Revelation 19.10 describes, the essence of prophecy is to give a clear witness for Jesus.
Too many Christians are hoping for the end of this world as we know it. Everyday we move closer to the end they say. Certainly that is true.
These Christians are weary of life’s difficulties and the rapid increase of godlessness everywhere in the world. I fear the motive is less a desire for Jesus and more of a desire to be done with a life that is less than fulfilling or happy or blessed. Why should God want to end the world?
He has created heaven for His people so they who die in Christ are already with Him. When the world ends so too does the opportunity for heaven to increase by even one person. The responsibility to populate the kingdom of God is given to the children of God both through procreation and proclamation of the gospel.
The culture is a wreck because the people of God have failed to live in obedience to God beginning with prophesying about God. What is prophecy?
The essence of it is Jesus is God, has come to earth to reconcile people to God because we are all born broken in our relationship to God and need restoration. This Jesus was crucified by men who hated God but He rose from the dead as God and lives to pardon all who humble themselves before God.
It was this simple message of preaching Christ and Him crucified that changed a Roman culture even more ungodly than the American culture we live in today. When the world was more ‘Christian friendly’ it was as a result of the Church doing its job of proclamation and transformation.
This transformation is the result of obedience to God’s commands through living in accordance with God’s ways. Once we did not obey God now the children of God serve the will of God in the ways of God because they are being conformed into the image of God Who is Jesus the Savior.
Simply, those who claim to be Christian are to live as Jesus did.
The prophetic word then of the Christian is to proclaim Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life and no one gets to heaven apart from Him. This is the message He proclaimed and has commanded His followers to continue to proclaim.
The failure of the Church to both proclaim this message and to live in obedience to God’s commands explains why the culture is no longer Christian friendly. The Church is the leaven responsible for influencing the entire loaf that is the world in which we live. Leaven is not the majority ingredient in bread but it’s effect or lack thereof is the most obvious.
Rather than wishing for all the evil people in the world to be consumed by God’s wrath the Church needs to have the heart of the Father who sees each one sentenced to death as His own child. The parent whose child sits in the electric chair for their heinous crime does not rejoice that justice is being done but grieves that there is no longer hope for this wayward child to repent.
So too the Father desires that no one should perish but that all would come to eternal life. The Church is His means for proclaiming His Word both in word and in deed.
The Church is not to wash its hands and flee the chaos but to jump into the chaos and create order through proclaiming Jesus as Savior and living as servants of all just as He came to serve, living as a Friend of sinners.
