On July 4 a pastor gave a rare
sermon in which he bemoaned the fact that most Christians in America have not
recognized the signs of the end times that have been happening and do not know
we are at the very end of this age, the time of the return of the Lord. He also was concerned the church does not
preach this.
Well, let’s not waste time
here. You have heard me say over the
years that Jesus’ CHURCH is the collection of people throughout the earth who
truly believe in Jesus Christ. In his
own words, they have been born of water and the spirit. That is his criteria for being in the Kingdom
of God. In the words of the missionary
Paul, a person who confesses Jesus is Lord and believes in his heart that God
raised him from the dead is “saved,” in other words, is in the Kingdom. Jesus’ CHURCH is not all these brick
buildings on street corners and all the varied denominations.
I try not to use the word
“Christian” because all those people who attend all these church buildings on
Sundays and other days apply that word to themselves. And the media apply that word to them. And members of other religions in the world
apply that word to them. But a large
number of those who attend those buildings do not meet Jesus’ or Paul’s
criteria. They only know Jesus
intellectually, as someone described in a book, if even that. Many attend particular church buildings because
they grew up in them. A church service
on Sunday today may deal with contemporary issues or feel-good subjects, or it
may be a cold and boring time people sit and endure or slumber through to get
to the end and feel good for a week that they went to church. One friend said after attending his son’s
church that he never heard the word “God” mentioned.
Pastors of many of these churches
do not teach about Jesus imminent return.
Not a surprise. They probably don’t know about it. They probably have not had any revelation of
it. For years now many pastors and thus
many churches have also not taught about the Holy Spirit, have not recognized
that Jesus is alive and well today and that healings and miracles happen right
now, have not recognized what the disciple Peter said about the Holy Spirit -
that the Holy Spirit was for every believer, those near and those far
away. Many don’t teach about the Holy
Spirit because likely they don’t know the Holy Spirit themselves.
Where is the outrage against what
is happening today in America? Where is
it?
The constant thumbing of the nose
against God, ignoring his word and commands!
Where is the outrage? There are
still individuals here who know the Lord, who are born anew, who operate in the
gifts of the spirit. But they are few
indeed. I mean, really few.
When the Lord comes to collect
his CHURCH, unless there is a giant spiritual awakening beforehand, the number
going will be small indeed.
So many Americans are as if in a
daze. They have been beguiled by
deception and false leadership for years in so many arenas, and they are
lost. Without being born again, without
the gifts of the Spirit – including the great gift of discernment – people
cannot tell good from evil. They cannot
discern the truth from lies even when a national leader speaks absolute
falsehood over and over.
There is nothing that has to
happen before the Lord Jesus comes in the clouds to collect his CHURCH and take
them away. We are at the threshold of
the beginning of the seven year tribulation, a period of terrible wrath being
poured out on the earth, a period no right minded person would want to
endure. Some believers think this period
may have already begun. I think we are
at the threshold.
Many years ago one night the Lord
gave me a parable. He said if someone
does a small thing and he does it over and over and I do not notice, soon I
will not see it at all. That is what has
happened to the people in America. Small
untruths about what is legal, or what is moral, or what is acceptable, have
been spoken and advanced. As no one
paid attention, bigger untruths and bigger lies were spoken. And no one noticed so even bigger ones and
bigger actions were taken. And here we
are. If we look historically, we can see
way back in the 1960’s how the nation began even then falling dramatically from
God. Look at the removal of prayer and
God from the public school systems then.
And look at the horrors of the actions and beliefs of Americans and
their government today. Freedom as
envisioned by the founding fathers never meant freedom to engage in every
wanton depravity one could imagine, or freedom from individual responsibility
and accountability, or freedom from God.
But that is what it means now.
Recently I wrote of how America
is the Babylon the Great of Revelation 17 and 18. What happens to Babylon the Great in the end
times is not good. But if you read and
study those chapters and related ones elsewhere in the Bible, you will see no
other country can meet the description given.
God is a patient God. He is long-suffering and loving. And he has been. But he will not be mocked. America mocks God by its very actions. Imagine bathing the White House in rainbow
colored lights to celebrate a Supreme Court action that totally flies in the
face of God’s guidance and commands in the Bible. Imagine using rainbow lights, for the rainbow
was used by God himself after the great flood as a sign of his promise
then.
Don’t sit still in a dead, cold
church that refuses to preach the return, that does not recognize the Holy
Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit, that does not allow the Holy Spirit the
freedom to minister to people in the church, that does not recognize the power
of the gospel and that Jesus is alive and well today. Don’t sit there! How
dare you sit there week after week!
Who and what are you! As one
national minister says, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Nowhere does the Bible say or advise you to
go regularly to such a place!
Wake up, you essentially dead
Americans! Yes, dead. We may as well go ahead and use the
word. You are effectively dead already
by your beliefs and actions every day of your life. Wake up.
Open your eyes to God. Get the
Bible and start reading, even if it’s hard to do so. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you. If you have never done so, ask God to forgive
you for your life, for your sins. Ask
Jesus to be the Lord of your life. Lord
means he is the boss. It means you do
what he says and has said in the Bible.
Do you know anyone who lives that way?
May God please forgive the people
of this country. And the people of the
world who have had the opportunity to know the Lord and still are lost or who
have fallen away as well. May he have
mercy on all.
Yes, I pray that, but I too
recognize that nothing is stopping what is happening. Jesus will come at the appointed time. God’s wrath will be poured out on the
earth. The end times are here. There is no redemption I fear for the United
States, for the words of the Bible are clear.
But there is always still hope and redemption for individual people. God as always can and does draw people to
Jesus.
Keep Your Eyes on Jesus!
(July 2015)
Copyright © 2015 by John
Newlin
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