“WHEN THE SON OF MAN COMES, WILL HE FIND FAITH ON THE EARTH?”

Jesus asked this question of His disciples just after he told them a parable in which He gave them instruction on how to pray. (Luke 18:7)

(I wrote another post on this passage of Scripture last year. To view that post click here.)

I do think the Lord will find faith on the earth when He returns, but I also think He is saying He won’t find much faith on the earth and here’s why…

In Matthew 24 we learn that prior to the Lord’s coming many are going to fall away from the faith (Mt. 24:10) during the period of great tribulation. (Mt. 24:21)

The reason I tie this falling away to the great tribulation is because of the word, “Therefore”, in verse 15. That word ties what is said previously to what is said after.

In my previous post I show that genuine saving faith, faith that is truly a work of God, is enduring faith. Enduring faith will not fail because of its Source and Sustainer. Those then that fall away during the great tribulation never were energized with God given faith. God completes every work in the heart that He begins. (Phil. 1:6)

In the parable of the soils Jesus says that the gospel that falls on rocky soil is one in whom the good news never takes firm root. It is at first received with joy but when affliction or persecution comes because of the word, this person, with no firm root, falls away. (Mt. 13:20,21) The church will manifest that it is full of hearts with rocky soil because when the great tribulation hits, many will fall away. I looked up the word “many” in my dictionary. Webster defines it as “more”, “most”, “numerous”. Also as “a large number.” I think it is safe to say “many” is probably over half. Wow…

Let’s say then that over half of those who claim to be Christ followers do fall away after Antichrist takes his seat in the temple and demands worship. These “tares” or “look-a-like” believers love their life more than the Lord. They never really truly loved the Lord or had genuine, saving, enduring faith. The true Christ followers on the other hand are being killed left and right. They did not love their life even when faced with death. When persecution comes because of the word, they hold fast to the word of their testimony. (Rev. 12:11)

Jesus said unless those days of great tribulation are cut short, no life would be saved, but for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short. (Mt. 24:22) The slaughter is going to be great. Where will most of the faithful be found when Christ returns? With the Lord!

Paul tells the Thessalonians that God will bring with Him at Christ’s coming those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. This would include those slain for the word of their testimony during the great tribulation. All the dead in Christ will return with Christ and be joined with those who are alive and remain! What a gathering this is going to be!

Yes, there will be faith on the earth when the Son of Man returns, but I think most of it He will bring with Him when He comes…

God energizes faith...

...man exercises faith.

We know that faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:17) God begins the good work of conforming us to the image of His Son with an encounter with His word and He says He will perfect it until the day of Christ. (Philippians 1:6)

From Romans 8:30 we learn that in the plan and mind of God this good work, this conforming us to the image of His Son, is already accomplished. "And these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified."

Faith that is genuinely a work of God therefore is enduring faith and will not fail.

FAITH

So, I settled in with my NASB concordance this morning and looked up the word faith. There are at least six verses I believe that clearly indicate that faith originates from God, not us.

Here they are:

Hebrews 12:2 – “Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith…”
2 Peter 1:1 – “…who have received a faith of the same kind as ours…”
Philippians 1:29 – “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him…”
Acts 3:16 – “And the basis of faith in His name…and the faith which comes through Him…”
Ephesians 2:8 – “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves…”
Romans 12:3 – “…as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”

It is God who energizes faith in the believer’s heart. What is our part in faith? That is one of my questions. Paul talks about the obedience of faith. (Romans 1:5) After God energizes faith into our hearts we are to choose to be obedient to our Lord. With the choice of obedience comes blessing, with the choice of disobedience we set ourselves up for our Heavenly Father's discipline. Jesus said that he who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. (John 3:36) Faith and obedience go hand in hand.

I've mentioned Pastor James MacDonald's definition of faith before.

Here it is again:

"Faith is believing the Word of God and acting on it, no matter how I feel, because God promises a good result."

Do you see the element of obedience in that definition? Faith is believing the Word of God, and then acting on it...

Did you know that Romans has the most references to the word faith? Over forty! Is it any wonder? This is the book in which Paul says the righteous man shall live by faith. (Romans 1:17) Once God energizes faith into our hearts, this is the sphere from which we are to operate. The writer of Hebrews says that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Do we always exercise faith? The obvious answer is no. We have weak faith sometimes. Romans 4:20 says that Abraham grew strong in faith. Faith can be strengthened. Paul gave thanks for the Thessalonians because their faith was greatly enlarged. (2 Th. 1:3) Faith can grow. Faith takes root in the heart with the hearing of the Word (Romans 10:17) and then grows as we let the Word dwell in us…as we keep our eyes fixed on the Word, the Author and Perfecter of faith. We take in the Word - our view of God enlarges and our faith enlarges. How important it is to be in the Word!

I've just barely scratched the surface and this is a study that is inexhaustible, but that's where my thoughts have been as of late.

Have a great day pondering...

Ephesians 2:4-7

This is an incredible passage of scripture to me.

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."

I don't want to give you much commentary other than that this truly speaks of our amazing privilege of being placed in Christ by the mercy and grace of God. I then want to point you to what Paul says in Ephesians 4:1...

"Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called..."

He's done incredible things for you...live correspondingly to your high position...

With privilege comes responsibility...then blessing, after blessing, after blessing...and we will continue in that privilege and blessing of seeing His kindness towards us put on display throughout eternity.

God's grace and kindness should change how we live now...

Christ died not only to save us...

...He also died to own us, therefore we need to live in that ownership. God is the one Who judges. We are not to judge one another. We have freedom in Christ to make choices based on our convictions (that are not moral or sin issues)...BUT, be aware of the convictions of your brothers and sisters in Christ and who you are in their life. Don't be a stumbling block to them - choose love.

“I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS”

This post is written with my daughter Annie in mind…

A few posts back, in the thread of comments, Annie mentioned she liked it when I asked her questions which required mulling.

In Matthew 28:20 the Lord tells us that He will be with us always, even to the end of the age…when He returns and will receive us unto Himself.

Here’s a question for you Annie…

What are the ramifications of the Lord’s promise in Matthew 28:20, “…I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

My mind settles on three issues...these words address our comfort, our commitments, and our conduct.

Regarding our comfort, always is a 100% word…This is a promise that He will never leave us nor forsake us, no matter what trial we are going through. These are words we can draw upon for comfort and assurance during those difficult times. We learn in Mt. 24 that before He returns at the end of the age the times are going to get extremely difficult.

“I am with you always…”

Secondly, regarding our commitments, I’m going to narrow it down to two. The Lord calls His followers to serve in the Body and to bring the good news to the lost. His continual presence empowers us for both of those tasks and we can engage in those endeavors with great joy and diligence knowing He is always with us - providing the strength.

“I am with you always…”

Thirdly, regarding our conduct, the knowledge of the Lord’s continual presence should affect what we think, what we say, how we feel, where we go, and what we do…It should call us to holiness at all times.

“I am with you always…”

Once we belong to the Lord He is with us always…that is truly mind-blowing as well as empowering. It’s something in which I could lose my thoughts for hours…

Seeing Jesus Christ as our Greatest Treasure...

...demands that we worship Him and walk like Him.

November 16, 1985

I have a treasure box where I keep well, treasures. If I were to let you look in my treasure box you would find sweet notes from my husband, letters from my mother, my grandmother's Bible study notes, some of her poems, pictures my children drew for me when they were young, cards and notes they'd written to me as well, and now pictures and notes from my granddaughter. I found a poem I'd written on the date you see above. I'm not a poet by any stretch of the imagination. It's the only poem I remember writing as an adult. It's not very good. I was twenty-seven when I wrote it. Eighteen years prior to that I heard the gospel and understood the word of truth. I was in a neighborhood Good News Club. I'd grown up in church since birth, hearing the gospel often, while in Sunday School, church, and VBS. But it was at that Good News Club that the Lord removed the blinders and the glory of Christ shone in my heart. I immediately went home and told my mother and grandmother. Soon after I was baptized. I remember being very frightened when I was beckoned down those steps and into the water. I was crying. I did not want to go. My grandmother spoke softly into my ear, reassuring me everything would be ok. After a couple of minutes I finally did go down those steps but I really don't remember anything else. In my twenties I had a growing desire to be baptized again. It would be a joyous occasion without fear and with complete understanding as to its meaning. I think I wrote this poem around that time. Before salvation we are dead in our trespasses and sins. When God causes us to be born again, we are raised with Christ, we are raised in newness of life.

Bound in chains, a child of wrath
A child of Satan was I
Death's cold grip, strong and secure
Surely around me did lie.

Able only to serve the Angel of Light
His temptations glistening strong
Lead by my lusts, deceitfully bright
I thought I could do no wrong.

Then the Ancient of Days, full of grace and truth
Revealed my sin and shame
Mercy was mine, forgiven and cleansed
No longer crippled and lame.

Placed in the heavenlies, a recipient of grace
No ill can I longer afford
A new path to walk, I must embrace
Glory now belongs to the Lord.

For I am called to proclaim His wonderful might
A royal priest am I
No longer in darkness, but showing forth His light
Giving all glory to Him on high.

It must have ended up in my treasure box because of my Greatest Treasure, my Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

When I encounter the truth of the kindness and grace of God in my life I react…

…sometimes it’s with rejoicing. Sometimes it’s in stunned silence. This morning it was with tears.

I am currently reading John Piper’s book “Finally Alive.” His commentary on 1 John 5:1 appears in chapter nine.

Piper quotes the verse in the English Standard Version – “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God…”

According to John Stott who Piper then quotes, the combination of present tense (believes) and perfect tense (has been born) is important. “It shows clearly that believing is the consequence, not the cause, of the new birth. Our present, continuing activity of believing is the result, and therefore the evidence, of our past experience of new birth by which we became and remain God’s children.”

The next sentence is what grabbed me…

“God’s act in bringing about the new birth is the bringing into being of a believer where once there was only spiritual deadness and unbelief.”

If the Lord hadn’t touched my eyes and heart with His kindness and grace through His Word, I would have continued in my blindness and unbelief, never seeing the worth and the beauty and the treasure that my Savior truly is.

The kindness and grace of God…may it always catch our breath, startle us into grateful rejoicing and praise, and move us into acts of love and obedience.

"One of the most unsettling things about the new birth...

...which Jesus says we all must experience in order to see the kingdom of God (John 3:3), is that we don't control it. We don't decide to make it happen any more than a baby decides to make his birth happen-or, more accurately, make his conception happen. Or even more accurately: We don't decide to make it happen any more than dead men can decide to give themselves life. The reason we need to be born again is that we are dead in our trespasses and sins. That's why we need the new birth, and that's why we can't make it happen. This is one reason why we speak of the sovereign grace of God. Or better: This is one reason why we love the sovereign grace of God."

An excerpt from John Piper's new book - "Finally Alive"

"HAVE FUN AND STAY BUSY"

One good shout out deserves another.

The Orange Mailman was kind enough to point out that he put a link from his blog to mine. You will notice to the right that his blog is one which I suggest you also might enjoy. Darrin is a master at comparing scripture with scripture. When searching for truth, that is one of the key components in discovering truth. The Psalmist said that the sum of God's Word is truth. We know God's Word does not contradict itself. If at first there appears to be a contradiction, a responsible, thorough, and diligent student of the Word will make a careful search of other passages to find the common denominator that makes all the passages fit together. It was comparing scripture with scripture that gave me the confidence that we can know with assurance when the Lord's return for His own will occur in relation to other end time events.

If you haven't checked out Darrin's blog, take the time to do so now. He is about as thorough and diligent as you can get. He plumbs the depths of scripture that leaves me in amazement. You won't be disappointed.

"HE IS JESUS"

Our worship leader's daughter wrote a script called "He is Jesus" which our drama team presented at my church. Our choir sang along with...I was asked to take pictures. I put together a web album. You can view the images by clicking here. Click on slide show next and enjoy. The album starts out with some candid shots of folks in the foyer before the service began. The choir/drama team took us from the triumphant entry into Jerusalem through to the empty tomb. Watch the faces to see if you can tell where they are at in the account. Can you spot Mary, the mother of Jesus? Heather did a wonderful job!

An empty tomb...

...means a heart filled with rejoicing and praise!

Have a blessed, blessed Resurrection Sunday!



This is a great song by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir.

Glory Hallelujah to the Risen King!

100TH POST

This is officially my one hundredth post to Overcomer! If you have not read my prewrath testimony, I would encourage you to click here. This will take you to my very first post and will explain why I changed from a pretribulational understanding of the gathering of the church to the prewrath position.

So why are there different views? Why is there confusion? Since the sum of God’s word is truth (Psalm 119:160) and it does not contradict itself, it is obvious that we come up with different views because the understanding is incomplete on our part!

I always accepted the pretrib position because it is what I grew up with. It’s been two and half years since I was challenged by a friend to become a Berean and do a study on my own. When I began comparing scripture with scripture it became very clear to me that I had to change my view.

If you are just beginning a study of your own, let me encourage you to begin with looking at all the day of the Lord passages - in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. Isaiah, Joel, Ezekiel, Amos, and Zephaniah all talk about the day of the Lord. Paul discusses it at length with the Thessalonians. An understanding regarding the day of the Lord is what made all things fall together for me. The confusion and the contradiction all melted away. Scripture is clear that true believers are not destined for God’s wrath which occurs during the day of the Lord.
We are never promised however deliverance from tribulation. Jesus said that in the world we would have tribulation. (John 16:33) I now clearly see that scripture teaches that the church will go through the great tribulation which Jesus called Satan’s wrath in Revelation 12:12. God’s wrath, the day of the Lord, and Satan’s wrath, the great tribulation, are two separate events. From Matthew’s account of the Olivet Discourse we learn that Jesus says His coming and gathering of the elect will cut short Satan’s wrath or the great tribulation. (Mt. 24:21-31)

As of this writing, Easter is just three days away. I was reading in John 21 this morning, the account where after His resurrection, the Lord told Peter by a breakfast fire by what kind of death he would glorify God. Peter looked over and saw John and asked the Lord by what sort of death John would die. The Lord’s words are startling, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!”

I see the Lord saying three things to Peter and by way of application to us as well:

“It’s My choice as to who will live until I come.”
“Don’t concern yourself about it.”
“Concern yourself with being faithful to Me until death or until I return.”

(An interesting note: Peter was told he would die. The Lord was clear that He would not be returning before Peter's death. Peter could not say His return was imminent. The Lord has given us signs for which to watch to know when His return and our gathering is near...Mt. 24, Mk. 13, Luke 21, 2 Th. 2.)

"Your view of the cross...

...impacts your view of the storms.

Storms force us to recognize three things...

who we are,
who God is,
what God did.

The Conqueror of the greatest storm ever is always with us."

Josh Tovey

DAVE WISEN TEACHES A CLASS ON PREWRATH...

Dave Wisen is an elder at Harvest Bible Chapel in West Olive, Michigan. You can hear the lessons by clicking here. You'll find them under the Pre-wrath title.

THE LORD BLESSED ME...

...with a delightful gift today. A sweet, tiny, Filipino woman beckoned me to her checkout stand at Walmart because her line was empty. As I unloaded my cart I noticed she was softly singing, "Worthy is the Lamb." I mentioned to her that I loved that song. I then asked her if she was a follower of Christ. Her eyes lit up and she replied, "Why yes!" We ended up having a wonderful chat about the Lord for about three minutes. We both agreed that we were looking forward to celebrating the resurrection of our Lord next Sunday. I asked her if she knew how to reply if someone says to her, "He is risen". She'd never heard that before. I told her she should respond with, "He is risen indeed!" As I was leaving she said it loudly about three times, with a great big smile on her face..."He is risen indeed! He is risen indeed! He is risen indeed!"

Needless to say that encounter with a new friend and sister-in-Christ blessed my heart and made my day!

The Library is HIS Story by Kristen Wisen

If one human life was the equivalent to one typed word in a book...

The average book has 350 words on a page...

The average book has 400 pages...

Then the amount of books needed to represent the 6.7 billion people in the world today is 48,000 books (actually a bit more, but we’ll keep our estimates low)

If the earth is 6-7 thousand years old and an average lifetime is 70 years, taking the smaller number (6,000) to offset the fact that before the flood people lived hundreds of years and because population increases, then we would need around 4 million books to represent all the people who have walked on this earth, if each person was simply one word in a book.

4 million books in a library and you pull out one book and read one word.

That’s my life.

One word.

Seems pretty insignificant in light of the whole library.

But the library is HIS story and I am simply one word in one of the volumes...

Why do we think the universe revolves around our lives? Why are we center stage and demand to be the star of our own story?

He is so much greater and bigger than us...imagine before creating the world, God wrote 4 million volumes of stories, each word requiring intimate detail, in order to accomplish His will here on earth...

And in my one word He included “forgiven, justified, paid in full, glorified, blessed, child, heir, beloved”...

Sometimes we need a perspective check...