Further to my yesterday´s New Year´s greeting focusing on the fact that the Middle East and the whole Western civilization, including the European Union of which my country is a member, are falling apart. Before the Lord´s coming Europe will, I believe, on its last legs and in due time see another political “superman” emerge who is in Rev. 13 described as “the beast”.

But he won´t last long.  The lasting dominion of Christ will soon take over.

Not only will our “Christian” civilization fall apart, so will the established church.  The Bible foresees “perilous times” in the last days, where true godliness will be replaced by “a form of godliness” (2 Tim. 3:5) without godly power. The cry of  Paul in 2 Tim. 4:16 to the effect that “all forsook me” will be the lonely portion of many “Pauls” as the end comes closer.

I must admit that I´m not exempted from some kind of lurking bitterness when I find so few I can share the life-giving presence of Christ with. Why are there so few despite the many happy church goers?  Am I completely isolated? No. Paul wasn´t either.  But his true spiritual allies were few.

There´s a lot of platform religion, some call it “worship” which is really a staged show.  A friend once asked this question to me, “Are you taking your own platform with you?”  What he meant was, I think, whether I´d freed myself from the stagey Christianity and dared stand on my own invisible “platform” and “speak in the sight of God in Christ”  (2 Cor. 2:17).

That doesn´t necessarily mean big audiences, but very often, indeed most of the time, face to face, at eye´s level, with souls sharing Christ “that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor. 4:11).  For that kind of a testimony is still relevant to you and me no matter what “perilous times” we´re facing.

Dec. 30, 2014 - jn