For Such a Time as This: 2023 - Ken Barnes
If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?” (Esther 4:4 NLT)As Christians, we live in precarious times. Are we in the Kingdom of God for such a time as this in 2023?
There is a mentality arising that the Bible calls “the spirit of the world” (1 Corinthians 2:12 NLT). It is affecting rulers in authority over our nation, such as local municipalities, forcing Christian bakers to bake cakes for gay weddings. Florists must serve to make floral arrangements for these weddings. Professional baseball players are expected to put LGBTQ logos on their uniforms when playing a baseball game.
When bakers, florists, or baseball players refuse, they are said to be hateful and homophobic. Satan is the originator and orchestrator of this spirit. Defeat awaits Satan in the end, but until then, he will initiate as much havoc as he can unless you and I stand against him.
Haman, second in command to the King, devised a plot to annihilate the Jews (Esther 3:1-15 NLT). Queen Esther had kept her Jewish ethnicity hidden. Esther feared approaching the King to plead for her people. If it displeased the King, it could cost her life. Mordecai made it clear to Esther that silence would not save even the Queen. As Esther did, you and I must realize that silence will not keep us safe.
Satan’s strategy is not just to make us bake cakes or arrange flowers. His end game is much bigger, to separate us from Christ. He does this by pressuring us to deny parts of the Word of God, then all of it, and Christ himself. Times are coming when you need to recant your faith in Christ to be involved in our culture, economy, or public life. It could happen in this generation or the next, but the signs are here that it is in process.
What must we do in 2023? First, we must pray, but after that, we must do as Esther did; she spoke up. Defend the faith; you may have been brought into the Kingdom for such a time as this.
Ken was a foreign missionary for many years with YWAM. Contact him and read more HERE.