The Way Forward

 Unless a journey you begin has an end, by definition, you are a hobo. With each ending, there is the promise of a new beginning, and that paradigm of a new adventure makes the end of a journey bittersweet.

Spend enough time on one topic, and you can’t help but feel like you don’t want it to end. There’s always a new layer to plumb, always a new angle from which to view a situation, and in reality, the study on the last days of the church could have continued another six months without letting up.

There’s a profound difference between coming home and spending a night in a motel on your way to somewhere. Personally, spending a few months focused on one theme and meditating upon it is like coming home from a hard day’s work. You know what you will find, and you don't have to wonder if there are bed bugs or other creepy crawlies hiding somewhere in the shadows. It’s home. Everything is as you left it, where it should be, and there are no untoward surprises to be had. The sense of familiarity brings about both comfort and rest, the likes of which cannot be replicated by anything other than being home.  

I write every morning as much for my edification as anyone else who happens to read my musings. Doing so allows me to view the topic at hand more deeply without the need to rush through it just to check it off a list. Our duty as believers remains to read the Word, know the Word, and live the Word, not in some haphazard fashion, but as something we prioritize consistently in our lives.

When we spend more time dissecting, parsing out, and trying to interpret the machinations of foolish souls, wondering what they meant by pet dinosaurs in heaven or whether only the young will have access to ice cream land once we enter in, than we do going to Scripture and allowing it to feed our spiritual man, we are doing ourselves a disservice and wasting the one resource that cannot be purchased with either gold or silver.

Our time here on earth is a one-way journey. You can’t turn back the clock or go back to when you were young and tell yourself all the things you shouldn’t do along the way, and more often than not, it takes a few gray hairs before you have those life-changing epiphanies some people speak of. Everything in the life of a temporal being is judged by time. How much time we’ve spent on earth, how much time we have left, how much of it we redeemed, and how much of it we squandered.

The wisest man who ever lived once wrote that for everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven. In every man's life, there is a season of growing and maturing, and then there is a season of testing, a time in which you apply the things you’ve learned along the way. If we do not take the time to grow and mature when we have the opportunity to do so, when the testing comes, we will be ill-equipped to endure and overcome it.

Some of you disagree with my conclusions regarding the season of sifting and testing the church is about to enter, and you’ve made it known repeatedly, boisterously, and vociferously, but I am beholden to the Word, and it must have the last word even if what it says does not elicit visions of puffy clouds and overfed cherubs.

This is not an ego thing. It’s not about being right. Honestly, I wish I was wrong. I’m all for seeing true revival sweep the land because that would mean it was preceded by true repentance of heart. I just do not see its promise anywhere in the Bible within the context of the last days, whether of the church or of the world. Persecution, hardship, maniacal hatred of Christ and His followers? Yes, those things are all enumerated within the pages of Scripture. A great awakening? I haven’t found it, and believe me, I looked.

The study on the last days of the church has come to an end. It is currently being made into a book since some of you have requested it.

As I said, one journey has ended, and another will begin shortly. As promised, we will tackle the book of Job as our next in-depth study. Until we start this new journey, I will be posting some stand-alone essays and thoughts. It won’t be long, but anyone who’s ever tackled the Book of Job knows it’s not a lighthearted fare.

Posted on 6 September 2024 | 10:12 am