Many people today are convinced that the Great Tribulation and the rule of Antichrist are imminent. One would think that if such a person had an assurance in the depth of his heart that he would be removed from the earth before that happened, he would be at rest about the future.

That doesn’t seem to be the case. Such people read the news with great fear. So many government initiatives are evidence of the coming of a one-world government, which will soon lead to the rise of Antichrist. Christian bookstores have whole shelves of books pointing out signs of the end. In many churches it is the main topic of preaching. There are blogs and podcasts. If people believe what they say they believe, why are they so anxious?

The spread of COVID-19, government actions to limit its spread, the vaccines that have been developed, are all fodder for the mill of conspiracy theorists. The underlying fear of many of those spreading these theories is that these events are preparing the way for a one-world government.

Other people see the Communist Party of China behind almost everything that goes wrong. For others the great danger is Vladimir Putin. The USA is descending into chaos. BLM and Antifa are actively promoting a Marxist revolution. Marxists have control of the schools, the media.

Whatever element of truth there is behind any of these things that cause so much fear, it is important to realize that the real problem is not secret conspiracies, Vladimir Putin, the Communist Party of China, or any other force in this world. It is the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan. He has been the source of all mankind’s strife and sorrow since the Garden of Eden.

The dragon loves for us to see the problem everywhere else but him. He loves it when we begin to blame one another because we cannot see the imminent danger of such and such a thing that is happening. His purpose is to divide mankind until eachy individual stand alone and trusts noone else. It is especially his goal to divide Christians. And we are letting him do it far too often these days.

It is time to stop and see what is happening, to us and to those we love. Let’s stop trying to fix the world. Every time we do that, the dragon is right beside us to lend a hand. In the end, we only succeed in making things worse than they were before.

The way to begin making the world a better place is to stop worrying about things we have no power to change. We need to let go of all our hurt feelings, forgive one another and work to mend broken relationships. We need to talk more about the healing, cleansing, saving power of Jesus’ blood.

That may not sound like much. But that is the only way to extract ourselves from the grip of the dragon and to help those we love get free. Every time that happens is a defeat for the dragon. Every time we try to do something big is a victory for the dragon.