Like the loving parent who gently shakes a child to wake him up, God
is shaking the world today in an attempt to wake us from our slumber. And like
the child who doesn't wake up immediately, the shaking becomes a bit more firm
and serious. If America and, for that matter - the world doesn't wake up soon,
that shaking will become stronger and more severe.
What will it take to wake
up America? Our tallest buildings have been toppled. Our shorelines have
been battered, and a major U.S. city has been flooded, turning thousands of
Americans into refugees.
God is shaking our world trying to wake us
up!
There is a storm coming!
The faithful, as they see the intensification of the signs around
us, will know that the day of the Lord's return for them is quickly
"approaching" (Hebrews 10:25) and will be those who stand firm in their faith
through all the end-time distress (Matt. 24:13).
They will be the ones
who have applied the power of Scripture to all the little problems of daily
living: anger; frustration with employment; parenting; marital relationships;
forgiveness; etc. The Scriptural teaching is that we must faithfully surrender
to God in the small things of life before we graduate to the next level of
experiencing God's provision:
"Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things." [Matthew 25.21]
For others they will have become so comfortable with their life of
tolerance, compromise, convenience and appeasement that to accept the lies and
deception of an Antichrist will not be difficult for them.
If we
cannot believe Him and surrender to His power in the daily frustrations of
life, how can we have faith and receive His power in the big problems of life?
Our lack of faith (acting upon our trust in God's Word and provision through
the Holy Spirit) in the small things prohibits us from maturing and growing in
faith for the large problems. Thus, when the storm beats against our house,
will we have the faith to stand firm?
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will
enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is
in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in
your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I
will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'
"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into
practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came
down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it
did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
But everyone
who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a
foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose,
and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great
crash." [Matthew 7:21-27]
You see, there will be two kinds of Christians in these last days: the wise and foolish.
- There will be one group of believers who will not fall - they will be able to withstand every demonic onslaught that comes on them. Nothing will be able to move them when the storm comes.
- There will be another group of Christians whose fall will be great - total, complete, devastating collapse of everything.
They built two different kinds of houses. And the only thing that
will hold up in the coming storm is to be the house established on a rock
foundation.
Many Christians may say, "I'm a believer. I've built on
the rock." Yet they don't truly understand what this phrase means. And they
will have a great shock and surprise when their relationship with Jesus does
not endure the storm. They will be exposed as having no foundation.
What are you building our house on now? What is it's foundation? Those things
you are building into your faith now have certain characteristics that will
determine how you react under pressure in the future.
|
Faith |
Trust |
Truth |
Sacrifice |
The Beginning of Birth Pains
In America we see deepening poverty, racial division, homelessness, crime, physical and sexual abuse, and the disintegration of the traditional family. Alcoholism, drug addiction, pornography, and other dangerous behaviors are eating away at society. And these are further complicated by plagues of many kinds, including AIDS, tuberculosis, and sexually transmitted diseases. Combined with earthquakes, physical storms, and natural disasters of many kinds all across the land, one wonders how much longer before we wake up and recognize their significance and our response to them. Jesus said these are merely a warning of things yet to come.
All these are the beginning of birth pains. [Matthew 24:8]
We are being shaken
- gently. But like the birth pains of childbirth, the shaking is getting more
frequent and severe.
Isaiah prophesies that God will one day rise up
and shake the whole earth - more firmly and with eternal seriousness.
See, the LORD is going to lay waste the earth and
devastate it; he will ruin its face and scatter its inhabitants-- it will be
the same for priest as for people, for master as for servant, for mistress as
for maid, for seller as for buyer, for borrower as for lender, for debtor as
for creditor. The earth will be completely laid waste and totally plundered.
The LORD has spoken this word.
The earth dries up and
withers, the world languishes and withers, the exalted of the earth languish.
The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the
statutes and broken the everlasting covenant.
Therefore a curse consumes
the earth; its people must bear their guilt. Therefore earth's inhabitants are
burned up, and very few are left.
The new wine dries up and
the vine withers; all the merrymakers groan. The gaiety of the tambourines is
stilled, the noise of the revelers has stopped, the joyful harp is silent. No
longer do they drink wine with a song; the beer is bitter to its drinkers.
The ruined city lies
desolate; the entrance to every house is barred. In the streets they cry out
for wine; all joy turns to gloom, all gaiety is banished from the earth. The
city is left in ruins, its gate is battered to pieces. So will it be on the
earth and among the nations, as when an olive tree is beaten, or as when
gleanings are left after the grape harvest.
They raise their voices,
they shout for joy; from the west they acclaim the Lord's majesty. Therefore in
the east give glory to the LORD; exalt the name of the LORD, the God of Israel,
in the islands of the sea. From the ends of the earth we hear singing: "Glory
to the Righteous One."
But I said, "I waste away, I waste away! Woe to me! The treacherous
betray! With treachery the treacherous betray!" Terror and pit and snare await
you, O people of the earth. Whoever flees at the sound of terror will fall into
a pit; whoever climbs out of the pit will be caught in a snare.
The floodgates of the
heavens are opened, the foundations of the earth shake. The earth is broken up,
the earth is split asunder, the earth is thoroughly shaken. The earth reels
like a drunkard, it sways like a hut in the wind; so heavy upon it is the guilt
of its rebellion that it falls--never to rise again.
In that day the LORD will
punish the powers in the heavens above and the kings on the earth below. They
will be herded together like prisoners bound in a dungeon; they will be shut up
in prison and be punished after many days. The moon will be abashed, the sun
ashamed; for the LORD Almighty will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and
before its elders, gloriously. [Isaiah 24:1-23]
The prophets Ezekiel, Joel, Haggai, and the writer of Hebrews all
concur that God is going to literally shake the earth one more time! See
Ezekiel 38:20-23; Joel 3:14-17; Haggai 2:6-9 and Hebrews 12:25-29. He will
shake our economy, the stock market, Fortune 500 companies, banks, insurance
companies, our education system, our government, our families, our churches -
everything we put our trust and confidence in, everything that seems safe and
secure.
As a matter of fact, it's when people are saying,
"Peace and safety," destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant women, and they will not escape. [1 Thess. 5:3]
Peace and Safety
Right now in America, there is a false peace sweeping through churches - a peace that will fail in the troubled days ahead. It is the false peace of stubborn, sin-blinded Christians. Moses called such believers "self-blessed" - meaning, self-deceived. He warned Israel that a curse would come upon all wicked, disobedient children of God who walked in idolatry. He said they would plaster over their sinful ways with a false sense of peace:
And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst. [Deuteronomy 29:19]
We have become desensitized to Satan's evil plans. Things that once appalled us now have become commonplace and we've heard so much evil that it doesn't bother us any more. Knowing his time is short he will pour out more of his filth, wickedness and testings beyond anything our minds can imagine. Those testings are now reaching critical mass and we seem to be ignoring it. It will become increasingly difficult for many to distinguish God's truth from Satan's lie as the church spirals into moral relativism.
- We tolerate killing our unborn children and call it "freedom of choice."
- We tolerate homosexuality and call it "diversity"
- We tolerate paganism and call it "multiculturalism"
- We tolerate killing of the elderly or sick and call it "compassion"
- We tolerate religious segregation and call it "denominationalism"
The liberal humanist agenda is clear: to do away with God by denying
the conscience He has given us. Virtue is ridiculed, evil is praised as good
and liberating, and God-given moral standards are mocked as the narrow-minded
thinking of a past generation.
Others have given up, believing that
everyone and everything is so corrupt, there is nothing that can be done. As a
result, they accept any activity that appears to improve their life.
- We accept "affirmative action" as a solution to racism rather than dealing with the condition of the heart that brings about such an evil.
- We accept "higher taxes" in order to bail out failed social policies rather than accepting our God given responsibilities to be "our brothers keeper."
- We become increasingly indebted to credit card companies, banks, and others rather than accepting our personal responsibility to be "good stewards" of what God has given us.
- We accept police intrusion into our homes, businesses and automobiles to rid us of guns and drugs.
- We allow the government to regulate with impunity our businesses to give us a sense of security in our business dealings.
- We accept censorship of the media so we're not offended, rather than turning our TV's off, throwing away our pornography, and not supporting those companies that sell us their filth.
When presented with alternatives, it's as if many don't even hear them. In fact, they probably don't want to hear them because it would call for them to change.
A
day of reckoning will come.
What is YOUR response?
