Maturity in the Last Days (18:7)

In the last days, our experience will be very much like that of Job. If we do not have a bigger perspective, based on all sixty-six books of the Bible, we will not be ready for what is coming. Unless we are grounded in the universe-wide understanding of God, the Great Controversy and the plan of salvation, we will be no help to ourselves. We will be very vulnerable when Satan seeks to deceive us, when he tells us that God is an arbitrary, vengeful Deity. And we will be no help to anyone else.

It seems to me that a great deal of current Christian theology is preoccupied with our legal standing before God. Is that why God still waits until we grow up into a much larger understanding of the truth? For without that larger understanding of the truth, we will never survive the time of trouble at the End. That’s why Paul says, “Put on the whole armor that God has supplied, and particularly the armor of truth.” And in Ephesians 6 he places that theme in the context of the Great Controversy:

Put on all the armour which God provides, so that you may be able to stand firm against the devices of the devil. For our fight is not against human foes, but against cosmic powers [Satan and his angels], against the authorities and potentates of this dark world, against the superhuman forces of evil in the heavens. Therefore, take up God’s armour; then you will be able to stand your ground when things are at their worst, to complete every task and still to stand. Stand firm, I say. Fasten on the belt of truth [emphases supplied]. Eph 6:11-14, NEB.

We know what that truth is: the good news about our God.