Acts 9v15: But the Lord said to Ananias, "Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for m name."
How strange a thing it must've been for Paul to experience one of the greatest conversions ever recorded in the Bible, only to have it followed up with one of the most brutal revelations of a man's future that God would ever give a man. Paul had been spectacularly saved with a voice and light from heaven just before this passage, and so soon after, he was about to receive an equally spectacular revelation of the sufferings that lay ahead for him. God was telling Ananias that He would show Paul just how much He would suffer for His name, both, it would seem, by prophecy and actual experience, and Paul accepted it as a soldier would accept his orders and carry them out without questioning them. Paul did not cower from such revelations, and we, as His people, must not cower either, especially when they are given in His Word, and in an extraordinary fashion.
God has been impressing this on my heart recently, that we, as the people of God, will enter a time of intense suffering. War will come to America, and Australia will be involved. Worldwide terrorism is coming, judgements are coming, asteroids will fall to earth, and the storm clouds of trouble are on the horizon. Most on Facebook probably already believe I'm mad for saying these things, or if not mad, don't want to have anything to do with what the Lord is saying, and that's clear enough by looking at the total numbers of people that read these posts now (max of 3 or 4 now). It's clear now why Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write the words, 'Do not treat prophecies with contempt' (1 Thess 5v20). No one wants to hear these things, and to be completely honest, the fleshly side of me doesn't want to think about them either, and the natural man doesn't want troubles in the future, and is frightened by the prospect of such things. No one, in their natural state, desires to see trouble in the future, or likes to think of their future with such things, but God has revealed that they will happen, and so they will happen. Ignoring such revelations will only make things harder for us in future. 'Forewarned is forearmed' so they say, and God reveals such things, and will continue to reveal such things so that we will be able to gird up our minds, and prepare ourselves, just as Jesus wished for the disciples to prepare themselves for the reality of the cross that was to come.
However, we must take heart! God's care and his consolations are equal to the task of whatever is prepared for us to suffer - 2 Cor 1v5 'For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ.' The Holy Spirit as our comforter (John 14v26) will not forsake us, and will guide and take care of us as is necessary. If He could do it with Mary and Joseph at a time when all the world seemed to be against Christ and the plans of God, He can do it with us. If, while the storms of life seemed to threaten to destroy the life of Paul, God saved him with miraculous sovereignty, then no coming storm will shipwreck us while our God remains enthroned on high. Throughout it all, His purpose reigns, not only in sovereignty, but in the purpose that He has designed both for us, and to use us. God's purpose in using Paul never wavered (Acts 9v15), and it will never waver for us as well.
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