Last Wishes – the POP ‘Music’ of the Church!

Few people know when they will take their last breath and say their final words on Earth. So, the really important things they want to tell their friends and family are usually contained in personal letters.

And their wishes in respect of the things they leave behind are written in their ‘last will and testament’, with detailed instructions for their Executors. For a Will to be valid it must be signed off by a witness. The witness signature is evidence that what the will contains was indeed a true record of their instructions.

Jesus, however, left no written will. But the disciples were, nevertheless, Witnesses to all that Jesus had said and done. They were living testimony to the truth of His life, death and resurrection. They were also Jesus’s Executors. They were commissioned to be the first generation to carry out His instructions. And we are the current generation in line of succession from Day One of the Church!

What Should an End-Time Church Look Like?

In these increasingly challenging days, when escalating world events point inexorably towards the end-time prophecies of Scripture, my spirit is becoming more and more focused on exactly what Jesus’s instructions were and what we should be doing now to carry them out, in this critical season of world history.

Or, to put it more succinctly, I am asking ‘What should an end-time church look like?’ And what should I be doing to bring it about in days which Jesus said would be a time of harvest.

Jesus’s instructions were, in essence, very simple. They were carefully written down and carried out by His Witnesses and Executors – the disciples. Matthew ended his Gospel with Jesus’s instructions to go into all the world to make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

And Luke, in Acts 1:8, not only tells them to take the message to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the Earth, but adds that a legacy gift of His power would be given to them when they received the  Holy Spirit.

It’s as if this precious gift had already been posted from Heaven and was on its way. All the disciples had to do was wait for it to arrive, and then the action would start.

And finally, at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus told the first generation of disciples to teach the next generation of disciples to obey everything He had commanded them to do. And what was that? The most succinct summary of His instructions is to be found in Luke 9:2 – “proclaim the Kingdom of God and heal the sick.” The Gospel of Salvation is also a Gospel of Healing.

Towards the end of his life Paul is telling people (in Romans 15:18) how it was that wherever he went, believers were added to the church. And what was the key? It was “through the power of signs and miracles and the power of the Holy Spirit.”

The disciples and the Apostles were taking the Gospel into a very pagan world. And as I look at today’s world, it is increasingly obvious that we are living in a post-Christian and now a very pagan world. A world where other religions are on the march and secularism has destroyed all sense of moral boundaries. Anything and everything goes.

And the multitude of spiritualities, new age beliefs and self-appointed influencers with many millions of followers, have made the twenty-first century much like it must have been in Athens, with a plethora of ‘gods’ being worshipped. Paul was impacted by one stone however, on which was carved the words, “To the unknown God” (Acts 17:23). Paul took it upon himself to do everything he could to make the unknown God known.

Surely, that must always be the job of the church in every generation –  to make Him known?

It’s hard to imagine what it is that would penetrate the hardened defences of hearts in today’s world. But can those defences be any harder than they were in Paul’s day?  For Paul the key was a demonstration of God’s power through signs, miracles and healings. It stopped people in their tracks and they chose to follow the God whom Paul had made known to them through his teaching.

Keys to the End-Time Church

From all the above I deduce the three major keys to the end-time church are the same as they were for the church of the first century. The first is:

P for Power, the second is

O for Obedience and the third is

P for the Presence of the Lord

Without the power that comes from the Holy Spirit to transform lives, all we have to offer the world is words. Without obedience we will never, as Executors of Jesus’s Will, carry out His last instructions. And it is only through the carrying out of those instructions that we can fully claim the promise contained in the very last words of Matthew’s Gospel, “Surely I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.”

I’ve long understood that the greatest desire of true worshippers is to follow and obey the Lord. The ‘POP’ worship music of obedient and loving hearts is guaranteed to touch the heart of God.

In reality, I don’t want to be part of a church which isn’t blessed by the Presence of God. Moses hit the nail on the head when he said, “If your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here” (Exodus 33:15).

For me, any form of organised religion without the presence of God is a total non-starter. So, I’m looking forward to seeing how God draws an end-time church together – a remnant of believers whose hearts have not grown cold towards the Lord – a POP church if you wish! Hallmarked by the Power of the Holy Spirit, Obedience to the last wishes of the Saviour and rejoicing in His Presence, as the promise of Matthew 28:20 is fulfilled.

Copyright © Peter Horrobin 2025.

Peter Horrobin is the author of Journey to Freedom 365.  You can start your own personal journey of healing today, by going to either www.jtf365.com  or  www.journeytofreedom365.com

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