Commentary on world events that relate to Bible prophecy and on Rapture Ready issues world events.

 

Nov 23, 2009

What Is Your Motivation?

There is little doubt that our church fathers had the right motivation for faith. All of them except the apostle John died a martyr’s death. Paul suffered endlessly for the sake of the gospel. He provided this short list of his troubles in 2 Corinthians: "Of the Jews five times received I forty [stripes] save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep" (2 Corinthians 11: 24-25).

Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard once famously said, "The biggest problem with Christians today is that no one wants to kill them anymore." Someone living in a Muslim country might disagree, but the statement holds true for us believers who live in the Western world. Kierkegaard also argued that Christianity has been made so completely devoid of character that there is really nothing to persecute.

Most people are involved in Christian service because they love Christ and want to glorify Him. However, monetary gain, praise, or recognition motivates some Christian workers. Others do it because they feel empty and want to bring fulfillment into their lives. Some people create their own blogs or websites because it makes them feel important and needed.

My work with Rapture Ready has taught me to be very discerning about what motivates people. I've had some folks help with the site for a time, but then I eventually learned that their motivation was not Christ-centered. Here are three examples of faulty motivation from RR and one from another site:

I once had a gentlemen help put together information for our "Timeline" section. He did this for at least two years. One day I received a note from someone who told this gentleman was telling his gay buddies that he helped operate a Christian website. Of course, he was promptly informed that we had a major incompatibility problem.

We briefly had someone helping Mat Buff on Rapture Ready Radio. A gentleman named Jimmy was the co-host of the weekly live broadcast. Mat soon noticed that Jimmy wasn't into prophecy, and he preferred to handle issues from a secular viewpoint. After we let him go, Jimmy sent me profanity-laced emails claiming he partly owned RR as his intellectual property. Because we were still in the testing phase of the web radio program, I never saved the segments that involved him.

I once found a website that was loaded with all sorts of good Christian information. One day, I noticed a statement by the site's owner, who said he was closing down his domain. This web venture was hosted by a service that provided free space. Apparently, the ads in the margin weren't generating enough money, so the company decided it needed to start charge members a small fee. The guy running the website didn't want to pay any money to keep his ministry going. I just couldn't believe that five bucks a month was too much of a hurdle for him to continue.

One of the questions I often hear about the time ahead of the rapture is: "Will Christians have to endure some form of persecution or economic calamity?" I tend to believe that there will not be any major trial before the Lord takes us home, but that we may see a brief period of hardship.

I've often wondered what would happen to the Christian web community if the winds of change turned, making it difficult to maintain a site. If the laws of the land said it was illegal to present the true gospel message, I am sure the vast majority of domains would disappear. The same thing would happen if the economy turned south. We've already made plans to help ensure that RR survives any type of adversity.

There is no great cost for being an end-time watcher, so I encourage everyone reading this article to ask yourself: What is my motivation? I would hope that most of you can list several things you've done for the kingdom of God in the past year. The key to good motivation is whether you would be willing to do it again in a hostile environment.

My hope is that the rapture snatches us away before the world gets more evil. The day may come when your faith is tested, and you may need to draw upon your foundation of faith to endure until the blessed hope.

"Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book" (Revelation 22:7).

-- Todd

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Toward a Singular Power

Gravitation toward the center of power is, in regard to man, as ancient as Eden. Of course, the lust to appropriate ultimate power predates time, which was created for humankind.

How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. (Isaiah 14:12-14)

Lucifer, cast from the heavenly habitations, didn't give up his desire to be worshiped. His lust for adoration took him to the garden and to the woman. He managed to put the same temptation to which he himself fell victim before Eve. She lusted after the forbidden power within the fruit.

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. (Genesis 3:4-6)

The most base instinct within mankind has continued to rule all else within his fallen senses since the first man came to know evil with that act of disobedience to his Creator. Gravitation toward grasping power over others has been the bane of the creation. Carnage, bloodshed, and death continue to be the wages of sin that surge without ceasing through planet earth.

Assault after assault against Israel in ancient times, resulting in diasporas of the disobedient, judgment-deserving Israelites, served as examples of the madness of those who will have nothing less than complete rule over others.

History is replete with beastly tyrants and dictators who have been relentless in the pursuit of power. From the barbarians like Attila, the Khans, Ivan the Terrible, Saladin, and others to the Persians, Greeks, and Romans to the modern would-be world rulers like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, the roll call of the voracious power seekers continues into today's geopolitical sphere.

Now, however, those wanting, in true luciferic fashion, to put their thrones above the stars of God--and all of their own kind as well--are observable in two distinctive camps.

One camp holds the Kim Jong-ils, the Ahmadinejads, the Gadhafis, and the al-Assads of North Korea and the Middle East. These are for now more easily recognized for whom they are. They gravitate toward power; indeed, they hold absolute power over all within their own blood-soaked borders. However, they have little hope of forming alliances that would provide sufficient strength for an attempt at world conquest. They would turn on each other long before they could achieve such a goal.

Alas, but the other camp has both the commonality of desire, and the impetus to attain the kind of power and authority toward which the fallen minds of man have long gravitated. This consortium of the more sophisticated camp is developing in our time. The immense tug of the promise of complete control over one world, with the elite at the top, is to the globalists as scintillating, as intoxicating, and as tantalizing as the words whispered to the mother of mankind those eons ago: "Ye shall be as gods."

So, when you wonder what this last eight or nine months has been all about, with America's vanishing wealth, autonomy and sovereignty seeming to be fed into some invisible system of insanity, know that there is method to the madness.

The grab for power in this nation is stupefying to the ordinary citizen who is concerned about where it's all leading. But, behind the rush to change everything we've known to be the American way is--to put a complex catastrophe simply--the lust for absolute control. The banks, the auto industry, the health industry: Everything must be brought into a system that, while seeming to be chaotic, is really being manipulated toward a single power. The U.S. has to be the penetration point for piercing the barriers of resistance against the gravitation toward control for which the neo-Babel builders lust. The world is intricately linked to the American economy. It must lead the way toward what the would-be masters believe will be Utopia--heaven on earth.

God's prophetic Word, of course, foretells of where this movement toward a singular power will end. There are two endings, actually. The first destination of this power trip will be that of Antichrist's beast-regime (Revelation 13:16-18). The second destination of ultimate power is the one of which you and I want to be a part:

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. (Isaiah 9:6-7)

Terry