The deepest lessons on faith come in the midst of the fires and the tribulations of life. The basic accusation of the enemy against God is “they only love you and follow you for what they have been given or for what they can get.” Therefore the greatest expressions of faith, trust in God, comes in the midst of endurance, a less than popular word, when all has been stripped away. Think of Jesus, our highest example. From the glories of heaven where the host bow down and cry Holy, to the lowest depths of the earth where He stripped and hung naked on a cross and mocked and humiliated by mere mortals. He endures all of this and never denies His Father and stays right there on the cross because of His love and obedience. This is trust in God in action. The Word becomes flesh and light conquers darkness.

And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? (Luk 18:7-8)

Such an interesting Scripture. The last part of this particular Scripture tends to be the focus, but the context is often overlooked. The context is The Lord coming to avenge His own elect, His saints. And it seems that they cry day and night for justice. This ties into what we read in Rev 10 – And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? So when the question is asked in Luke 18:8 “will the Lord find faith on the earth,” when He comes again to avenge the saints and all those who have went before, the implication is that no, He will find very little faith here on earth.

Given what the Lord asks here about faith, then it is clear that above all else it is faith that the Lord is looking for from the end time saints. Above all else they must trust Him. In the darkest time of the history of the ages they must trust Him. When the great falling away is taking place they must trust Him. When all around is falling and is being shaken, they must trust Him. And in every latent stage of the birth pangs, more are sifted and more more fall away. They begin to believe that Jesus is never coming back, they have stopped looking for His soon coming return. Their loss of faith is proceeded by their loss of hope, their hearts fainting for fear, their inability to stand as the evil day unfolds.

Isa 49:14  But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. This is the cry of the many in the day of our afflictions, in the great persecution to come. Love and obedience and faith, trust in the Lord our God and His word is the word becoming flesh in us. This is how we overcome, this is how darkness is conquered by light, by the Blood of the Lamb, by the word of their testimony and they loved not their lives unto death. This is the oil in the vessels of the over-comers, this is where the Lord will find faith on the earth when He returns, not among the multitude found on the broad path leading to destruction, but among the few on the narrow path that leads to life.