In a recent article I wrote about the need for those of us who know the truth to “stand firm” against the forces of evil, and tell other people the good news that the end will come when Jesus restores everything, defeating Satan and handing the Kingdom over to the Father. I wrote:
And living by these truths makes us enemies of the world system currently ruled by Satan, which means any beliefs we have that make us think we deserve an easy and carefree life, is a lie from Satan himself.
The true believer who lives by these truths is ALWAYS a persecuted believer who has to endure great hardship. It has always been that way, and it always will be, until the final end where Christ returns.
See:
The End is Near! Stand Firm!
Does this mean that as we watch the world around us descend into chaos, where many have already suffered or died due to the eugenic practices of the medical mafia and the vaccine cult, and where many more may die and suffer in the days ahead, that we are to just expect that our lives will be filled with stress, anxiety, and extreme sorrow and pain with no hope for relief in this life?
No. For the person who truly believes and knows Jesus Christ, we are promised great comfort while we endure extreme sorrow and hardships in this life, and that is what I want to look at in this article.
In his second letter to the believers living in the city of Corinth contained in the Bible, Paul wrote:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. (2 Corinthians 1:3-5)
In this very personal letter that Paul wrote, we get perhaps the best view of his life and what he endured as an ambassador for Jesus Christ. When he writes about God’s comfort overflowing through Christ, he was not just writing about an abstract theological principle. He had actually experienced this “great comfort” in his own life.
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia.
We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.
Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death.
But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope. (2 Corinthians 1:8-10)
As I have been writing for many years now, most of us living in the United States have enjoyed a false sense of security and comfort, believing, falsely, that we lived in a “free” country where our freedoms were secured by the rule of law and the Constitution of the United States.
We trusted in “the system,” the “American way of life” to provide for our safety and well-being.
But it has all been a lie, and very few people have been willing to pull back the curtain to see who was really running this system that is called “the United States of America.”
For the very few of us who have tried to expose this system for what it really is, we have endured years, decades even, of ridicule and scorn from others who use pejorative labels such as “conspiracy theorists” when referring to us.
Well, there are no more conspiracy “theories” left, because the enemy, who at the top is a person referred to as Satan, or the devil, has played his hand and brought his plans out into the open for all to see.
Everyone in the world is watching this great conspiracy unfold, but not everyone sees it with the same eyes.
Some want to hang on to the “old system,” where the slave masters who control “the system” allowed the slaves some freedoms, while they worked to enrich their slave masters as they amassed great wealth and power.
These people still believe the American system is a good system, and they will do whatever they are told to try and get back to that way of life.
But those days are over, and the ones who clearly see that the end is near, will continue to stand firm and endure whatever comes next, even if it results in our physical death. We will not be fooled by the lies of the enemy.
The same thing was happening during Paul’s days, as he wrote:
We have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God.
On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:2-6)
Those who have been “blinded” by this great deception, will continue to look for comfort in the world system.
In the U.S., many of these people belong to the Trump Cult, and believe Donald Trump is their future “savior,” completely ignoring the fact that Trump is the one who started all this, and was probably chosen by the Globalists to unleash the evil that now engulfs the world.
Donald Trump will not save you, nor will you find comfort in him.
Others will look to their religious institutions, such as the corporate Christian church and their leaders who run these corporations.
But these religions and their leaders will not save you, nor will you find comfort in them.
This Comfort does Not Come from the World System
So just what is this “comfort” that Paul talks about that is available to those of us standing firm on the truth?
The English word “comfort” that is used to translate the word that Paul uses in the original Greek language that his letters were written in is “paraklēsis,” the noun, and “parakaleō,” the verb.
If you have Bible software that allows you to search through the New Testament writings in the original language, you can do a search for this Greek noun and verb and see how it is used and translated into English in other places to get a fuller meaning of how this word is used.
But there is another word that comes out of this word group in the Greek that is used only by the apostle John in the New Testament writings, who was part of the inner 3 of Jesus’s closest disciples (John’s brother James and Peter were the other two), and probably the one closest to Jesus when he walked the earth in human form during the First Century.
That word in the Greek is paraklētos, and John uses it in 5 places: John 14:16, John 14:26, John 15:26, John 16:7, and 1 John 2:1.
The first four uses all appear in the Gospel of John in what is referred to as the “upper room discourse” which was the last meal Jesus ate with his disciples before he was executed, as they celebrated the “Passover,” commemorating the time God miraculously delivered them from their slavery in Egypt.
This particular word was used in secular (nonreligious) Greek writings to mean “advocate,” someone similar to an “attorney” today.
When used by John for the words spoken by Jesus, it takes on a more fuller meaning that also means “helper,” “counselor,”or “comforter,” and you will find those who translated the Bible into English use all of these English words in trying to translate it into English.
Here is the New International translation (1984 version) of the passages from the Gospel of John, where the word is translated “counselor.”
Other English versions, like the King James Version, translate the word as “comforter,” other translations, such as the New American Standard Bible version, translate it as “helper,” and other translations, like the New English Translation, translate it as “advocate.”
When you read the context around all of these verses, I think you will see that all of these meanings (counselor, comforter, helper, advocate) are found within the context.
I personally like the word “counselor” because in the English “counselor” has more than one meaning, and can mean someone “counseling” someone else who is grieving or needs help, but it is also used in a legal sense similar to “attorney” in giving legal advice or representing one’s client before a judge.
John Chapter 14:
“If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever– the Spirit of truth.
The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him.
But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”
Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”
Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
All this I have spoken while still with you.
But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.
I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:15-27)
John 15:
If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.
As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’
If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.
They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.
If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin.
Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my Father as well.
If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father.
But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’
When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. (John 15:18-27)
John 16:
I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you. I did not tell you this at first because I was with you.
Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief.
But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.
When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.
He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you. (John 16:4-15)
In the final occurrence of this word used by John in his first letter, 1 John, most English translators use the word “advocate,” or like the New International Version, they use an entire phrase to translate it: “one who speaks …. in our defense.”
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense–Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:1-2)
Same word, but clearly a legal usage in this passage.
In all these instances we can clearly see that this word refers to a person. That person is sometimes referred to as the “Holy Spirit,” or just the “Spirit,” or “the Spirit of Truth” or “Jesus Christ,” or the “Spirit of Christ.”
But all of these designations refer to the same person. I know it can seem confusing because Jesus refers to this person in the 3rd person within these discourses, but that is in his pre-resurrection and pre-ascension to Heaven state.
He clearly states in the John 16 passage that this person can only come into the lives of the believers if he “goes away,” which in that context meant he had to first be executed, and rise from the dead.
Today, Jesus Christ is not confined to a physical body, so through the “Holy Spirit” he can reside in the lives of ALL true believers, where he is able to do his work of giving us great comfort, counseling us by revealing the truth to us, and even giving us words to speak when we appear before human courts, advocating for us when Satan and world system accuse us of wrong doing when in fact we are the righteous ones.
He also uses us to “convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment.”
So while we are the minority persecuted truth-bearers in the world system today who do not belong to this system, through Jesus Christ we have great comfort, we have the truth that we testify about, and that truth is being used in the Heavenly judicial system in the Kingdom of God to convict the followers of Satan in the world system of guilt.
If you don’t know Jesus Christ and the great comfort that he supplies to face persecution and even physical death in this current world system that is set on destroying us, then you have very little hope of enduring what is about to come.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.
We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. (2 Corinthians 4:7-11)
This principle that Paul writes about is the principle that when we are at our weakest, the power of Christ is strongest in our lives.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)
Stand firm brothers and sisters! Take advantage of the great comfort that Jesus offers to us who truly believe.
Because in the end, Jesus Christ wins!
“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:55-58)
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