The worst trouble and persecution of all time is at hand. Satan is speaking through the ministry today. He is informing the elect that God loves them so much He is not willing that they suffer.

What about the believers who are suffering and being martyred on this very day? What about the millions of saints of history who have been tortured and slain for their faith? How could we be so ignorant and uninformed as to believe such foolishness? This is undeniable proof of the entrance of humanism into Christian thinking.

The saints are being taught that, unlike unnumbered multitudes of the Lord's sheep, they will be caught up to Heaven in a "rapture" before they ever would be permitted to suffer or experience discomfort. The result of such teaching is precisely what Satan desires: soft people filled with self-love. They all will be swept away in the age of horrors that is at hand unless they repent and become willing to endure hardness as good soldiers of Christ.

"They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented." (Hebrews 11:37)

Recently it has been taught that if we have faith we will never suffer. If this is the case, why is the above description included in the "faith chapter" of the New Testament?

It is because true faith teaches us to look to the future for a better resurrection. Whatever happens to us here is important only as it prepares us for a joyous eternity with the Lord Jesus.

Some Better Thing for Us

And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. (Hebrews 11:39,40)

God blessed the people we have mentioned because they possessed the kind of faith that pleases God. Although they all lived under prior covenants, their actions illustrate the meaning of "the just shall live by faith.

We have profited from their testimony. Now they are profiting from our testimony as they surround us in the spirit realm and observe what God is doing in us.

Notice that they "received not the promise." They are in Heaven around the throne of God but they have not received the promise as yet. Apparently the promise is not to bring us to Heaven when we die.

What has God provided for us that is better than what the patriarchs were promised? Evidently it is not life in Heaven because they already are in Heaven.

The Book of Hebrews teaches us that there remains a "rest" for the people of God. The rest of God is not eternal residence in Heaven.

There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. (Hebrews 4:9)

That which is "better" is the "better resurrection" of Hebrews 11:35. The hope of the saints of all ages is the resurrection from the dead—that they will stand once more on the earth in the fullness of the Life of God, never to die again.

To be continued.