Our paragraph topic is: (He tells them of trials and hard times to come) Part 4.
It was like a movie. Christ was foretelling the future and the disciples were visualizing it all taking place before their eyes. Christ seeing what the Father was seeing and knowing what he knew walked through time as all these things were happening. It was like he was standing still and time was fast forwarding around him. He could see and understand all that was happening. He could stop, reverse, go from one point in time to another, move from one place to another to see and hear all that occurred at that point at that place in time.
And he spoke to his disciples about all that happened. Reading a book only gives a general idea of what happens and is incapable of describing in detail what is happening. But if you are there at the time and place that an event took place you are able to give detail information that would take many pages to describe. This is why Christ wanted to tell his disciples what would happen because he was able to see first hand in detail the events that would take place. So he told his disciples after all the tribulation and their deaths, he said: "And then many will fall away."
Christ could see the great increase in the number of new members coming into the church. But after the church suffered torture and death of the disciples, many of the so called believers would turn from the church for fear. They did not have the same belief, the same hope, the same faith, the same spirit as those who were first to experience the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And so as the persecutions began to spread the members began to scatter for fear of same.
Today we live in a different world where we do not have religious persecution in most of the free world. However, in some parts of the world religious persecution is still practiced. Freedom to believe and practice your choice of religion is not allowed in those parts of the world and must be hidden and practiced underground away from the public.
Most religions as a whole are free to practice in the open, free from persecution. But there is also internal persecution or pressure from within our society as a whole. Ask a person to attend church with you and you might get push back or even disassociation. We evangelize everywhere in an attempt to bring new members into our churches. This is what we are given to do by our religious leaders, to go out and carry the message to others so that they can become new members, new believers.
Christ came to spread the good news. He went from village to town talking about the kingdom of heaven because the people did not know during those times. They knew that there was a God but did not fully believe in life after death and the kingdom of heaven. He came to show us the truth of who we are and to demonstrate to us the truth of our Father in heaven. So today we have witnesses to the truth. We have knowledge of the truth. We have faith and trust as to the truth of his words. Today we are the children of the light created in his image. Ours is the kingdom of heaven if we choose to accept and believe in the word.
Read the sign of the times! Read the Highlighted New Testament Bible and lift the scales from your eyes that you may see, that you may know, that you may find the truth of who you are in Christ. Read it as though you would read a good book, from cover to cover, and see for yourself. Do not study it in parts reading one passage nd then skipping to another, but read it for understanding. Read it for knowledge. Read it for faith. Read it that your eyes may be opened, that your ears may hear, that your heart may be filled with the light of Christ . The Holy Spirit awaits you. Christ seeks to know you. Open the door and let him in.
