The truth is often shocking, unpleasant, painful, it hurts. When we stand to face the Mercy Seat, our life is found wanting.

When faced with the truth, the inclination of human nature is to avoid it, or avoid thinking about it.

If compelled to think of it, we dismiss it out of hand without serious consideration, or even reject and deny it and we enlist and encourage others to join in our rejection of the truth which we cannot bare to face and which could disturb our comfortable life

...and so we become a mob.

To protect the privileged, we condemn the messenger, we behead the Baptist, we stone Stephen, we murder the martyrs, we crucify Christ.

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The Church's ultimate trial

Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth.