Imagine standing at the threshold of the fourth century after Christ Jesus’ ascension and watching the shadows gather portending a dark time ahead for humanity, as Christian healing disappeared from the practice of Christianity. What if you knew it would be over a millennium before Christ’s Christianity, with its attendant “signs following,” would begin to reappear? Would you just give up, feeling it was futile and pointless to stand against the currents of such an overwhelming nighttide? Or would you dig deep, and resolve never to abandon the Truth you had witnessed the power of—not only for your own sake, but at least as importantly, for the sake of the many in need you could still help and heal?
Your decision would have outsized effect—as a modern-day analogy illustrates. With the recent North American solar eclipse, what seemed remarkable was how when even a relatively small amount of light from the sun shone unobstructed, there was plenty of daylight to walk around in. Can anyone calculate the good even a small number of people reflecting God’s light bring to humanity?
It might seem easy, or at least easier, to stick with Truth when it looks to be on the upswing in society. But it is plain, from Bible accounts as well as our knowledge of what has transpired since then, that for most of human history, standing in the Cause of Truth has required doing so even when its success in the near-term looks far from certain. Bandwagoners need not apply.
