Practical Proverbial, from Daniel, 14 December 2021. Today’s topic: Hold Fast

“At the appointed time he will invade the South again, but this time the outcome will be different from what it was before. Ships of the western coastlands will oppose him, and he will lose heart. Then he will turn back and vent his fury against the holy covenant. He will return and show favor to those who forsake the holy covenant.  “His armed forces will rise up to desecrate the temple fortress and will abolish the daily sacrifice. Then they will set up the abomination that causes desolation. With flattery he will corrupt those who have violated the covenant, but the people who know their God will firmly resist him.  Daniel 11:29-32 (NIV).

This is a passage that was and will be fulfilled again.   Years ago, after the time of Daniel, when Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, he sacrificed to pagan gods on the altar of the true God.   It was the abomination that causes desolation, and it permanently defiled the Temple before it was destroyed. 

In the end times of this planet, another defiler will come who will cause another abomination that causes desolation to desecrate a rebuilt Jewish temple.  Satan’s Antichrist will mock God and deliver the ultimate insult to Him yet again.  As the verses say, with flattery the Antichrist will corrupt people who will think nothing of it.   After all, flattery is more effective than torture.

That isn’t hard to believe in our time, you know.   Think about it and it isn’t really hard to believe in any time.   Since the years after Noah, most of the world has rejected the God who gives life without conditions.   Most of the world doesn’t believe in the God of the Bible, let alone know, understand, or care to meet Him in His Son, Jesus.   Most of the world willingly, willfully listens to any voice but God’s, not realizing that any voice not God’s is not of God. 

Is it so hard to believe that an Antichrist could so easily deceive billions of people alive at that terrible time when billions of people throughout history willingly turned their ears away from God?  Indeed, we lie, we cheat, we inflict pain on each other, we do the most terrible things imaginable in the name of ‘freedom’ or ‘choice.’  All the while, Satan is laughing with delight.

In the face of that, be different.   Those who hold to faith in Jesus will prevail.   Satan is already defeated even as he continually struggles to disprove it.  When his time is finally due, he will try even harder and still will end up in final defeat.  It isn’t easy to resist him, but by holding fast to Christ, it also isn’t as difficult as you would think.

For further reading: 1 Samuel 17:32, Job 15:13, Jeremiah 19:4, Hosea 3:4, Micah 5:7-9, Matthew 24:15, Mark 13:14, Daniel 11:33

Christ, I hold fast to only You

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