Friday, October 6, 2023
If you’re a true born again believer of Jesus Christ, you know that wickedness and injustice is gaining ground every day now. The wicked indeed prosper. The wicked seemingly escape the justice of punishment they are due. Indeed, spiritual wickedness prospers “in high places” (Eph. 6:12), especially in global governments, big business, big pharma, big tech, big church business, and Hollywood. Unless one is in lockstep with elites’ NWO, the U.N’s 2030 Agenda, the WEF’s Great Reset, and radical Left’s liberal governments, one is targeted for injustice, suffering and destruction while the wicked prosper. True Christians, conservatives and patriots are targets for injustice by the wicked elite while they prosper and escape the justice of man’s laws. But why?
The wicked prosper because they function by the standards of this evil world. They are without moral codes and laws. They increasingly have little to no restraint on the natural evils that guide their unconverted hearts and minds. They’re without God. They’re led by evil spirits. They reject truth and “suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them…because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Rom. 1:18, 21). Their wickedness will increasingly prosper until the Lord’s return.
We’ve reached the point where, unless one agrees with the radically unhinged and liberal Left in their wicked ideologies of LGBTQ+ agendas, Climate Change, Critical Race Theory, defund the police, Black Lives Matter violence, lawlessness and rebellion, smash-and-grab robberies, infant human abortion on demand, anti-God, anti-family, anti-America, anti-free speech, anti- freedom of religion, and anti-2nd Amendment, etc., then one is labeled a racist or homophobe targeted for being silenced, canceled, deplatformed, or imprisoned. That’s where we are now as a national and world culture. Not surprisingly, evil prevails. The manifest wickedness of the U.N.’s 2030 Agenda embraces all those evils identified in this paragraph as articles to be mandated globally.
And yet, they prosper. But we as true believers of Christ, if we know and hold to the end-time testimony of Jesus Christ, should not for one moment be surprised at those destructive events. Those things must come by the prophetic Word of God in Christ. Without these perverse end-time events being unleashed on the world the end could not come. But the good news is that by these events we know by faith that the end of this age is near, that the spirits of Antichrist and lawlessness are precisely fulfilling the prophetic end-time Word of the Lord God Almighty!
Though the wicked have prospered for millennia, in these end-times they prosper even more as God’s prophetic end-time restraint on evil is being removed, 2 Thess. 2:7, to make way for “the man of sin…the son of perdition” (2 Thess. 2:3), the Antichrist. In regard to this, the Holy Spirit said, “Here is the patience and the faith of the saints” (Rev. 13:10). Yes, we true believers must endure sufferings and persecutions of injustice at the hands of wicked people, at least until the middle of the seven-year tribulation, when watchful and prepared believers, “the freewoman” of Gal. 4:21–31, flee to the safety and provision of God for the last 1,260 days of great tribulation. For all believers who have ears to hear, these things require “the patience and faith of the saints”.
An ancient prophet had the same complaint as many of us believers today: “Righteous are You, O LORD, when I plead with You; Yet let me talk with You about Your judgments. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are those happy who deal so treacherously?” (Jer. 12:1). Also, Job asked: “Why do the wicked live and become old, yes, become mighty in power?” (Job 21:7). Because God allows them to! If Satan had his way, he would destroy every human made in the image of God as soon as possible, especially before people come to faith in Jesus Christ. In this regard God restrains Satan’s evil lust for the death of all humans made in the image of God. Yet, we know by God’s Word that in the seven-year tribulation vast amounts of humanity will perish. For this reason Jesus said of the great tribulation that “unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened” (Matt. 24:22). Praise God!
If you’re one of God’s redeemed by true salvation faith in Jesus Christ, then you are targeted for destruction by Satan. If you’re an unbeliever, yes, even an atheist, you are still targeted by Satan for death and destruction. If you’re a professing but lukewarm Christian, you’re also targeted for death and destruction by Satan. If Satan would’ve had his way long ago he would’ve destroyed all humanity way back in the days of Noah when Satan’s seed, Gen. 3:15, was comingled with the seed of mankind through fallen angels, Gen. 6:1–4, when the earth was corrupt “and the earth was filled with violence” (Gen. 6:11). We have now entered the time when the world is returning to, “as it was in the days of Noah” (Luke 17:26), and “Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot” (Luke 17:28). And specifically speaking of the tribulation, Jesus said “But it will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony” (Luke 21:13). That, dear believers, is what we must embrace and act upon to the end, for Jesus said “But he who endures to the end shall be saved” (Matt. 24:13).
Do not be deceived, you will not be raptured outta-here before the seven-year tribulation begins or before Antichrist is revealed. I am well aware of the thousands of false teachers who promise people a pre-trib rapture, but in their hubris of defending traditions, they deny the testimony of Jesus Christ, who said He gathers His elect “Immediately after the tribulation” (Matt. 24:29–31). In the love of Christ I ask you, “Are you part of the “elect” of God?” If you say “Yes”, then you know that Christ gathers you to Himself in the rapture, not pre-trib, but “Immediately after the tribulation”, just as the testimony of Jesus Christ says. But who do you believe, God or men?
Until the soon-coming end of days, the wicked will continue to prosper, but only in this life. It will all suddenly come to a devastating end when the King of kings and Lord of lords descends on the clouds of heaven and time shall be no more, and “we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10). Until that Day, we must be ambassadors for Christ.
We believers must remember that God “is longsuffering toward us, [all humanity] not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Secondly, let’s also understand that Satan is allowed his authority as “the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one” (1 John 5:19), and he is “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2), to whom we all at one time were captive. Finally, though we are in this world, we are not of this world, but wait for that eternal heavenly city as did Abraham, who “waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Heb. 11:10); “the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2). Until that Day, let us be found faithful in our faith.
Marlin J. Yoder
