Last week we discussed how the primary way we will escape from the mark of the beast is to take the mark of God by becoming a true bond-servant of Christ. One of the principles of the last days that we have not yet discussed is how the judgment of God will come forth. A fundamental aspect of His judgment is to simply let us reap what we sow. In Galatians 6:7-8, we are warned about this:

The choices we make every day determine most of the future consequences of our lives. If we are sowing to our flesh, we cannot expect to grow in the fruit of the Spirit, or to reap good spiritual benefits. As the apostle wrote, this mentality makes a mockery of God, and is a primary reason why much of the world thinks of His church as nothing but hypocrites. As we also read in I Peter 4:17:

God’s judgment will begin with His own household. How could He judge the world for its sin when His own people do the same things? This is why it cannot be forever tolerated. He is patient and He is merciful, far more so than we tend to be, but there are limits to both His patience and His mercy. When those limits are reached, He does allow the consequences of our own sin to come upon us. If that does not cause us to repent, then He goes further, until at the end, we see what happens as we read His explanation of the parable of the sower in Matthew 13:37-43:

There is a separation coming to the church. The pretenders or those who have become lukewarm, or have given themselves over to sin, will be separated from the true. His church at the end will be a pure, spotless, bride of which He is worthy. Along with the harvest that is now taking place, there is also a great falling away taking place. Many of these who are “falling away” may still go to church faithfully, and may even go on missions, but their love is growing colder, and their attachment to the world, its ways, and its sin, is growing.

If this has been happening to us now, it is the time to repent, to turn around, renounce the world and its ways, and give ourselves fully to do the will of the Lord. As stated, every Christian is called to be a bond-servant of Christ, but very few truly are. Most go on living their lives for themselves, and not for Christ.

This is also the product of a terrible perversion of the gospel that we have seen in recent times. It has been very basically changed from “He came to save us from our sin,” to a gospel that says He came to save us from our troubles. As psychological studies have shown that the way a person is born in the natural can have an impact on their entire life, this is just as true in the spiritual—the way in which a person comes to the Lord can determine the quality of their entire spiritual life. Those who respond to a gospel that promotes self-centeredness and selfishness will remain that way. Those who come because of the deep conviction of their sin, and their desperate need for deliverance from their sin, which compels them to embrace the cross, will be different.

As stated in Matthew 24:12: "And because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold.” Christians fall into lawlessness because the sin in their life has not been dealt with at the root. When the cross is preached, and people come to the Lord out of the conviction of their sins, and the desperate need for the atonement of the cross, it begins to deal with the self-centeredness that is the fruit of all sin. When someone comes to Jesus out of the desperation to have their sins forgiven by His grace and mercy, they are bonded to Him for their very life, and therefore begin to live for Him.

Also, when people come to Jesus for deliverance from their troubles instead of deliverance from their sin, when troubles come upon them they believe that the gospel does not work, and quickly fall away. Great troubles are going to come upon the world in these times. In Christ we do have the only true deliverance from the troubles of this world, but that does not mean we will not experience any troubles, but rather we overcome them through Christ.

The whole mind-set that many teachings promote, or at least imply, is that Christians should not experience troubles. This has already been the downfall of many, and it will increase as the troubles increase. This is a major root of apostasy, and the great falling away from the faith.

There is no more wonderful life that we could ever have on this earth than the true Christian life; but that life is a life of profound and daily sacrifice. There is simply no life more fulfilling than serving the King, but it is a life of serving nonetheless. This is not about what we want to do, or what we get, but what He wants us to do and how He benefits from our lives. We have been bought with a price and those who have been so redeemed no longer belong to themselves, but to Him.

For some, service to Him will require the ultimate sacrifice—martyrdom. As we get closer to the end of this age, this number will surely increase until it will likely be that a high percentage of all Christians will die for their faith. This has in fact been the case from the beginning. Throughout much of the world today, as soon as one commits their life to the Lord they know they will be killed. I have met Christians from the Middle East where anyone coming to Christ can expect to be killed very quickly. The elders in congregations there have often been Christians less than two years, but it is extraordinary how mature they can become in that time when they know every day may be their last!

Both the falling away and the increasing martyrdom that is coming does not mean the gospel will be losing, but that it will actually be prevailing. Like the cross, God’s victories often look like defeats to those who do not have spiritual discernment. Just as the cross was the ultimate victory of the Lord, every time we lay down our lives for His purposes, it is a victory for us. If we have to make the ultimate sacrifice it will be the ultimate honor and victory. However, those who do not lay down their lives daily for Him are not likely to make that ultimate sacrifice when it is required.

Pseudo Christianity will not last long through the fire that is coming. Those who hold to the faith and emerge will be a new breed that are really of the original spiritual stock that beheld and carried the cross. They will be the most fearless people to walk the earth because they will not fear death, having already died to this world. They will also be the richest people on earth, having free access to the spiritual riches of the kingdom, having been proven trustworthy servants. These servants will have graduated to being friends of God, and from friends, to adopted children. They will be the kings in the age to come, but kings whose very nature is to serve their King, and those they are called to rule over. Authority in the kingdom of God is very different from fallen, human authority. Now is the time for us to build our lives on that kingdom, its ways and principles, so that our lives may be a demonstration of it.