This is the Way
The Working Energy of Faith
by Robin Webber
Just over 60 years ago in wartime Holland, closeted away in a secret room, a young Jewish girl penned into her diary a startling entry of her present reality and future predictions of what it would take to create a better world.
On May 3, 1944, Anne Frank shared her frustrations and expectations by writing, "As you can easily imagine we often ask ourselves here despairingly, 'What, oh what is the use of this war? Why can't people live peaceably together? Why all this destruction?' The question is very understandable, but no one has found a satisfactory answer to it so far."
She goes on to lament, "Oh, why are people so crazy? I don't believe the big men, the politicians, the capitalists, alone are guilty of war. Oh no, the little man is just as keen; otherwise the people of the world would have risen in revolt long ago! There is an urge and a rage in people to destroy, to kill and to murder and until all mankind without exception undergoes a great change, wars will be waged, everything that has been built, cultivated and grown will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to start all over again."
The young lady with the big questions and even bigger conclusions died in the Holocaust.
But her solutions live in Scripture. Did you realize that the Holy Bible lays out the future hope when "all mankind without exception undergoes a great change" and "will start all over again"? Isaiah 40:1-5 outlines a coming time of great comfort. Isaiah writes: "'Comfort, yes, comfort My people!' says your God. 'Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins.'"
For a moment let's ask, has this actually occurred? Since Isaiah wrote this over 2,700 years ago, Jerusalem has rarely ceased from experiencing violence, even to this day. No! This is speaking of a future time, yet ahead of us—a time when Anne Frank's questions will be answered.
The voice of one crying in the wilderness
Isaiah 40:3 goes on to state, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth. The glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.'"
The big question is whether this is simply poetic wishful thinking. Or, to take it a step further; does it mean the physical strata around us is going to get a makeover that will straighten out all the tectonic plates into seamless equality? Or is there an even greater meaning?
The language of the Bible requires thoughtful consideration. The biblical term mountains is often used to describe nations or kingdoms in relationship to the greater mountain or "kingdom of God." What is being spoken of here is more than poetic prose or a geographic facelift, but the "great change" and starting "all over again" of the geopolitical landscape that Anne Frank could only muse about in her shrinking world of terror. The Bible clearly indicates that Jesus Christ is literally returning to this earth to alter the governments of mankind, as we know them.
Revelation 11:15 clearly announces, "Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, 'The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!'" Yes, a shake-up of not only valleys, hills and mountains is going to occur, but human governments are going to go the way of the dinosaur—extinct!
Can we truly be prepared?
The big question is, will we be ready? Can we truly be prepared? World News and Prophecy is very much in the same spirit as that lone voice crying in the wilderness. In this publication you are not reading articles exalting or excusing human reasoning. What we offer is a spiritual diagnosis of our true spiritual condition. Yes, hear the grim realities echoing the sentiments of a teenage girl in World War II Holland, who cries from the grave, "Who will stop all this craziness?"
World News and Prophecy is one of the few publications you will read that tries to tell it exactly like it is. And that means, for the short term, world events are going to get increasingly darker before the radiant and glorious light of Christ's second coming.
How will we be able to endure those difficult times? It's going to take deep and abiding faith. The prophetic book of Revelation speaks of a people who "keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus" (Revelation 14:12). This is not merely speaking of faith in Christ, but possessing and exercising the same power of belief as the One who proclaimed both the manner of His death and the joy of His resurrection in the same breath. Now that is faith.
The just shall walk by faith
Don't worry, God knows all this, and He knows all about you and me. And He loves us anyway. He knows that the natural man walks by fear, not by faith. He knows about the panic we feel when we peek out the windows of our minds and see only a darkened world of shrinking returns, as Anne Frank saw.
Nonetheless, God tells us in Romans 1:17 that "the just shall live by faith." What is faith? Simply put, faith is taking God at His Word. But allow me to stretch the equation just a little further. Faith is knowing that God's ways work and work best and that He will answer at the right time, in the right way and never be late. For you and me, late is not spelled d-e-a-t-h. For we have a lively hope.
We're not the first ones to face this spiritual challenge lined with human risks. Long ago, God asked Jacob to go down to Egypt. In Genesis 46:2-4, God made some amazing assertions and promises all wrapped into one. He said to Jacob, "I am God, the God of your father; do not fear to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there. I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also surely bring you up again; and Joseph will put his hand on your eyes."
Now, humanly speaking, it was natural for the elderly Jacob to be fearful about moving his entire family hundreds of miles into a nation where their security was uncertain. But did you notice the first thing God did? He validated Jacob's natural fears, but He didn't leave His servant stuck in fear. Our Maker knows we are shaking inside, even before the trembling starts on the outside. Nonetheless, God says, "Don't let fear stop you, because you will not be alone!"
At that time your people shall be delivered
God is calling our end-time generations to more than a camel's journey down to Egypt. He's calling us to grow in faith toward Him as this world turns itself inside out before He turns it right side up. God's Word clearly indicates that what lies ahead will pale in comparison even the lamentable world of Anne Frank and the world of lurking terrorism that confronts us today.
God's prophet Daniel was told to write that "there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time." And then, the angelic messenger throws in a caveat—"And at that time your people shall be delivered, every one who is found written in the book [the Book of Life]" (Daniel 12:1). God makes a realistic statement and a promise of rescue from what Anne Frank called this "crazy" world.
Yes, the world is going to grow dark. The events that are related to the fulfillment of Daniel 12 are going to leave most people emotionally deaf, dumb and blind. Their senses and personal identities will have been stripped. And yet God will still be looking out after those who "walk by faith" and keep the commandments and have the faith of Christ. Just as with Jacob of old, God is telling His people today, "I will go down with you!"
A great gift from a great God
That kind of faith for such a life's journey is not something natural or homegrown in the recesses of our mind. It is a great gift from a great God. And, even to this day, He is continuing to reach down into a world of darkness and grant the gift of living and abiding faith to those who ask. In His incredible mercy, He even touches and breaks through the darkened hearts of those who have lost their way, having been made senseless in an increasingly senseless world—the "crazy" world of Anne Frank's diary.
Let's allow the words of one blinded from birth to open our eyes to the power and need for faith to succeed in our walk down the path of God's design, wherever it might lead.
Helen Keller, the renowned blind and deaf author and lecturer, explained it this way. "I know that faith made my life possible and that of many others like me... Reason hardly warranted Anne Sullivan's attempt to transform a little half-human, half-animal, deaf-blind child into a complete human being. Neither science nor philosophy had set such a goal, but faith, the eye of love did. I did not know I had a soul. Then the God in a wise heart drew me out of nothingness with cords of human love and the life belt of language, and lo, I found myself. In my doubly shadowed world faith gives me a reason for trying to draw harmony out of a marred instrument. Faith is not a cushion for me to fall back upon; it is my working energy" (excerpts from Let Us Have Faith, 1940, pp. 9-11).
Each of us has a helper
What an incredible testament to love and faith! And yet, if the truth be known, each of us has a helper who has drawn us out of a world of increasing darkness. Each of us has been given a lifeline of language. For each of us has come into contact with the wise heart of none other than God the Father, who has drawn us to Him, embraced us with the safeguard of His promises and given us the life belt of faith.
Yes, the words of Helen Keller echo the sentiment of Isaiah 30:21 that tells us, "This is the way, walk in it." Her heart is focused on clearly seeing that "faith is not a cushion for me to fall back upon; it is my working energy."
It is such working energy that allows us to mirror the faith of Christ. This is a faith that will sustain us to literally see what Anne Frank could only write about—when "mankind will have to start all over again" under Jesus Christ. WNP
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