“Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
Prayer strengthens faith; if our prayers cease our faith will grow dim; much in prayer, much in progress; slow in prayer, slow in progress. Christianity, at the very least, is faith in Christ, trusting in Him and obedience to His commandments.
To wash and dress a corpse is a far different thing to making it alive; to be born again is not to change your name but to change your nature.
Coming events cast their shadow before them and, in that sense, the lack of power in the Church at this time in history is a sign of the coming of the prophesied apostasy. This signals the parousia of the man of lawlessness “who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thessalonians 2:4). The coming of this man of lawlessness, the false Christ of scripture, and his welcome by the people of God, was prophesied by Jesus in John 5:43; I have come in the name of My Father and you do not receive Me. When another should come in the name of himself, him you will receive”.
So the type of Israel, who rejected their Messiah, is fulfilled in the anti-type of God’s New Covenant people, who accept as the Messiah at His promised Second Coming, one who is not. Paul goes on in his letter to the Thessalonian Church to talk of the coming of this false Christ; “the parousia of whom is according to the supernatural working of Satan in every power and in false signs and wonders and in every deception of unrighteousness in those being lost, because they did not bear with the love of the truth so as to be saved. And therefore God sends to them a supernatural power of deception, so that they believe the lie; in order that they might all be condemned, those not trusting in the truth but taking pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12).
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