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It is impossible to look at the recent events occurring around the world
and not know that the “beginning of sorrows” has begun.
The preachers loved or at least tolerated on television are actually
walking over truth and denying any connection between present events and the
Bible. They could not be more wrong or more foolish in
their drive to be politically correct. How could any man
of this Blessed Book not connect such apparent Divine reckoning as evidence of
Bible prophecy? Jesus wrote about this period just before
the Seven Years of the Great Tribulation. He said,
“For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ;
and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and
rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to
pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise
against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and
pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these
are the beginning of sorrows.” (Matthew
24:5-8)
The word “accidents” or the phrases “bad luck” or “good
luck” are not acceptable to the Word of God. The
Creator of this universe is a “present Landlord.”
“The earth is the LORD'S, and the fulness
thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.”
(Psalm 24:1) The
Apostle Paul could not have said it better when he spoke by the Holy Ghost about
this issue. He said, “And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to
his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did
predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the
firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did
predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified:
and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” (Romans 8:28) A saint of
God can absolutely trust God in every detail of his life and trust in His
perfect performance of mercy and
grace.
The exact same, but on an opposite side, will be true in the life of the
wicked. When I say “wicked”, I mean any individual that
is not living a converted life in full obedience to the Word or will of
God. The unbelieving will be just as fearful as the
wicked themselves when great evil comes. There is no
protection for that person that claims Christ but lives in willful
disobedience. “For if we
sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there
remaineth no more sacrifice for sins.” (Hebrews 10:26) It is the
sacrifice of Christ and the blood that is a barrier to the destruction of your
life by the forces of sin and judgment. The Blood,
applied and daily sprinkled by the Holy Spirit upon every expression of your
lifestyle, will keep you within the protection of your Father’s perfect
will.
Outside of that barrier of the Blood of Jesus is nothing but sorrow and
destruction. Sometimes it seems that destruction tarries
for years and suddenly falls upon the unprotected like a relentless storm. But, destruction will eventually come every time as God’s Word
has declared. Look at the words of the Spirit on this
subject. “What if God,
willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much
longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.” (Romans 9:22)
There are many examples of this in individual lives as well as cities and
countries. New Orleans is a prime example of mercy that
has finally come to the fruit of destruction. This past
week one hundred thousand plus homosexuals were expected to descend on that city
spending a suggested one hundred million dollars for the sheer joy of
blasphemy. Any man is a fool that denies the connection
between these ultimate blasphemies of God with the storm that has
descended. Compare other natural disasters and the unity
of all the populists in overcoming and rebuilding with the total chaos of human
depravity that has shocked this city and you can see nothing but the wilderness
of sin.
Nothing that occurs is an accident. It is always
either a combination of mercy and judgment, just mercy, or just judgment. Nothing in our God’s universe just happens.
“That ye may be the children of your
Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the
good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matthew 5:45) The
difference is most often what we do with the results.
With God’s divine help and intervention the righteous rise and shine when
sorrows come, but the opposite occurs with the
wicked.
The
destruction of Hurricane Katrina and the sorrows and pains we are all feeling is
a wake-up call to America. This universe is on a dead end
street to God’s judgment. We are only increasing our
sorrows to ignore this fact. Every act of sin committed
by every living soul is feeding the frenzy of blasphemy against God. There is no sin that does not have consequences. Your little sins may take longer to come to fruition, but they
are piling up. The blasphemy against the Bible, the Son
of God that sacrifices His blood, and the blasphemy against the very sacredness
of human morality and beauty is creating a storm of coming reckoning. Nothing of sin and wickedness can escape the All-Seeing,
All-Knowing Creator, our God of the Holy
Bible.
Look at the
wickedness of this week. In Charlotte there were twenty
plus reports of fights and disturbances at gas stations and it is not even bad
yet. The sheer chaos in New Orleans is but a small
picture of coming sorrows. We have watched a brief
picture on a very little scale of the coming Seven Years of the Great
Tribulation. Can you imagine living in a world where two
to three billion men, women, and children have died, been murdered, or brutally
destroyed in the short period of a few years? If you can
multiply the sorrow in New Orleans by a few million, then you will begin to
understand. Millions of corpses will lie in the open and
be devoured by the starving animal kingdom. Much of human
population will blaspheme God for the judgment just like the multitudes in New
Orleans have attacked the very expression of human compassion that has tried to
help them. Human nature is on the verge of descending
into such vileness that animals of destruction will seem tame in
comparison.
The prophecy
of Holy Scripture has set before us a clear and precise picture.
Most of the church world has accepted the lie that they are going to set
up a kingdom of righteousness. This false idea has many
names: Post-Millennialism, Kingdom Dominion, A-Millennialism, etc. It is all a lie, and we are going to see very quickly what falsehood it really
represents.
The beginning of the end is very evident and clear to see. Read Revelation chapter six, verses fifteen to seventeen. “And the kings of the earth, and
the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and
every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens 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 that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the
Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who
shall be able to stand?” (Revelation 6:15-17) The “beginning of
sorrows” has begun!
Joseph R. Chambers