In 1991, on a return flight from London Heathrow via LA to Australia, the Spirit of God said to my heart: “You have seen the world at its best.” I was born in 1940 and have seen the wool boom and later the mining boom in Australia. Both followed the gold boom of the 1840s, which put Australia’s economy on its feet.
There have been many striking developments since I heard that quiet voice in 1991, yet the world has become a lot less safe. Jesus said men’s hearts would fail them for fear of those things that would come upon the earth. The rise in the number of heart attacks is becoming exponential. The antidote to fear is faith and a spiritual revival alone will renew that gift from God, that inner certainty that God is in control of everything, no matter how bad it may become.
All will be well in the end when the Lord Jesus returns and establishes his kingdom here on Planet Earth. Real faith — as distinct from self-confidence — comes when we confess our sins to God, accept Jesus as our Saviour, and openly confess him as our Lord. to others.
There’s an old saying: “The night is always darkest before dawn.” Another warns: “Things will get a lot worse before they get better.” That doesn’t have to be the case but unless a worldwide change of heart takes place, a gathering darkness is inevitable. Not for those to whom the return of Jesus is a promise of a better world, a better than best government, and a cause for great expectancy.
Normally, “The good is the enemy of the best” but in abnormal times the bad is but a forerunner of the terrible times that Jesus said will follow. I’m not looking for a way out but a way up — to meet the coming Lord Jesus in the clouds and soon after a way down and back with him, as he sets up his worldwide rule in the form of the visible, tangible Kingdom of God on Earth!
How can some dismiss this as mere “pie in the sky” when “Man’s next step” is beyond the Moon to the planet Mars! What? Jesus cannot return to earth as promised, but Elon Musk is moving ahead on his ambitious plan to visit Mars? Jesus asked: “When the Son of man returns, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8) Not if most earthlings used all their faith on bids to escape from it into the heavens!