The Bible Predicts What the Future Will Hold for the Dedicated Christian

Although God has drawn a curtain between the present and the future, the Bible is quite specific concerning what the faithful Christian can expect.

Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, understood a fundamental principle of life when he wrote that what   “has been is that which will be…. So there is nothing new under the sun.”  (Ecclesiastes 1:9)  Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the sons of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. “ …For he was wiser than all men….” (Emphasis mine) (1 Kings 4: 29, 30)

First, let us briefly review how Christ and His disciples were treated. Then we shall consider how later faithful Christians were abused by enemies of Biblical truth.  According to Solomon, the treatment of faithful Christians in the past will reveal what lies ahead for those who live by God’s word.

One account reads: Now about that time Herod the king stretched out his hand to harass some of the Church. Then he killed James the brother of John with the sword.  And when he saw that it pleased the Jews he seized and arrested Peter and intended to kill him after the Passover (spring 44 AD) to please the Jews, but the Angel of the Lord appeared to Peter and saved him.  The just punishment of God to Herod was delivered as the Angel of the Lord struck him, and he was eaten by worms and died. (See Acts 12)

Paul described persecution by the Jews saying, “Who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they do not please God and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins, but wrath has come upon them to the uttermost. (1 Thessalonians 2:15 &16)

Another wave of persecution of Christians came during the Dark and Middle Ages. Because Protestant Christians were considered heretics, they suffered untold pain, torture, and death. Their refusal to surrender the scriptures was an offense that the authorities could not tolerate.  The “heretics’” greatest offense was that they refused to worship God according to the will of Church authorities. For this crime, the “heretics” suffered every humiliation, insult, and torture that man could invent.  (See Fox’s Book of Martyrs.)

Again, we find the following information recorded by Fox. The tragic sufferings of the Protestants are too numerous to detail; but the treatment of Philip de Deux will give a sample:   After the miscreants had slain this martyr in his bed, they went to his wife, who was then attended by the midwife, expecting every moment to be delivered. The midwife entreated them to stay the murder, at least till the child, which was the twentieth, should be born. Notwithstanding this, they thrust a dagger up to the hilt into the poor woman. Anxious to be delivered, she ran into a corn loft; but hither they pursued her, stabbed her in the belly, and then threw her into the street. By the fall, the child came from the dying mother, and being caught up by one of the Church ruffians, he stabbed the infant, and then threw it into the river. (Fox’s Book of Martyrs, Chapter IV, “The Bartholomew Massacre at Paris,” etc.)

Although we do not have the space to do a detailed study of Biblical prophecies concerning the moral conditions of mankind before Christ comes the second time, the Apostle Paul, writing to Timothy, describes in some detail the moral conditions of the “last days.”  In 2 Timothy Chapter 3, we read: 3 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! 6 For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; 9 but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was. The Man of God and the Word of God10 But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, perseverance, 11 persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra… And out of them all the Lord delivered me. 12 Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. Therefore, Paul warns Timothy that those who remain faithful to Jesus Christ and His word, will be persecuted!

However, John the Revelator gives hope when he writes, “…be thou faithful unto death, and I shall give thee a crown of life.” What a crown we shall inherit, that of eternal life. (Revelation 2:10) May each of us remain faithful and inherit that crown of eternal life!

Until next week, may God richly bless you and yours!

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©2017 by Fillmer Hevener