COUNT THE PATIENCE OF OUR LORD AS SALVATION
Sakkie Parsons
I would like to share with you the following question I received:
“Thank you for the enlightening writings you sent me regarding faith-healing and divine healing.
I want to ask your advice; I’m a type of person – things that are wrong will bother me a lot even though I’m not part of it. For example; all farm murders, child rapes, murder robberies, strikes etc. I know these are things that happen in the last days but it upsets me terribly. I’ll just cry when I read and hear of all the stuff and it makes me feel depressed.”
Dear friend,
The mistake that many people make who proclaim the Gospel of Jesus, is that they speak only about the love and all the beauty – which is of course not wrong – but they forget to tell people of the fact that there is another side, where there is another god, and it is the god of evil, namely satan.
You see – so sure and definite that there is a God Almighty, the One that I proclaim, there is also a god of evil and because God created us in His image and we – that is you and I – have as He has, a will of our own, most people choose and prefer to listen to the god of evil and do what he wants them to do and believe me, there is no end to the evil things which he can propose in your heart if you want to listen and obey him.
Do you know how bad this will get?
Jesus hung on the Cross so that you and I and every other person in this world can make a decision to be with Him forever in heaven. However, despite of the horror path He walked so that people can be saved and go to heaven, He sees in His omnipotence into the future; It is a very sad picture of the people preceding His return to fetch His children who stayed in faith – and He gave us the following words so that we can understand how worse it will get:
LUK 18:8 … when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"
Now someone may ask:
“But why doesn’t Jesus return and brings to end all these horrors?
Well, He tells us in His Word why He is not doing it now and I highlight this as well as a few other things in the following section which I especially want you to take note of:
2PE 3:3-9
3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.
4 They will say, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation."
5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God,
6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The Lord is not slow to fulfil his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
For example: Perhaps our Lord is still waiting for your grandchild to be born whom He wants with Him in heaven.
2PE 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
You and I must make sure that we are ready so that He can take us with Him (the rapture), before hell will literally break loose on earth and in the universe.
2PE 3:11-15
11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,
12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!
13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
14 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.
15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,
Therefore dear friend,
Because of the fact that man has a sinful nature with a will of his own and there is a satan who for sure will use and exploit it – it will happen as we read it in the Word. Jesus says:
REV 22:11 Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy."
I see the first part of REV 22:11 as follows:
When it rains and several people walk out of the building into the rain and I say to them; ‘No, please turn back and come inside because you are going to get wet’ and then some of them come back in, but the rest keep on walking.. Well then it is a matter of those who are wet and do not want to listen keep on walking and become even more wet.
Following the second part:
Those who were wet (souls who are lost) and came back in, are now dry – holy and righteous children of God and we must now strive to become more dry (more righteous, holy).
MAT 25:46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
In saying and reading all this, things as we see and experience it will not go away or become scarcer but you and I do not have to be part of it. With inner joy and excitement we remember what Jesus said – we read:
REV 22:12 "Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done.
REV 22:13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."
You and I only have to be Jesus’ witnesses and a shining light in knowing that what we see and experience around us, has already been revealed to us through the Word of our Lord.
REV 3:10 Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.
REV 3:11 I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown.
Greetings,
Sakkie