…And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her Child. Rev. 12:4
Those of us who know and seek the Lord in this end times generation find ourselves laid out on a certain “torture rack of the soul” as we simultaneously experience the rising power of unspeakable evil marking this same generation in the world. This brief article is designed to assist in making that mental anguish somewhat more bearable as we approach the full day of Christ.
The book of Revelation says its purpose is to reveal Jesus Christ to us. Yet it is consumed with detailing the worldwide evil coming to zenith contrary to that blessed revelation—so much so that many believers do not even want to read Revelation, even though it promises great blessing to all who hear its words (Rev. 1:3).
Life is bad enough without having to read more about it from the Lord, does it not seem? How then can blessing truly come forth in meditating on Revelation’s report of all this death and destruction in conjunction with Christ’s appearing? And how can we properly deal with the added real time revelation that the Spirit opens to us that correlates Revelation’s report with our daily experience of evil’s growing domination—especially since COVID?
To help us, we must understand the infirmity creation suffers under the knowing of good and evil since Adam, and how that our salvation is not unto “good”, but unto the glory of God—a glory completely transcending all human moral experience, and of which all men “fall short” (Rom. 3:23). Jesus did not ultimately die to restore our knowledge and experience of good in this world. He came to bring us into His glory (Jn. 17:24; Heb. 2:10).
Our life experience of good (or what we call the “good life”) is meant to point us to the Lord and bring forth our repentance (Rom. 2:4). But as its own end, life’s good is a stumblingblock to our coming into eternally knowing God and being changed in capacity to enter His glory. Our knowledge of this good is in fact the core point of our idolatry. Much of our worship of the Lord is verily based in our own idolatry of temporal good—an idolatry He must constantly smash. (Pause to contemplate how much of our prophetic cultural theology is based on no higher goal than to preserve our access to life’s good here and now.)
It’s for this cause—for the very sake of God’s saving a people into His glory—that He must allow our life experience toward that goal to be dominated by the experience of evil. He must strip away the illusory images of our destiny that life’s good has left us, supported by worldly “kingdom theologies”.
We have not been saved unto good, but unto glory. And the only route to that glory is through the final pressure of the knowledge of evil. This was modeled immediately preceding the cross when Jesus said “now is the son of man glorified”; and so must it be replicated in the body of Christ through the final tribulation of the end times.
The book of Revelation itself makes this clear. Chapters 11 – 13 show that the declaration of the “now” arrival of God’s kingdom is immediately followed by the woe of satan’s worst evil ever perpetrated on and to be experienced by mankind. Especially note the church’s travail in chapter 12 before the threatening forward stationing of the dragon’s presence. This is the very context for the catching up to glory of God’s firstfruits people.
The church’s travail is both the product of the internal stress God’s fetal overcomers produce within the larger body of the unready church, and of the external pressure of satan’s frontal evil ready if possible to destroy the overcomers before they can ascend. See that the church is literally “stressed out” before the knowledge of satan’s evil. Yet God deems it necessary to the travail required to bring forth that first saintly company to wedded glory.
This leaves us then to finally consider how we must properly handle this in-your-face wickedness as it increases both naturally and by prophetic illumination in our wait for the Lord. How are we to think? Where must our meditations lie?
Right now, two opposite pitfall responses to evil’s multiplicity beset us. The first is one of denial, both naturally and prophetically, by those married to the idea of God’s preserving and “restoring” our good life culture here below as the essence of His “kingdom.” We just want to get back to life and business as usual, do ministry, enjoy life, and read only the parts of the Bible we have already underlined. But this is a sure road to spiritual disaster through unpreparedness.
The other pitfall is to become prophetically engrossed in evil’s knowledge as it both multiplies and is further illumined of the Spirit for its true significance. Numerous saints are seduced by their own penchant for spiritual knowledge into devoting their hearts to uncovering the knowledge of the deep things of satan (Rev. 2:24). This too is fatal and ruins one’s true path to glory, falling way short of God’s purpose for our perception of it. Such feeding leads to depression, paranoia, fear mongering and life under a constant cloud of suspicion outside our “first love” knowledge of Christ.
What then is God’s purpose in the permitted release before us of all this malevolence as it attends Christ’s appearing? His purpose is that the pressure of this knowledge succeed at driving us deeper into Christ Himself through the secret place, even within this present dark womb of our formation (See Gal. 4:19 with Ps. 139:13-16), thereby preparing us for birth into the very glory which the pressure of this knowledge has been unleashed to accelerate.
I strongly advise every believer facing the knowledge of evil over every airwave and source of prophetic streaming—whether regarding the vaccine and its makeup, the mark of the beast, the quarantines, or the edicts in every quarter—to subdue every encounter with that knowledge under the feet of Jesus in the heart. Let the Spirit who has and is Himself revealing all these things keep and deepen us in the true knowing of God and His eternal life. He is not at odds with Himself in these revealings. He reveals the evil that He may further reveal Jesus. It is why Paul says, “that day [of Christ’s revelation] will not come until—that lawless one be revealed” (II Th. 2:3).
Let the pressure of evil’s knowledge succeed toward this goal by our giving it back to God as soon as we have encountered it. This is why Jesus Himself told us to “be of good cheer” and to “look up” as we see things pressing in on us. To overcome in this calls for a deep shift of mind—a deep change of mind—a meta-noia, that is, a repentance—from the seeking of good to the seeking of glory. Every ounce of evil knowledge from without thus converted to deeper pursuit of glory within hastens the day of our birth into that full redemption.
This is why we are facing the evil we are, and why Revelation was given to accent it to us the way it does. May you be encouraged as you convert each and every pressure of soul under the knowledge of this generation's evil into the Father’s growing fetal glory within….
Push!
Chris Anderson
New Meadow Neck, Rhode Island
First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org6/21
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