Paul was proud of the Good News about our gracious, forgiving God. Jonah was ashamed! When Jesus returns, he will come to a generation of believers who have experienced Satan’s last supreme attempt to deceive and destroy God’s people. They will have accomplished what one third of the angels failed to do. They will have refused to be turned against God by Satan’s lies. They will have been able to say with Paul, “If anyone—even an angel from heaven—should bring a different version of the everlasting Good News, he is wrong, and we will not believe it!” (See Galatians 1:8, 9.) These are not babes in the truth. They are grown-up believers. They meet the Biblical description of Christian maturity: they have “their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil” (see Hebrews 5:11–6:3). They have not only the teachable faith of a little child, which still needs much protection, but—like Job—they can stand alone. Though their faith is severely tested, they will never let God down. They have welcomed the Holy Spirit, the Teacher of love and truth. He has sealed and settled them so firmly in the truth that they cannot be moved (see John 14:16, 17, 26; 16:8; Ephesians 4:30). To be filled with the Spirit of love means to be filled with the Spirit of truth. The loving Christian is not weak; he is a person of strong conviction, and he speaks with the authority of truth. God is waiting for such firm believers. In Revelation 7:1–3 his angels are pictured as mercifully holding back the final winds of strife until the minds of God’s children have been unshakably settled into the truth.
Posted on: Thu, 17 Apr 2014 23:16:03 +0000
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