What has happened this last year is just a precursor for what is to come. We are being conditioned to comply “or else.” This is the China model being brought in by the back door. Social scoring and social punishment for non compliance. It does not take a rocket scientist to see where this is heading.

It is heading towards an inevitable clash of “authorities.” Study Church history and you will see that the vast majority of martyrs were martyred because they refused to recognize the authority of the rulers of this world as greater than the authority of God.

Satan’s desire was for Jesus to bow the knee to Him and he offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and a way to avoid the cross. If our Lord and Master was so tempted, then so shall we be. We shall be offered the world and the benefits thereof, and the chance to avoid persecution if we will only bow the knee. Most will bow the knee. What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world yet loses his soul?

In the end there are two authorities. The authority of God and the authority of man. Genuine saints will never bow to the authority of man that seeks to usurp the authority of God. In all other matters, genuine Christians make the best citizens. Their desire is to respect human authorities and live peaceably among men. Yet in every generation,down through the corridors of the last two thousand years, time and time again there comes a clash. Men demand that the saints bow down to them and acknowledge their authority over them that usurps God’s authority. This has mostly come in the guise of religious men.

They claim to have authority from God and therefore all must follow their dictates. For the saints, the final authority in this world is the Word of God and the Holy Spirit that opens up the Word to them by inspiration. An example would be the Catholics insistence that the “Eucharist,” is the actual Body of Christ. Hundreds of thousands of saints would be burned to death for not complying with this. Infant baptism would be another. Countless people would be burned to death for refusing to acknowledge infant baptism and therefore refusing to baptize their babies.

Rome, prior to Constantine would be another. Unless one was willing to recognize Caesar as a god, then one could well find themselves in the arena with lions. It is always about authority because this is what the enemy of our souls desperately wants. He wants to usurp God and have God’s children bow the knee to him. There is nothing more lethal for the saints than when the civil authorities and the religious authorities walk in lockstep to come against them.

And so we see the stage being set for the most lethal time the world has even known for the saints. The forces of religion and secularism and the civil authorities are, as we speak, aligning themselves. Remember when the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Herodians and Rome all came together in agreement to kill Jesus? This was the combined forces of the religious and the political and the empire all finding common ground in their desire for self preservation and dominance. It was argued among them that is was for the common good of all that Jesus must die.

It will be the same argument when it comes to the saints in the last days. It will be argued that it will be for the common good of mankind to get rid of Christian who will not comply or compromise their faith. Christians will be seen as a thorn in the side of humanity. In an effort to drown out their collective conscience, the world will gnash their teeth.This is what happened to Stephen in Acts 7:54. Unleashed rage because Stephen by the power of the Holy Spirit exposed them and their arguments with irrefutable heavenly wisdom.

They fell upon Stephen like dogs. In Job 16:9 Job says of his enemy “He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me: he gnasheth upon me with his teeth.” In Philippians 3:2 Paul warns us by saying “beware of the dogs.” Men so full of rage and inner turmoil than when they hear the truth spoken by the power of the Holy Spirit there is an explosion and an unleashing of hell. Law no longer applies. The forces of anarchy unleashed. For a moment, for a day, for a season for a time of persecution.

This is the clash of two authorities.Wow worlds collide. Heaven and hell. Darkness and light. Jesus and Satan. In the end only one can stand and Satan knows this. The wheat and the tares can lo longer co-exist when comes the harvest. There is a coalescing of both groups that will take place. The many disparate groups of both camps coalesce in the final days. Jesus says in Matt 12:30 He that is not with me is against me. It comes down to that in the end. There is no room for neutrality. There is no lukewarm middle ground upon which to stand. You will either be for Jesus or you will be against Him. He is either preeminent in your life or He is not.

In times of relative peace we are surrounded by the lukewarm and the so called nominal Christian. The truth is there is no such thing. Fire tests the reality of our claims. There is a fire coming such as never before and it will do its work. Remember saints, Jesus is coming for His bride. Not a lukewarm bride or a nominal bride who has barely enough oil to light a wick, but a spotless bride and a pure one. One who can stand in the holy place. One who has clean hands and a pure heart who is not taken with vanity nor has made false claims about who they are.