Do you get discouraged watching the daily news of terror, shootings, ISIS, murder and such? Well,welcome to the club! With so much information about how bad things are, we become overwhelmed with it all. A friend said to me recently, “Armageddon is coming, we’d better get ready!” Now, it may be true that human history is heading toward the big conflict, but I am not so sure we can get ready for it.
Another friend is worried that the world is turning away from God and the Gospel so fast that the Devil is going to win the world to his side. While we see darkness in many places, it does not mean that darkness will win in the end.
Have you noticed that bad things make the news more often than the good? In Nigeria, there are millions of faithful, peaceful Christians going about their lives unnoticed and unappreciated, yet a band of crazies like Boko Haram can massacre a 100 innocents in the Nigerian bush and we might assume that all of Nigeria is crazy. Not so!
You will hear multiple voices crying out that our young people in America are godless, video obsessed, partying drunks. Daily, the news informs us of a lost generation that knows not Christ and is turning away from traditional values more and more each day. Not so! As I write this blog, I am listening to Passion Radio music being performed with passion by a host of youth who are passionate about God, family and the Gospel. This past Sunday in my church I witnessed 188 Dallas Texas youth being baptized and another 500 watching and cheering them on. With young people like that throughout this land of ours, don’t count God out just yet! He has his witness in the earth who are determined to be salt and light in the midst of the gathering storm.
Let us not be naïve, there is a gathering storm. Armageddon is coming. Good and evil are on a collision course, but we are do not despair. Love trumps hate every time. A dark Friday on a cross gives way to the SON-light of an empty tomb. God’s purposes in the world are being advanced- you just don’t hear that much about it. Satan rules in this world system, but he does not rule our God and His Christ. They win and we win with them.
So, be not discouraged, have heart, His name is being proclaimed this very day- in all the earth! Don’t count Him out! God has a way of getting his way. I, for one, am on His side, in the midst of the storm winning the small battles that collectively will win the last battle.