We are living in an age of mass contradictions. Everything around us that appears to be up is down, and down appears to be up, and all in between. We need to understand what’s going on in our culture and the world around us. I’m going to define some things, and I’m going to define what we have to do. I’m going to give you two words that everyone of us, as believers, has to put in our vocabulary and begin to do.

We have a world that is under attack in every area.  It’s not only terrorism, but it’s everything that could be. The media lies so much that it doesn’t even know what it’s lying about. When I saw the slaughter of the innocent 22 people in Manchester, I thought what a tragedy it was. But, the greater tragedy is the philosophy and the teaching of the liberal mind that says, ‘The way that we solve these issues is that we love these radical terrorists.” So, we live in this age of contradiction. Even in the Church, the enemy of our souls and of God’s Kingdom, is pushing or crowding in on us.

Matthew 11: 12, “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.” When Jesus mentions John the Baptist in that scripture, it was not by accident or coincidence. The murder of John the Baptist would be chronicled as the first violent act against a believer for Jesus Christ. John’s beheading made him the first martyr for Jesus. John was the messenger and forerunner for the Kingdom of God on the earth, and was the first of many brethren who would suffer.  The word, suffer, in the Greek, means to crowd oneself into, or to press into. Stay with me on that thought.

Have you ever been in a place where the crowd was pressing in on you? Some verses translate the word suffer to mean, ‘the experience by which means the Kingdom of God experiences crowding or pressing into on a daily basis’. The Kingdom of God is being pressed in on every side. The president has the media and pundents pressing in on his life everywhere he goes. Universities are pressing in, and firing conservative professors on a regular basis. There’s a pressing coming on. We see it on the basketball court when they play, and on Black Friday with pressing crowds. The enemy is pressing against the mind of the Christian. He’s pressing in on everything. He’s pushing and compacting this thing in so that we feel uncomfortable. Darkness is on a two-fold mission to crowd in on us as much darkness into the earth as it can. Satan realizes his day is numbered, so he’s pressing everybody in on the deal. The press is to cause God’s people to surrender.