Prophetic Sword Picture

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

What's up with that???

Dear friends,

As you know this is a new blog that gives me more opportunity to "sound off"! My original blog---thank you Jesus---is doing spectacular and has now jumped to readership in 64 countries. I sincerely wish I could report thousands and thousands of readers but I can report that there may be hundreds of hundreds and growing rapidly. My main blog can be found at www.lastdaysreview.blogspot.com

We have been traveling and just put on a conference in mid state California entitled "Zealous over Zion". That may give you a solid hint that we stand unflinchingly in support of Israel. That does not mean that we stand against any other culture or people group because our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ sacrificed His own life for all of mankind who would simply put their faith in Him. As such, we pray for Muslims,  new agers, Buddhists and every other kind of "IST" that you can imagine. Obviously those prayers are always centered around their salvation through Christ.

My first article on this site spoke about why we as Christians WORLD WIDE feel as though we have to stand still while we ingest huge quantities of foolish political correctness? Who says? You know it reminds me of back at the beginnings of WW 2 when so many followers of Christ lived in such complacency over the outright threats of Adolf Hitler---someone say BOO, HISS! The man very publicly told the entire world that he intended to exterminate the Jews and take over the world beginning with all of Europe.

And do you know what the response was from both Christians and governments leaders world wide?

"Certainly not, who would really do such a thing? We don't have to worry about these idle threats---it will come to nothing"!

So let's see, because we as Christians (probably your parents and most certainly mine) hid our respective heads in the sand like an Ostrich, HOW MANY PEOPLE WERE BUTCHERED?

At least 6 million Jews including roughly 2 million defenseless children, by the Nazis!
An estimated 20 million Jews, Christians and political dissidents in Russia by Joseph Stalin and crew!
Millions of solders from many countries of the world!
Untold millions of innocent people from every single country where this terrible war was waged!

And guess what? You would think we as mankind would have learned something just 20 years earlier when WW 1 ended with the death of millions of people as well.

In fact during the last 100 years or so, we as Christians have stood idly by while countless people have perished in countless wars INCLUDING our brothers and sisters in Christ who have been relentlessly led like lambs to the slaughter.

Oh there have been very many brave Christian men and women who have gone out to fight in these physical wars. And many of them never returned!

Does it make you wonder what would have happened if 2 BILLION Christians world wide would have stood up and said, NOT A CHANCE PAL! If we had exercised our votes, our voices and OUR POLITICAL WILL!

In many parts of the church today, the common thinking is "we should not be involved in politics or social problems". I remember well just a few years ago, a conversation I had with an extremely nice elderly couple. They were members of one of our major denominations.The subject matter turned to abortion. They immediately told me in no uncertain terms that abortion was a social problem and Christians should NEVER be involved in these kinds of debates! OR politics, OR traditional family values, OR legalization of drugs, OR official recognition of gay marriage, OR OR OR OR???

REALLY?

Well, you know what? I do not believe that for one single second. Christians in most countries have a vote just like everyone else. If we take the lackadaisical attitude that my vote doesn't count---then, you are right, it WILL never count.  If we fail to speak then our voices will never ever be heard.

Right now in many countries of the world the attitude is that we as Christians are spewing hate speech if we even talk about sin. And the blood of Christ? That is not politically correct any more. Nor is telling folks that there is only one way to God and that is through belief in His Son Jesus Christ.

In the mean time we "SETTLE" for the least of the evils when we vote for our Government representatives. In many cases we just sit on our hands and take what is shoveled to us as though the world in general has some kind of right to do so.

We can change all that but it has to begin somewhere. Are you as tired as I am of people saying "we live in a POST Christian world". Baloney, balderdash! Oh, yes there is a rapidly developing, new age element within the church. There are wholesale defections from the real Word of God. New ungodly doctrines are no longer SNEAKING into the church, now some denominational doors are flung wide open and good people are being bamboozled by a literal plethora of false teachers. We should not be surprised  since the Bible tells us that it will happen.

2 Thessalonians is specifically speaking about the day of the Lord (end times--second coming) and verse three tells us there will be a "falling away" that comes first.

But you know what folks? Out there on the highways and byways of the world there are thousands and thousands of little churches (and sometimes very big ones), with good Bible believing pastors and just plain ole folks who believe with all their hearts that God's Holy Word means something and should not be fooled around with. In some countries these little churches are underground by necessity. In others, they are on every street corner and are doing their best to impact their communities.

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ then I can assure you that you are not a POST anything!

One other thing that really bothers me (well OK, the truth is that there are a lot of things that bother me): When we hear that ALL of our young people are "lost or going to the dogs theologically"!

Have you seen the reports lately (particularly in the western nations) in which high school and college students are rallying around their school flag poles for prayer? Or giving valedictorian speeches---AGAINST SCHOOLS ORDERS---that are centered around Christ? Or in the far eastern nations where people sacrifice their very lives in underground churches for a mere scrap of scripture?

Don't you believe for an instant that the Christian youth are lost. Some perhaps certainly but in the end this is our next generation. To illustrate that point, I am pleased to have on my staff a young couple, both of whom are only 19 years old. They are serving in a foreign missions field full time with so little financial support that they have to use binoculars to look up far enough to see the bottom side of the poverty line. I have never once heard them complain about anything and they are sincerely pleased just to serve their Lord.

Please join me in reading comments by Charity Beckwith in what I believe will be a new column entitled
"20's something"!



What happens when the government falls, you can't pay your bills, you lose your house? people turn against each other for their survival, even family turns against each other? death tolls rise because of natural disasters, wars take over, national leaders become anti-life, diseases invade entire nations? family members lose their lives due to bad healthcare, riots multiply, gas and food prices sky rocket, and nothing but a majority of hating individuals, haters of everything, encompass this world?

When everything else fails, what do we cling to? What is there left to cling ON to?
Some may think, " Aww That'll never happen to me."...

But look around, it is happening now. Whether we WANT to believe it or not. Look it up, look beyond our little personal 3 dimensional world that revolves around us.  look at the grand scheme of things. Look at the bigger picture!

Again, I say When everything else fails, what do we cling on to? What is there left to cling on to?

Each other?

When "EACH OTHER" pass on or simply aren't there anymore physically and or mentally, do you still cling on to each other? When others fail and forsake us, whom then? Who do we cling on to?

WHAT do we cling on to?

HOPE?

Where then does this hope come from? Hope in the government? Hope in leaders? hope in others or each other? Hope in money? Again, I stress to all of us, when all these things pass and fail, and they Do and WILL pass and fail, what does this HOPE lay in?

Is our hope rooted in---"this time all things will eventually get better"---? Take note, my brothers and sisters, this world will strive to be better, but it's hate and rebellion will only become worse.

What is there left to cling to in a world like this?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing! Nothingness.

Unless----?

Unless we have a faith and a hope that surpasses all understanding in a God that lives, loves, and breathes for us. One God, one Father, one Friend, one Leader, one Lover, one Protecter, one Healer, one Redeemer. One that always IS and always WILL be.

We may say, " I cannot understand God, and the Idea of God just doesn't make sense, therefore I cannot and will not believe."

... I tell you this, If God was a fully understandable, fully conceivable God.. then He would be no God at all.

God, whom I call Daddy, is my God where my faith and Hope lay in.
I am not perfect, and neither will I ever be. But non the less, my Daddy loves imperfection. I will fail and forsake nearly everything, but my faith and hope lay in my Daddy. When this passing world will soon be over, My faith and Hope will still be in my Daddy who clings to those who have their faith and hope in Him.

 "But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him."
Jeremiah 17:7 

Back to pastor Rance:

I wish I understood that when I was 19. How about you? The next generation of Christians is alive and growing rapidly. Praise the Name of the Lord!

See you next week.