Ready?

I feel like it’s August 1939 in eastern Europe; pending doom is palpable. “Hitler's government envisioned a vast, new empire of "living space" (Lebensraum) in eastern Europe. The realization of German dominance in Europe, its leaders calculated, would require war.”(1) Control, force and manipulation were of primary dominance in Germany and what started with a dictatorial vision later became the devastation of so very many. (over 70 million casualties)

Our country, and world for that matter, seem to be on the brink of disaster; I’m terrified of our decisions. A Great Depression is almost imminent and I feel like the world we now know is about to change. Forever. I know people say this, crazy people… They prophesy doom and destruction that most ignore while others scoff. I don’t want to claim I have any word of God, I just have a sense…we’re living in the beginning of the end. Times are changing; the empire hangs on by a thread.

What the church does and does not do in these times may make all the difference. Oppression and poverty, even persecution of the faith has often led to an outpouring of Spirit and revival, an opening of heaven. Yet western Christians have no idea of what it means to suffer for the faith or to go through hard times. We don’t know war on our soil, calamity or true manifest evil. We’re not ready to deal with tribulation; we’re not equipped to overcome the dragon.

A war between two kingdoms is prophesied but we stand blind, in the middle of a mine field. We hear the cries of the destroyed all around but keep walking, ignorant to the destruction, passive in our defense. The Gospel is under attack; the enemy has breached the walls and the church is destroyed one piece at a time, from the inside, out.

I want to scream, to say “people get ready” but alas, my voice is over-powered by the masses. We sit idly by while germanic ranks steal our neighbors and rob us of justice. We do nothing and say nothing though something is what is required. Offering, of self and life and even freedom for the sake of Truth and the preservation of Justice, is the price to pay. Are we so self-focused and blind that we cannot see the shifting, the pending destruction, the eminent take-over? The end is coming; where does our security lie?

(1) wikepedia: WWII