“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.” Matthew 5:13 NKJV
Lately it seems that it is almost a daily occurrence that we read or hear of new “restrictions” being forced upon the public in the effort to somehow contain the spread of the virus which has had such a dramatic effect on the world we live in. One of the things I have noticed happening at the same time we all have been struggling with this pandemic is the increasing attacks on the Church, the body of Christ. Now I am certainly not the only one to notice, and in the past few weeks I have read numerous articles and commentaries by different authors commenting on the persecution we are beginning to face and how we should respond to it.
As I talked with God about the “coincidence” of the growing animosity towards believers occurring during a time where you would think the message of Christ would be welcomed, He reminded me of the bigger picture by pointing out something I was forgetting to take into account, and that is the author of this current crisis. The struggle between good and evil has been going on since the Garden of Eden. The Word of God makes it plain that Satan has a plan to destroy God’s creation any way he can, and what we are witnessing now is simply another step in that direction. The only thing standing in his way is the Church, the body of Christ, indwelt by the power of the Holy Spirit acting to restrain the powers of darkness.
That said, it follows that believers will come under attack and suffer persecution because if we do our job, and allow the Holy Spirit to work through us, the evil plan will come to nothing. The Church stands in the way of where Satan wants to take this world and it follows that he will try most anything to try and remove the obstacle which is the Church. The question we must ask ourselves, however, is if it’s possible he is succeeding by using the current crisis to produce a side effect of persecution which renders the Church weaker and unable to restrain as effectively as it was intended to do?
Most scholars agree that the restrainer that Paul mentions is the Holy Spirit, sent to indwell believers on the first Pentecost after Jesus’ ascension. While most would agree that it is the Spirit who restrains, many fail to realize that it is the Church, those of us who have chosen to believe, that the Spirit uses to restrain evil in this world. So it follows that if the Church can be rendered weak and ineffectual, evil will increase. The following is just an excerpt from an article on the restrainer written by Jack Kelley.
Who is the Restrainer? A Bible Study by Jack Kelley
The Holy Spirit
That leaves the Holy Spirit Himself and there happens to be Biblical precedent for both His restraining influence and His abrupt withdrawal before a world wide judgment. In support of His restraining influence, John 16:8 has the Lord saying the role of the Holy Spirit is to convict the world of guilt in regard to sin, and righteousness, and judgment. Notice the Lord didn’t say He would convict only believers, but the world, believers or not. The Greek word John used there is “kosmos”, which means the whole world.
Just as everyone intuitively knows there’s a God (Romans 1:18-20), everyone intuitively knows right from wrong. Paul said even those who don’t have the law will do things the law requires by nature because the requirements of the law are written on our hearts, and our consciences will accuse or defend our actions accordingly (Romans 2:14-15). I believe the “guilty conscience” that even unbelievers experience when they do wrong is the Holy Spirit convicting them in regard to sin, righteousness, and judgment. Throughout the Church Age this conviction has been a major restraining force against evil in the world.
In 1 Tim. 4:1-2 Paul wrote, “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.” (In Paul’s time applying a fire-heated piece of metal to a wound was an accepted way to help stop the bleeding and close the wound. It’s called cauterization, an extremely painful process that left a hideous scar.)
This tells us the current trend of making good appear to be evil and vice versa is a sign that the end is near. Hypocritical liars from inside and outside the church have been causing a gigantic paradigm shift in the world. They intuitively know the things they are trying to teach us are wrong and the conviction of the Holy Spirit has wounded their consciences. By repeatedly suppressing the guilt they feel they’ve effectively “cauterized” their consciences to close the wound. This has left their consciences hideously scarred, but allows them to continue spreading their lies without feeling the guilt.
In the process they’ve also destroyed their powers of discernment which means that each succeeding lie is easier to accept and repeat than the one before it. We’ve seen the proof of this as things our parents’ generation would have abhorred are now being celebrated in ours.
As for the Holy Spirit being temporarily taken out of the way, Genesis 6:1-3 tells of the time before the Great Flood when certain angels rebelled against God, exchanged their angelic form for human form and began having children with human women. Genesis 6:4 calls these children the Nephilim. They apparently had incredible skills and abilities and eventually led the whole world astray. Before long the entire creation had been irreparably corrupted.
Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years” (Genesis 6:3)
Noah and his family had not been genetically corrupted by this hybrid invasion. The Lord commissioned him and his sons to build an ark to preserve themselves, their wives, and selected animals and 120 years after His pronouncement He destroyed the whole world in the Great Flood.
The Hebrew word translated “contend” in Genesis 6:3 means “to act as a judge”. In other words the role of the Holy Spirit in pre-flood times was to convict the world of guilt in regard to sin, and righteousness, and judgment just like He’s doing in our time (John 16:8). And before the flood God said there would come a time when His Spirit would step aside and allow a time of judgment to proceed, just like Paul said the restrainer would do at the end of the age.
So The Holy Spirit has been holding back the secret power of lawlessness and will continue to do so until He is taken out of the way. All things considered, I believe the Bible makes a compelling case in support of the Holy Spirit being the restrainer Paul spoke of in 2nd Thessalonians. You can almost hear the footsteps of the Messiah 09-14-13.
https://gracethrufaith.com/end-times-prophecy/restrainer/
The Holy Spirit, using the Church to wield His sword, has been restraining since the beginning of the Church age. But the combination of false doctrine being taught along with the persecution and hatred many are feeling right could have the result of the Church's "salt" going stale. Just as in the days of Noah, there will come a time when the Holy Spirit will be taken away along with the Church and this world will once again suffer the judgment of a vengeful God. Is it possible one of the reasons that happens is that the Church becomes weak and ineffective? I think a case could be made that we are rapidly approaching that time for many reasons, but the situation the Church finds itself in right now leads me to believe it is right around the corner.
While this might well be the case for the Chuch as a whole, individuals can still choose to be a light in these times of darkness and serve the Lord as He desires us to do. Allow the power of the Holy Spirit which lives inside each of us to do God's will and refuse to be discouraged or distracted from the work we were put here to do.
"Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing." Matthew 24:36. NKJV
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