THURSDAY STUFF: AWAKE YOU WHO SLEEP -X IB

AWAKE XI - B:

The Death of a Nation

The things that keep some people from following Jesus totally and wholeheartedly are that they want security: home, job, marriage, family. They want personal pleasure and comfort: an easy life, no conflict, to get along with everyone. They want earthly rewards: popularity, friendships, leisure time. Some follow only with 'conditions'. Jesus, however, wants complete loyalty with no conditions, total dedication, not halfhearted commitment. We can't pick and choose among Jesus' ideas and follow him selectively. Jesus did not appoint us to be editors who select the portions of Jesus' teaching which we "think" are irrelevant.

In America today, we are seeing 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. 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.

God 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.

"Peace and safety," destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains of a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. [1 Thess. 5:3]

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.

Most Americans 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."

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. The whole reason behind the denigration of religion, especially Christianity, is very simple to understand. If there is no God, then there is no right or wrong. If there is no God, then there is no higher authority to be accountable to, therefore you can do whatever you wish without the guilt.

People 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 brother’s 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.

NEXT WEEK:

Signs of the Last Days