Sunday, November 1,
2015, 6:56 p.m. – The Lord Jesus put in mind the song “Awaken the Dawn.” Speak, Lord, your words to my heart. I read Jeremiah 12 (Select vv. NASB).
In context, the people of God were living in spiritual
adultery and idolatry, and in disobedience to God. They were closing their ears
and their hearts to God’s commands, and they were going their own way. They
followed the stubbornness of their own hearts. They returned to sinning against
God, and they refused to listen to God’s words. They followed after other gods
to serve them. Even in the temple of God, they were working wicked schemes with
many, and they engaged in wickedness. They provoked God to anger by their
idolatry. Some also plotted to end Jeremiah’s life so as to cut off his
messages. The people who were seeking Jeremiah’s life were saying, “Do not
prophesy in the name of the Lord or you will die by our hands.” Yet, God said
he would punish them in his timing (Jer. 11).
I believe that this type of situation exists again today,
i.e. that this speaks to the spiritual condition of much of today’s church,
particularly here in America. Wolves in sheep’s clothing have come into the
church from very high up positions all the way down to the pastors of local churches.
And, they have deceived the people into believing lies. They taught them that,
in order to “reach” the people of the world, they had to become like the world.
They had to entertain the world in worldly ways, and to not share the gospel,
at least not the gospel according to Jesus, because it might offend people and
scare them off. So, they diluted the gospel message to make it more appealing
to the masses, and less offensive, so that the world would be comfortable in
their meetings and would want to come back.
The Bible began to take a back seat to movies and books
written by mere humans, many of whom were teaching a false gospel, and some of
whom also taught mysticism as the way to finding your true self and your
purpose in life. Many of these false shepherds are teaching and encouraging Middle
Eastern religious practices, too. The church is now marketed just like any
other business, with all of its scheming, tricks and gimmicks, in order to draw
in the masses, and with a focus on the wants of the consumer rather than on the
commands of God. The target audience for these worldly churches now became the
unbelieving people of this sinful world, but not to win them to Christ, but to
make them feel good about the “church,” and to make them feel good about
themselves, even in their sin, and to teach them a false grace gospel which
does not require turning from sin or obeying Christ and his commands, but
promises heaven no matter what they do with Jesus or how they treat God.
Then, pastors began to go to church growth seminars and to
take training from those higher up in the religious food chain whose lies
spread like gangrene across denominations. Soon individual congregations were
no longer individual, but they were all clones of the same model that was being
taught them. They all began to look and sound alike. And, a notable similarity
among them was that they were being taught to stress unity, but not unity with
Christ, but unity with human teachings and goals, and to single out those with “strong
convictions” and to tag them as “disunifiers” for holding to the truths of the
gospel of Christ, and for not joining in with the lies. Pastors were taught
ways to discourage these with strong convictions from becoming part of their
local fellowships, and, from the pulpit and in private, they told them to
conform or to “go someplace else.”
Now, the church and their partner in crime, i.e. the US
government, here in America, which is part of the New World Order, and the
church and government globally have taken it up a notch or two. Now they are
talking about ways to do away with “extremists,” i.e. those who hold to the
truths of the gospel, and about how to get rid of all that divides us as the
people of the world so that we, as the people of the world, can all come
together as one, in unity, no matter what religion or what lifestyle we might
be living. Obama and the Pope have been strong voices for this false grace
gospel, which joins all religions together as one. Yet, there is a much more
sinister side to all of this, and that is that, not only are they are going
after those they deem “extremists,” which primarily targets all those who hold
to the gospel of Jesus, and who will not conform to this one-world religion, but
ultimately the goal is to end our lives, I believe. It is what the Bible
teaches (See: Revelation 12-14).
Even Your Brothers
(Jeremiah 12:5-8)
“If
you have run with footmen and they have tired you out,
Then
how can you compete with horses?
If
you fall down in a land of peace,
How
will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?
“For
even your brothers and the household of your father,
Even
they have dealt treacherously with you,
Even
they have cried aloud after you.
Do
not believe them, although they may say nice things to you.”
“I
have forsaken My house,
I
have abandoned My inheritance;
I
have given the beloved of My soul
Into
the hand of her enemies.
“My
inheritance has become to Me
Like
a lion in the forest;
She
has roared against Me;
Therefore
I have come to hate her.
Jeremiah had asked God why the wicked prosper, and why the faithless
live at ease. He was questioning God’s justice. He said to God, of the wicked, “You
are always on their lips but far from their hearts.” He was speaking of his
fellow Israelites who were behaving wickedly against God, some of whom were
plotting to take Jeremiah’s life. So, Jeremiah called on God to judge the
wicked. Yet, God’s response to him was that if Jeremiah could not endure the
persecution he was presently suffering, then how would he survive when things
got much worse? Then, God did not comfort him with reassuring words promising him
that things would get better. He told him the truth about his situation. People
from his own family betrayed him. They had raised a loud cry against him.
Jeremiah was not to trust them, even though they may have spoken well of him to
his face.
You know, God still speaks to us today, not just through the
Bible, but through his Spirit, and he speaks in very practical ways and concerning
the things we are experiencing in our world and in our lives. In other words,
he makes the Word of God practical and applicable to our lives and our world.
And, I believe he wants to show us that these types of things are happening in
our world today, i.e. that brother is betraying brother to death, and that there
are people in this world who are plotting to take our lives just because we
believe in Jesus Christ as the only way to God and to heaven, and because we
hold to the testimony of Jesus and to his gospel which teaches death to sin and
living to righteousness.
These people are all part of the New World Order “Beast.”
This N.W.O. is like a revival of Hitler’s regime, only on a global scale, or it
is like a revival of the Roman or the Persian Empires, i.e. it is this 4th
beast prophesied about in the book of Daniel in the Old Testament, and in
Revelation 13 in the New Testament. This N.W.O. is like Alexander the Great,
who was a great conqueror of nations. His/Its army is a Prussianized and a
privatized, secretive “quasi-military” police force designed for the sole
purpose of overthrowing governments, including our own form of government, and
for conquering the saints of God. This is a dictatorship, an autocratic regime
that is engulfing the nations of the world one piece at a time. And, I believe
they have already conquered many nations, and have already taken their seat of
authority in those nations, including, I believe, in Canada and the USA, and
now in Syria, too.
I believe this secretive army is not just comprised of soldiers
who carry guns, though, but I believe this includes private citizens, and
members of our own families, and people with whom we “fellowship” together in
gatherings of the church, and our neighbors, and people we work with, etc. Big
Brother has recruited them to spy on people they know in order to get
information about them that they can pass back to the government, which then
can be used against us, whether the information is totally fabricated or having
elements of truth to it, but with a twist, it won’t matter, because they will
lie and cut us to the heart, maybe because they have some vendetta against us,
or they feel we have crossed them in some way, or simply because they just don’t
like the message we preach. But, they will pretend to like us to gain our
confidence, and then they will stab us in the back. So, we need to be on our
guard, and we need to not easily trust anyone, because anyone could be one of
these spies working for the “Beast,” and he or she will serve as our Judas.
In other words, this New World Order “Beast” - “The Great” -
has gotten “down and dirty,” “marked by or given to fierce often unscrupulous
competition” (M-W). We really can’t trust anyone. Nothing is private anymore.
The government has access to our computers if we have connected to the Cloud. They
can access all our files, all our emails, chats, phone conversations, texts,
etc. And, they now use spies to give them even more information. They can spy
on us through our TVs and our computers, and they can listen in on our phone
conversations. We tell them where we are all the time if we have cell phones or
an up-to-date car, or if we use a computer or any kind of GPS. They have
antennas on our street lights and cameras at our traffic intersections. Big
Brother is always watching us, and when they decide to come in for the kill,
they will. The Bible says so. It is just a matter of when.
We can’t trust the news media, for most of them are arms of
the “Beast.” Facebook and Google are part of this “Beast,” as well, I believe,
so when anyone writes anything on the internet or on Facebook or Google it gets
reported. They are keeping files on each one of us, and I believe they are
putting us into categories. They are not only spying on us, though, but I
believe they have many networks of influence in trying to convince the people
of this world to submit to and to conform to the “beast.” They are in direct
competition against the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that is why they must
silence us.
I believe we are going to see much censorship of Christians
who preach the gospel of Jesus in days to come, and/or else there is going to
be a campaign launched against us to try to attack us and to try to discredit
us and the gospel in order to shut us up. But, we are not to fear these
attacks. In other words, I believe persecution against Christians is soon to
escalate. Christians who preach the gospel will become the enemy which must be
snuffed out, like our government claims they are doing against ISIS in order to
protect us. Now they will be protecting people against Christians. This
campaign against us will be relentless in order to take us out wherever we are,
whether through censorship, or public attacks against our character, or death,
or all of these. We are the enemy in their eyes, and they will go to great
lengths to see that we can no longer influence people to believe in Jesus
Christ.
Yet, God is allowing all this to take place. He is
completely sovereign over all of this. He has handed his church over to their
enemies so that he might revive his church and restore her to fellowship with
him, and so that “we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment
seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by
it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (See: Heb.
12:3-11).
Awaken
the Dawn / An Original Work / January 15, 2013
Based
off Psalm 57 (NIV 1984)
O my God, have mercy on me!
In the Lord, my soul takes refuge.
In the shadow of Your wings, Lord,
I find shelter till the storms pass.
I cry out to my God Most High.
He fulfills His purpose for me.
He sent His Son to die for me,
So I could be saved.
I am in the midst of lions;
Men whose teeth are spears and arrows;
Whose tongues are sharp; words accusing.
They spread a net, my feet to catch.
They dug a pit, in hopes I’d fall.
O God, be exalted o’er all.
Let Your glory shine to all men,
So they may be saved.
Steadfast is my heart, O my God;
I will sing of all Your wonders.
Awake, my soul! Sing praise to God!
Early I will rise and praise Him!
I’ll praise God among the nations;
I will sing among the peoples.
God’s love reaches to the heavens,
So we may be saved.
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