I read the words of the saints under the alter.  And I find that I have only this identity with them: “How long oh Lord”, for I have not yet resisted unto the death. Yet this question rings out loud and clear in my spirit.  It certainly is joined today to their very own cry.  

What we are seeing and hearing in this our day causes us to grieve in the inner man.  

In the past, when I was young in the Lord, my grief was over my own sinfulness, and over my own inability to be the man of God that the Holy Spirit within me had called me out to be.  Then came my burden for my family and my friends and my responsibility to them to bring to them the love of Christ. The work of the Lord within brought to me the mountain top experiences of certain victory in these lives, as well as in my own.  

All along the Lord was teaching of these coming days, when birth pangs were sure to come. But as life is for all who have ever walked this earth, the grass has sprouted; it has flourished; and now it withers.  And along with it for my generation has come the birth pangs that I knew all along were close by to this generation of believers who are slated to be on this earth in these times.  We are here for these days to be a constant light even as we are called to be.  The light when it shines is no different than in Jesus own day; for it illumines all around.  It exposes both the good and the evil. And even as in Jesus day, man does not approve of nor does he want the light, but he is rather drawn to the darkness.  

Lest we not misunderstand there was a message to those who cry out from under the alter, and if we are in the days of their call, and if we have been inspired to join them in their call; then we also must hear God’s answer to them and fully understand what is sure to come. 

If you believe that Jesus is coming soon; then surely we must not be deceived concerning the times in which we live. The evidence is all around us in our world that these days are here for many and near for even us.  Can we say with John, even so come Lord Jesus?