IS IT TRUE?

By Rick Mathes

Matthew 11:2 (NASB) Now when John, while imprisoned,

heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples

Now is where you are at this moment in time, considering this verse from the Holy Scriptures. Now is all we ever have. Yesterday is fading away, tomorrow is coming into view. Put your feet into the Israeli sand just outside this deplorable dungeon cell and look around as see the cage that God’s most favored Prophet is enclosed. John, the prime choice of the Ancient of Days among men, breathtaking!

I have never been convicted of a felony so I don’t know the cold, hard reality of incarceration in a jail cell much less the hole John was relegated to; locked down in a steel paneled closet, desolate and depressed. Oh, how I know the place he was in! (A dark, lonely and empty oblivion of endless, black, nothingness, a living hell) I lived in a wallpapered and paneled cell hand-cuffed to a bottle of booze, drugs and deep money problems until I broke those satanic chains of addiction and set my soul free in Him.

John was in a deep, black mood lonely and abandoned by all the hopes and dreams that had sustained him all those long years in the wilderness. The hope of the Messiah! He was abandoned by but a very few of his disciples and looked forward to a long, and agonizing life in prison or maybe the relief of a quick and painless beheading!

He was confused that his cousin hadn’t roused an army to wage war on the Roman infidels. The kingdom that he announced wasn’t in sight. Was his life and cause a lost one? Had he spent his life and years of austerity and hope in vain? Was he a loser?

Neither does Islam nor the Roman Popery understand their destiny of trampled earthly kingdoms. They crave worldly power through arms and money in the here and now with an addictiveness that will inevitably consume itself. No more Roman or Muslim heresy will exist for the eternity of time when our Lord returns! Both have replaced creed with greed as has the carnal world of counterfeit Christianity. How sad!

Feeding into what I call “the game” will bring power and immorality in procreation, power or wealth here while Jesus offers only His glory there in His eternity.

Now is the now we battle on our knees in prayer and lift up the sword of the Spirit. In His time we will rest in an eternal peace and the fatal attraction of this earth will fade away in the Light of His Glory.

Hang in there John!