Change is Coming... Let's Wake Up for the Warning!

Today, flash flooding overwhelmed some parts of our city. Cars were submerged suddenly on their way into town without warning. Railways flooded with muddy debris and were knocked out of commission, at least temporarily. Tornado warnings were issued for parts of our viewing area. In fact one was scheduled to go right over my parents home, which thankfully broke up before reaching them. It could have been much, much worse.

Yesterday I watched a fifteen minute You tube video of the disasters that had occurred in just this past month of June alone around the world and it was really eye opening, to say the least. It also was heart breaking, thinking of all the people who had lost either their life or their home in the wake of up-stepped natural disasters. You can find it on the first of two video links posted at this blog link:

http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2013/07/09/2013-unprecedented-natural-disasters-june-retrospective/

I saw a microcosm of suffering in my hometown today. Now multiply by what has been happening all over the world, not just in 2013, but in the last decade or so, although each year it seems to be getting incrementally worse. I would love to just ignore it and say life will go on as usual. The Bible doesn't have good news for those who are just trying to be good people and are hoping for the best, somehow thinking that this world will get better and better. No, He does not, but God made an easier and better way, completely devoid of any human good works. Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 4: 4-5.

In the face of natural disasters, there are tough questions that deserve an honest answer. But before you raise a fist in anger at God for what's happened, did you ever think that somehow God may have allowed these things to wake people out of slumber, maybe even you, so that they could possibly seek after Him now, before things get even worse? I love what Paul proclaimed as part of his speech to the Greeks in Acts 17: 26- 27 when he found their tomb to the Unknown God:

"And He (God) has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us." {emphasis mine}

Jesus talked about terrible events in the last days being the beginning of sorrows. (Matthew 24: 8)Sorrows over what, you ask? The evil in this world will not be permitted to go on like this forever. Sin was already paid for and judged at the cross of Calvary around 30 A. D. But the problem of evil has not been dealt with in finality. Evil is what caused the plague of sin in the first place. It was found in God's enemy, Lucifer, when God replied to his proud look in Isaiah 14: 12-14 and his five "I will's."

"How you are fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning!
How you are cut down to the ground,
You who weakened the nations!

For you have said in your heart;
I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
I will also sit on the mound of the congregation
On the farthest sides of the north;
I will ascend above the clouds,
I will be like the Most High."

Isaiah 14: 12-14

Lucifer had not only sinned, but now had introduced evil into the world.

In the Chronological Study Bible put out by Thomas Nelson I have learned much this past year. As I read through its clear arrangement of Israel and Judah's history, I have reached the part where the prophet Jeremiah had to preach a most unpopular message: His beloved country was going down. Other prophets told people the things they liked to hear, that certainly they would not be destroyed. Jeremiah was God's man, though, and he could not prophesy lies. He was the "weeping prophet" because he knew that King Zedekiah would be carried away captive with his eyes taken out by the Babylonians. Israel's capital, Jerusalem, would go under siege for all her years of rebellion and idolatry against her God.

Jeremiah wrote of terrible times coming as the siege by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon neared. But his writing could also foretell of the times that are coming now. For we cannot undo the prophetic clock. It started ticking when Israel became "reborn" as a nation on May 14, 1948, which also was prophesied clearly in Scripture, after 2,000 years of dispersion to the four corners of the earth. (See Isaiah 66:8)

Jeremiah declared in Jer. 30: 23-24:

"Behold, the whirlwind of the LORD
Goes forth with fury,
A continuing whirlwind;
It will fall violently on the head of the wicked.
The fierce anger of the LORD
will not return until He has done it,
And until He has performed the intents of His heart.

In the latter days you will consider it. {emphasis mine}

I propose, along with many others who know much more than I do, that we are in those latter times now. The birth pangs, which signal Christ's return for His Church and His ultimate judgment on evil are at any moment ready to come to fruition. There is no time to be on the fence. Whose side will you be on? Christ has already made a way for you by His Finished Work on the cross. If you listen to the world, Christ could come for His church and you will be left behind to suffer the wrath of God on this unbelieving planet. While you may still believe on Him at that point, you will have to undergo trouble then like never seen in this world before, which is called the time of Great Tribulation. You can skip all that though by believing in Christ now and being a part of His Church today.

God spoke to Israel also through the prophet Amos, but He also speaks to us now:

"Prepare to meet your God, O Israel!" Amos 4: 12a