Which Cup will you drink?

In a moment,in the twinkling of an eye, at the last 

trumpet...

I Corinthians 15:52




I got knocked down the last week or two, but I'm not out. Preparing  for a craft show, running around helping people, and lack of taking good care of myself and suddenly I found myself nearly out of commission from a cold which turned into a sinus infection which turned into an asthma flare.  I shouldn't take good health for granted.

I did some thinking between blowing my nose and sleeping on the couch. Just why am I writing anyway? Does it even make a difference? Maybe just quit while I'm ahead.

This morning, though not better, I rethought that. Current events are downright depressing, if looked at from only a secular viewpoint. Current events through my life seemed to go along as they always had but not anymore. They are reaching a point of no return.

Without Jesus, without the Bible, how could I live with what I see happening on the news every day?
I would fall apart. How do people live without Jesus?

And so that is why I write. To tell people that there still is time to believe in Jesus before the things prophesied come quickly to pass.

Most if not all people who might read this already believe in Jesus. Great! But maybe, just maybe there might be one who does not? This blog is just a little thing, but if God could use it to reach one person it would be such an awesome privilege for me.

Because, if you don't know Jesus, let me tell you, things are about to get really bad on this earth. No matter who is elected America is in grave trouble. We can't deny it anymore. Nowhere is safe: not Europe, not America, not the Middle East. All the money in the world cannot fix the problems of hatred and man's inhumanity to man.

But there is really good news in spite of this bleak picture. Jesus came and made Himself available to do something about the tragic mess we are in.  2,000 years ago, He obliterated sin that ruins everything it touches. He paid for all the sins of all mankind, even the ones of those who don't believe in Him. Why? Because He was perfect love, and He made the perfect sacrifice.

We are out of human solutions. It is time to take the only one that works: the Divine one. It cost Him everything to give it to us, but He did it willingly because He loved us all so much.

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. II Cor. 5:21

 Some may say that to believe the Bible is old-fashioned and doesn't keep up with modern science. I for one choose to believe it above what man's theories say. I believe it because it gives me hope for the future in heaven, a sense of destiny and especially it helps me today:

...to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.       I Thessalonians 1: 10

So dear friend reading this, wherever you are, why not take the cup of salvation the Lord is offering you? Then you too will not be looking for any kind of human way to fix the problems all over this earth. Instead you will look to Jesus, and in Him you will find all that your heart is longing for, all that you will ever need. Like the Psalmist so long ago, you can also say:

I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the LORD. Psalm 116: 13

After all, I would much rather have to drink from God's cup of salvation than the cup of wrath that will be poured out on the Christ rejecting world.

Two cups, two destinies. Which one will be yours?

If you are not sure if you have a home in heaven waiting for you, you can think something like this toward God in your heart: Father, I believe that Your Son Jesus came to earth to pay for man's sins and not just all men's, but my own ones too. I want to be with You in heaven so I believe in what He did for me that day, and that You raised Him from the dead. I take the gift of salvation and new life that He alone offers me. Amen.

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