Why we misunderstand sometimes when we read our English translations:
Matthew 24
"For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows."
It makes much more sense to read this passage when we understand what the original language says.
We see ethnic groups against one another daily and growing worse as the world becomes more wicked. The idea of "sticking with your clan" is more prevalent than the idea of everyone being concerned about everyone else no matter their ethnic group.
Another misunderstanding in the Christian community is that everyone who is born again will do "greater miracles" in terms of healings and acts that we can see with our eyes.
John 14:12-14
"12 Truly, truly I say to you, the one who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I am going to the Father. 13 And whatever you ask in My name, this I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it."
What is the greater work that we will do than healing someone or raising someone from the dead? The greater work is the gospel to the unsaved. We can pray for the unsaved to be healed but it will not necessarily cause them to come to Christ any more than giving them the gospel will save them.
We are the messengers of the gospel which is able to save a person for eternity, not merely making their life better here but giving them eternal life when they pass from this life. This is the greatest work of all. We are messengers for the greater good, not for more comfort here on this earth.
Christ did miracles for people who didn't even come back to learn more or thank Him for what He did for them. Often people can see a miracle or even a false miracle that does not lead them to Chrsit but gives them another story to tell.
John 17:20 "20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
John 20:29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”"
Why do so many Christians place their trust in affecting a wicked government? I am convinced it is because they want to place their trust in something they can see rather than in Someone they cannot see.
Many Christians twist the word of God to make it sound as though we should rush out there and get involved in politics to affect change in the culture. God never told us to do this. There are those who have been in politics in order to bring the gospel, but most are there to make a better life on this earth for themselves and their loved ones. God never told us to do this.
In our country, we have been brainwashed from an early age that politics is more important than anything else. In school, we said the "Pledge of Allegiance" every day to start our day but we did not pray to God every day, we did not pledge our allegiance to Christ, it was only a pledge to follow the flag and the government.
1855-1931 ""I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
1923 ""I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
1954 (God was added) ""I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
But no mention of Jesus Christ or which God.
"Shortly thereafter, the pledge was begun with the right hand over the heart, and after reciting "to the Flag," the arm was extended toward the Flag, palm-down."
This seems like a stance of worship to me, the hand over the heart while pledging to a nation our loyalty. But I ask, what if our nation is against God, should we follow it anyway because of a promise we made every day as a child?
Numbers 30:2
"If a man vows a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth."
We were trained in childhood that if we didn't want to take this oath to our country we were bad citizens of it. We may have even been punished for not saying it.
James 5:12 "But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation."
What about those countries in which there was no freedom? Can a believer live a life of joy and peace in their hearts in the midst of those wicked governments? I say they can live at peace as Paul did even while in a prison cell, because our peace is not an outer circumstantial peace but a peace within the heart because Christ lives in us.
We have been trained from a young age to value freedom above God and claim that He wants it more than anything else. There will come a day when God removes our freedoms to show us our trust in them was no trust in Christ. They are being removed little by little every day. We are now being required to think they way the government wants us to think under the pressure of persecution if we defy it.
When we trust in Christ we can live in any circumstance accepting what God has for us even under oppression.
Our culture has been teaching Christians of our day that we cannot follow Christ unless our country is free. We saw this when the churches were shut down because of a virus. Those who met in homes were not affected, they were not monitored by the government to see if they were meeting, they were not required to have a 501c3 status to be exempt from property taxes, they had no government mandates that restricted them from continuing to meet.
I was not worried about the churches being closed, I was curious to see if anyone would worship at home, not restrained by their idea of "church" being in a separate building with a one-man-paid-pastor system. Could they engage with God in full dedication to Him without the trappings of the traditional system they were raised with, the answer was, no most could not and some never came back when the ban to gather was lifted.
Sadly many people who could no longer go to church gatherings because of the virus didn't know how to worship at home, pray at home or invite godly friends to join them. They have been so brain-washed that we must go to a building, not our home, that there must be a trained by human beings and paid pastor in order to operate at all, that they didn't know what to do with themselves when this was taken from them.
God never commanded a one-man-paid-pastor system, He never told us to have lots of people gathered together. In fact, God said "where two or three are gathered" was enough to satisfy His mandate to meet together in worship.
The model for worship was the Lord's supper where those who met participated in the worship with the leader being the Holy Spirit as the men were led to pray, bring the Wrod from the Bible and ask for a song. The leader is the Holy Spirit not worship teams or a man standing up front telling everyone what to do, producing robots in the pews who do not know what it is to be led by the Holy Spirit. Now the "paid-pastors" instruct the people when to say amen, even when to laugh at something.
When man attempts to make their rules not based on Scripture we end up with those in the pews sitting mindlessly doing whatever they are told without commitment to Christ. When men are the leaders people tend to let the men do it all so they don't have to. The paid men become their mediator between God and them.
1 Timothy 2:5-6 " 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave Himself as a ransom for all—the testimony that was given at just the right time.…"
When we obey God's Word in our worship we will be led by the Holy Spirit and no one person will be allowed to dominate or mislead the people. If someone speaks a word that is in error, others will correct them right then and there so that others will not be misled.
Read 1 Corinthians 11 to discover what the worship really looks like and what a blessing it is when the Holy Spirit leads.
