- Overcomer Literature Trust
- Swindon
- Wiltshire
THE CHURCH AT THE TIME OF THE END.
By Mrs Jesse Penn-Lewis.
This is an hour of big movements. The whole world is in a state of upheaval, and world-visions of all kinds are laying hold of both philanthropists and those loyal to Christ the Lord. The great question is, ‘Are these world-visions in harmony with the Word of God?’ The devil can give world-vision (Matt. 4 v8). It is therefore necessary that we get our outlook adjusted to the conditions the Bible reveals as characterising the last days.
Let us first look briefly at the message of the glorified Lord to Philadelphia (Rev. 3 v7-13). It is a message to the true Church, to all the members of the Body of Christ throughout the world at the Time of the End, and on the eve of the Second Advent of the Lord (v. 11). It is also the first reference to His coming quickly which we find in these letters to the Churches.
The true church at the Time of the End.
1) It will be a time when everything around them will be so antagonistic to the Gospel that only the Lord Himself will be able to open doors for His message and His messengers, and keep them open (v. 7, 8).
2) It will be at a time when His people will have little strength in comparison with the forces against them.
3) It will be at a time when the only victory possible will be of what they will not do, and not what they are able to accomplish. “Thou hast not denied My Name” (v8).
4) In the religious world it will be a time of profession (v9), without real possession of true fellowship with God.
5) It will be a time when the one word the Lord speaks to His people is patience, “you have kept my command to endure patiently” (v10). Nothing else will be possible.
Not advance, or to do great things, but patience. In this condition of God-wrought patience in His saints, He will be able to keep them during the darkness preceding the terrible hour which is coming upon the the whole earth (v. 10). Impatience takes a believer out of the keeping power of God almost more than anything else. The Lord therefore says, ‘Because you have kept the word of My patience I also will keep you’.
6) For the saints it is also a time of conflict in which the prize of the crown is at stake. ‘‘Hold on to what you have, so that no-one will take your crown” (v11).
The World-conditions in the time of the Anti-christ.
When the Beast, the Anti-christ, obtains the throne of the world and great authority, the condition of things as depicted in Revelation 13 v1-18 will not have come about suddenly but be the result of previous workings of the spirits of Anti-christ (1 John 2 v18).
The nearer we get to the eve of the Lord’s return, the believers described in the message to Philadelphia will find themselves in the dark shadow of the approaching reign of the Beast.
The entire situation will be the direct outcome of the schemes and power of the Dragon, for it is the Dragon who gives the Beast his power. It plainly says that the Dragon governs the world through two instruments, the Beast as the head of all civil authority, and the false Prophet as the head of all the religious movements of the time.
Notice some of the characteristics of the Beast. He received homage from all the world, and through this homage to the Beast the Dragon obtains the world-worship he has craved from the moment he said, “I will be like God” (Is. 14 v14). His great ambition is to obtain the worship due only to the Most High, and he obtains it for a brief period before the Lord returns in glory. Notice too the striking descriptions given of the chief characteristics of the Beast, where all the world wondered at him and gave him worship. He had had a deadly wound which was healed. Twice more this special characteristic is mentioned, once when it is said that the people of the earth were caused to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed (v12), and again when those who dwell on the earth were urged to make an image of the Beast, who was wounded by the sword and yet lived (v14).
This shows clearly that the Dragon is able to heal and counterfeit the resurrection of the Lord, and that the Anti-christ and the false Prophet will obtain their power over all that dwell on earth entirely by satanic power.
The influence of the Beast was exercised primarily through speech, he blasphemed God and His Name, heaven and the redeemed ones who live there. What a terrible description of the state of the world under the government of the fallen archangel, Satan. Open blasphemy against God and all that belongs to Him.
The Saints in the time of the Anti-christ.
Are there to be no exceptions to this world-wide homage to the Beast and to the Dragon? Yes. The Calvary saints saw the power behind and refused to worship (v8). With the result that the Beast had power to cause that all those who would not worship be killed (v15). Further, he caused all to receive a mark, that none might buy or sell except those who had the mark (v16-17). This was to starve out those who would not worship. The conditions to-day in the spiritual realm are rapidly shaping along these lines. In the ungodly world we can see the increasing working of anti-christian spirits blaspheming God, and in the religious world anti-christian spirits counterfeiting Christ.
Do the Scriptures give light on the hour and show us God doing signs and wonders in competition, so to speak, with the counterfeits which the spirits of Anti-christ and the false Prophet are already bringing to pass in the earth? Or does the picture emphasise that the one and only power which will enable the saints to stand in the evil day is the knowledge of the Cross, and the one and only path for them is the way of the Cross?
The Calvary Saints before and during the reign of the Beast.
“All . . . will worship the Beast - all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.” (v8).
This does not look like God coming forth with signs and wonders to oppose the counterfeits of Satan. Rather is it in line with the principle of God’s working described by Jesus, “No sign will be given except the sign of Jonah” (Matt. 16 v1-4). “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12 v38-40). The only sign God gave to the Jews who asked Jesus for a sign from heaven was His death at Calvary. And the great sign which will be from Him in the days of Anti-christ will be His witness to the atoning death of His Son through those who partake of the Spirit of Christ in laying down their lives for Him.
All these conditions are already present in the world, and it seems clear that there is no promise for the last days of any God-given signs and wonders, or even of a rapid ingathering of masses of souls for Christ. But there will be world-movements permitted by the prince of the power of the air when the Gospel of the Cross is omitted, and the counterfeit workings of the spirits of Anti-christ minimising the message of the Cross in its fullest power. Neither is there any ground for expecting a visible triumph of the saints, for ‘‘he was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them” (Rev. 13 v7).
The Knowledge of the Cross is the need in the last days.
“The Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world” (Rev. 13 v8). It is striking to find this statement in the midst of the unveiling of the Anti-christ’s reign over the world. The expression embodies the entire work of Christ at Calvary, as the Lamb slain for those whose names are entered in His Book of Life. The one need for the children of God at the time of the end is to know in all its fulness the meaning of the Cross, so as to wield it as a weapon of victory over the Dragon in all his varied attacks on the people of God.
You shall know them by their fruits, said the Lord to His disciples, for the fruit as the outcome of the inner life reveals the hidden source of action. “Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom heaven . . . Many will say to Me on that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your Name, and in your Name cast out demons, and performed many miracles” (Matt. 7 v15-23). The sorcerers in Egypt, working by the power of Satan, were able to produce counterfeit blood (Ex. 7 v22), but the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ speaks in heaven on the Mercy Seat.
The disciples came to Jesus privately, saying, “Tell us . . . what will be the sign . . . of the end of the age? And the Lord answered, saying, “Watch out . . . many will come in My Name . . . many false prophets will appear and deceive many . . . to deceive even the elect” (Matt. 24 v3&24). He does not say that the leading astray of the elect is not possible, but that the aim of the Deceiver is to deceive the elect. “See, I have told you ahead of time” said the Master, making it quite plain that it is through signs and wonders that the danger would come to the earnest children of God, at a time when lawlessness would be abounding and the love of many would grown cold (v11-12). In these perilous days let us watch and be sober (1Thess. 5 v6 & 1Pet. 4 v7).