It’s always too early to give up. Way too early to walk away from God, away from your healthy Bible teaching church, from your sound pastor, from fellowship with growing believers, from your family members and friends who still need to see your godly example daily, and to clearly hear the simple Gospel message.
Cast off the disappointment. Got some church-hurt from hypocrites? God ain't that way. He understands you and all you've experienced. And He can help you, and you can choose now to get over it with Jesus as Lord. Ask bluntly. Appropriate healing grace by faith. Put on the mind of Christ, put on the full armor of God.
God delights to bless and say yes, but He doesn’t always say yes. Why? Cuz He sees the big picture. He has a broader perspective than we have.
Please always see the yes anyways. Hear His Word today. Especially during these last days, it’s very important to see the “yes” in God’s “no” to you. Every time. He keeps His promises.
God did not intervene when they needed him, even when they felt they needed him the most. Perhaps something “really bad” happened when you were weak and needy? Where is God when we need Him. Very near, knowing best.
We are living during that last days when many people are more than disappointed with God and have lots of questions. Even about the no or wait that they heard in answer to their prayers.
Many are even mad at God though he’s done them and their families no wrong at all. God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God and still sinless today.
How do we always know it’s really bad.. instead of good for us?
God said no to Moses SO wanting to enter the promised Land. He also said no to the Apostle Paul regarding taking away his thorn and they both had faith, but God had a wider HUGER perspective than they had then.
Once the only survivor of a shipwreck washed up on a small, uninhabited island. It happened. He then prayed feverishly for God to somehow rescue him, and every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming. Things seemed so silent except for the sound of gulls that like to steal whatever they can when you’re not looking.
“God, where are you when I keep crying out to You?” Totally exhausted feeling famished, he eventually managed to eruct a little hut for protection from the elements out of driftwood. It shielded him from the IR and UV rays of the sun, Yes, it helped against the rain and other elements, and to store his few possessions. But then one day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, the smoke rolling up to the sky.
The worst had happened; everything was lost. He was stung with grief and anger. "God, how could you do this to me!" he cried.
Early the next day, however, he was awakened by the sound of a ship that was approaching the island. It had come to rescue him. "How did you know I was here?" asked the weary man of his rescuers. "We saw your smoke signal," they replied.
The Christian life is often filled with suffering too. Not just JOY in fellowshipping with Jesus and our forever family. We have blessings and so called set backs. It is so easy to get discouraged when things are going apparently bad for us. But we shouldn't lose heart, because God is at work in our lives, even in the midst of persecutions, trails, pain, loss and suffering.
Remember this next time your little erected hut on the sand is burning to the ground--it just may be a smoke signal that summons in the grace of God to rescue.
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:35-39
Can you see it, can you tell that we are in the last of the last days? These are no days to walk away from Jesus, or split and walk away from a healthy Bible teaching kinda church, or away from fellowship with other growing believes, or away from your family members and friends who still need to see a godly example and hear the Gospel.
James was beheaded, and then Peter was delivered and both are heroes of faith. It’s that how life now goes for believers? Sure, it’s like that and we don’t always know why, but we fall back on what we do know. God is sovereign, good, loving towards you, has a good plan and keep all his promises etc.
Did you know that more Christian people have been martyred in the last 35 years than in all those years when Rome was killing believers of the early church years at Circus Maximus. That’s true, and the killing is still happening today, like in countries of Islam and of Communism. Where was God then and now? Very near to each of His kids giving them the needed grace.
"And Jesus answered and said to them: ‘Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:7–9 nkjv
“When reports come in of wars and rumored wars, keep your head and don't panic. This is routine history; this is no sign of the end. Nation will fight nation and ruler fight ruler, over and over. Famines and earthquakes will occur in various places. This is nothing compared to what is coming. They are going to throw you to the wolves and kill you, everyone hating you because you carry my name. And then, going from bad to worse, it will be dog-eat-dog, everyone at each other's throat, everyone hating each other. In the confusion, lying preachers will come forward and deceive a lot of people. For many others, the overwhelming spread of evil will do them in - nothing left of their love but a mound of ashes. Staying with it - that's what God requires. Stay with it to the end. You won't be sorry, and you'll be saved. All during this time, the good news - the Message of the kingdom - will be preached all over the world, a witness staked out in every country. And then the end will come.” vv. 24:6-14 msg
Remember Billy Graham's book called ‘Approaching Hoofbeats”? It deals with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Go reread it.
Who is he? A dark prince. It’s the ultimate deceiver among deceivers.
Please do not be deceived during these last days.
"Who, therefore, is the rider on the white horse? He is not Christ, but a deceiver who seeks to capture the hearts and souls of men and women. He is one who seeks to have people acknowledge him as Lord instead of the true Christ." ~ Billy Graham
"The Dark Prince on a White Horse." ~ David Jeremiah
"This horse and rider represents deception-lies, 'false messiahs,' and the spirit of the antichrist that are alive in every generation. This horse carries the ultimate deceiver, the antichrist." ~ Jack Graham
All four animals and their riders are anything but beautiful. They are terrible and terrifying. The scenes in which they are described are among the most dreadful in the Bible.
“I hear the approaching hoofbeats of the distant horsemen,” writes Graham, referring to the four horsemen of Revelation 6. “I hear their warnings and I have no choice but to deliver them.”
Billy Graham believed the shadows of the four horsemen of the apocalypse are already looming large in our world today.
War, famine, disease, death, and suffering are as old as human suffering. But the circumstances surrounding them have changed immensely. The ancients lived under the fear of bows and arrows, swords and spears. We live in times when one brief decision can alter civilization worldwide for generations to come.
Billy Graham writes, “I have become more deeply aware of the enormous problems that face our world."
Did you know that Billy's ministry is helping to bring revival in Iran and the Middle East today? Though dead, he still speaks.
People around the globe are hearing J. Vernon McGee, W.A. Criswell, Chuck Smith Sr, Keith Green etc. Why? Cuz they are very hungry and there is starting to be a famine of truth in this world at a time when the Bible is more available on apps and online than ever before. Somehow the people amidst the chaos sense that the Judgement of the Great Tribulation is coming.
For thus says the Lord GOD: “How much more it shall be when I send My four severe judgments on Jerusalem—the sword and famine and wild beasts and pestilence—to cut off man and beast from it?"
In 2021 we have more than 7.9 billion people down here. You were born to worship and know the Lord. You and I are hear to prayerfully, tactfully graciously spread the Gospel while we can.
And we’re on track that by 2034 there'll be 9 billion people down here on the third rock, on this earth here. (I’m not including the results of God’s coming judgement or of the earlier Rapture that happens from here when the Church is snatched away -- we don’t have a date and won’t set one). There is more need now than ever before, but we serve a BIG God who can be glorified through us, who can and will use us.
"For thus says the Lord GOD: How much more it shall be when I send My four severe judgments on Jerusalem—the sword and famine and wild beasts and pestilence—to cut off man and beast from it?" Ezekiel 14:21
“In this terrifying scene, John saw the grim reaper and the grave digger moving together across the face of the earth. Death slays the body while Hades swallows up the soul. These two symbols represent the massive number of deaths that will follow in the wake of the first three horsemen. One quarter of the world's population will be lost in their rampage." ~ Chuck Swindoll
The sixth seal -- Quite the Earthquake. Headed right this way. Let’s be ready to give an answer to any who ask us regarding out living hope. Liney and I with friends have been going through the Revelation verse by verse lately.
*I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! ‘For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?’” Revelation 6:12-17
What Are Some Signs of God's Coming Wrath On Earth...
* Great Earthquake - Islands Disappear into the Sea and Other Mountains Too are Moved
* Transformation of the Heavens. There'll be No Doubt On That Day That God's Wrath is Arriving Upon the Earth (vs. 16-17)
* Sheer Panic - Cries of Dread - Hurry, Hide! (Gen 3:8)
* No attempt of Repentance-Frenzied Fear
cf., Matt 24:7; Joel 2:1, 2, 10, 30-31; 3:16; Isa 13:6-13; 34:4; Ezek. 13:5-16; Zeph. 1:16: re: darkness cf. Exodus 10:21-22
“Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” ~ Jack Graham
The Heavens will explode and there will be cosmic chaos, and mass destruction. The suffering in our own day is real, yet cannot compare to what will occur on ‘that day.’ God says this...
Live hungry for the word and grow. Obey Him and live with Jesus with intimacy.
“See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more [shall we not escape] if we turn away from Him who [speaks] from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, ‘Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.’ Now this, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire.” Hebrews 12:26
I challenge you in love. Surrender to God and His will today--live in His will. Keep praying earnestly. Which nature do you nurture and feed? It's time to seek the Lord with all your heart. It's NO time for cold-blooded or lukewarm livin'. It's time to sow to the Spirit every single day.. with no spiritual compromise. It's no day to be feeding your fleshly nature, or mind with what corrupts people. Why gorge yourself on the spiritual junk-food and trash of this world-system when it's time to wrap things up here?
