This month I am sharing the last writing of my good friend and great Bass singer Hovie Walker who went home to be with the Lord last March. I miss my buddy everyday, but this was on his heart shortly before he passed away.
BEING FAITHFUL
Dear Friends:
Nearly everyone that I know is going through what they say is the greatest time of testing in their lives. In phone calls, letters and e-mails from all over, I hear the same thing: “We are experiencing the hardest, most painful time in our lives. This cry comes from the elderly, the middle aged, and the young.
We hear much about financial stress, family problems, difficult and troubled marriages. But these kinds of problems have existed for many years. I have read old books telling of the same kinds of testing happening over 200 years ago. We know things were extremely bad in the late 1930s, during the Great Depression. And 1918 was a critical time, when a devastating flu pandemic killed 50 to 60 million people worldwide. Millions in America died during that disaster.
There is something different about what is happening today. During the Depression, it was financial stress. During the flu crisis in 1918, it was a single disaster that caused fear and uncertainty. Today, all these things are coming at us in combination: flu pandemic, financial crises, and national calamities worldwide.
But there is something even deeper and more sinister than all of these frightful happenings. It is this: the body of Christ, consisting of devoted disciples of Jesus, is under attack from principalities and powers of hell. An angry devil that knows his time is short has waged all-out war against the righteous. Satan has seen the handwriting on the wall and he is dispatching his demonic army against Christ’s most devoted children.
Those who are wholly given to Christ, who seek him and love him dearly, are now set up as targets of the enemy’s wrath. Every reader who prays and serves Christ understands what I am saying. You have discernment from the Holy Spirit that what you are experiencing is warfare against your mind. Satan is infusing your thoughts with fears, discouragement, temptations, and depression. He is after your faith, wanting to so discourage you that you’ll quit the fight. Make no mistake about it: the war is for your mind.
In my own spiritual warfare, the Holy Spirit continually whispers to me, “Do not be alarmed. These thoughts are from the enemy. You are under Satan’s attack, SO, just be still and know that I am God. Do not judge yourself and do not fear. Rest in the knowledge that the Spirit of God is in you. God is greater in you; you will not go down.” It is time for us all to take a stand on this Word: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed fixed on thee: because he trusteth in thee, Trust ye in the Lord forever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength” (Isaiah 26:3-4).
Be Faithful,
Hovie Walker
