The Lamb that was slain is the guarantee of the victory of God’s children, even though for some, that victory is attained through martyrdom. “Whoever has ears, let them hear.” That call is always heard when the glorified Christ addresses one of the seven churches, to His Church of all ages. And the call is followed by tremendous promises to “the one who is victorious, who overcomes”,2 or those promises even precede it: “He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the ‘book of life’, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.”3 Don’t miss out on the promises of God! There is this encouragement, also for us, now that the ‘beast’ and its power are on the rise. This is what it is all about! Hold tight! Never give up! Remember I told you all about it, the Lord says! It is a warning to remain faithful to God and Jesus and the Word. Do not to listen to other voices. Please!
Moses was heard giving the same call, to direct the people of Israel to what God had said: “Hear, Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them,”4 and “Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you… Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”5
Opened ears and opened hearts by the grace of God that is what this is about, listening and cherishing the Word of God. You love it more than food and drink! There will be more and more enticing voices, trying to lead the flock astray, so that ‘were it possible’ even the elect would be deceived as well.6 In His discourse about the end-times Jesus says no less than four times that we must not allow ourselves to be ‘deceived’ by the false ‘christs’ and the false prophets. Watch out that no one deceives you!
Many will say, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will deceive many,7 including the elect, if that were possible. But that is not possible! Because the Lord will help you, and Jesus protects His little lambs. Isaiah 40:11 “Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, sIn His arm He will gather the lambs and carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes.” There are religious sect leaders of all kinds do indeed try to succeed, time and again, in deceiving unsuspecting people who want nothing better than to serve God and to follow Jesus Christ. Sometimes these cults implode with terrible, dramatic consequences, such as mass suicides of the leader and his followers. However, there will be factors at work other than just these kinds of religious sects in the end-times. The basic thinking of the great majority of the peoples and nations on earth will be completely filled with the philosophies and ideologies and theories of the ‘beast’ and the ‘false prophet’. Promoting a worldwide ‘religion’, a unity of world-religions – unity in diversity – in order that they will have the spirit, soul and body of the people completely in their grasp. Because they themselves are also in the grasp of the invisible world of the ‘powers of darkness’, under the leadership of the ‘dragon’ who has been cast down on earth filled with fury.8
How do you resist this? How do you know what you should think and what you should inwardly reject? Take heed to the Word and the Spirit, pray for enlightenment by the Holy Spirit, and listen to the Word of God. The Spirit never goes against the Word, and the Word never goes against the Spirit. You hear God’s voice in the Word, and the loving voice of the Good Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ. If you do, you are safe and you remain undefiled from everything that everyone wants to lure and talk you into. And you belong, through suffering, to the great group of ‘overcomers’, the ‘victors’! For ever. You can hold on to Him, because He is holding on to you. And He will never let you go. John 10:27-28 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.”
• One sometimes hears it being said: ‘Yes, in the Bible it says this or that, but the Spirit tells me…!’ And then the person starts speaking of things that if you listen carefully are definitely NOT in God’s Word. An opinion that sometimes even is completely in contradiction with the Bible. For example: ‘The Lord tells me by the Holy Spirit that I must leave my husband/wife, because He has led me to another husband/wife. I can feel it!’ The truth is that it is not by the Word of God but because they have fallen in love with someone else and desire to be with that other person. This is just one example; many more could be given.
• Christian ethics are based on the Word of God, not upon our feelings, ideas or even rational arguments. We are self-centred by birth but God says that we should love Him with all our heart and with all our soul and our fellow human beings like ourselves.
Bible References:
1.NIV 2.Revelation 2:7 3.Revelation 2:26–29, 3:5–6, 12–13, 21–22 4.Deuteronomy 5:1 5.Deuteronomy 6:3–4 6.Matthew 24:24 7.Matthew 24:4, 5, 11, 24 8.Revelation 12:12
