and murder. They want to de-fuse truth and science among the people.

But we, as true Christians, take no part in the armed forces. We remember the word of God every day of our lives on earth. “The sentence is by the decree of watchers, decisions by the word of the holy ones, to the end that the living may know that the most high rules in the kingdoms of men and gives to whom He will, and sets over it the lowest of men” (Daniel 4:17). God shapes the course of events towards the consummation predetermined from the foundation of the world.

In past days, God had His own people among the nations who were wise in His word. They informed everyone of what God intends to do, before it comes to pass; “He reveals his secrets unto his servants the prophets” (Amos 8:7). This revelation is made so that His own people’s faith may be confirmed and enlarged, so that in every generation they might know the times and seasons to which they stand related. This is why we are given an exhortation by the apostle: “We have sure word of prophecy whereunto you do well to take heed, as unto a light that shineth into a dark place until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:21). The prophecy came not at any time by the will of men, but it was God Himself telling them, having seen the sins of man, so they know about the good things to come. “Brethren, be mindful of the words spoken by the holy prophets. Therefore, beloved, seeing you know these things before, beware, lest you, are led away with the error of the wicked” (2 Peter 3:2,16,17).

From these promises, we may conclude that, as the Lord has revealed what is to come to pass in these latter days, it is both our duty and privilege to make ourselves acquainted with it, that our faith may be strengthened. It is our own fault if we are not ‘light in the Lord’. He plainly sets before us what is happening in our day and what is yet to occur. Hence, while the priests of the state church are exclaiming ‘Give peace in our time! O Lord’ (leaders’ voices crying ‘peace and safety’), even while war and political murders abound, to us who take heed of the prophetic word, we have to recognize that the hour of our Father’s judgement is at hand, and their destruction is at the door (Rev 16:15,16).

Bro Charles Daka (Mufulira, Zambia)