Whose World is it Anyway?

“Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” Revelation 11:15

I’ve been following national and international news lately, and frankly, I find it worse than depressing. The price of gold is higher than it’s ever been, unemployment rates are in double digits. The cost of everything is rising rapidly. Yesterday, I walked into a local store to buy something that just two days before had cost $0.82. It was now $1.50. I questioned the cashier, and she said, “I wondered why everyone stopped buying that.”

Our government is passing legislation that 10 years ago most of the population would have opposed. Our nation is engaged in multiple wars in the Middle East. And let’s not forget tyranny, death and destruction across the globe. The church is weak. Professing Christians act more like pagans than a lot of the pagans. All of this makes my heart ache. I am tempted to fall down in despair and wonder who’s in charge.
To look around, it appears that the enemy of our souls is completely in charge. It looks like the Church is being defeated, and that evil will win the day. But when we read Revelation 11, we find that God knew about this all along. Here the 24 elders cry out in worship--

“We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty,who is and who was,

for you have taken your great powerand begun to reign.

The nations raged,but your wrath came,

and the time for the dead to be judged,

and for rewarding your servants,

the prophets and saints,and those who fear your name,

both small and great,

and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.”

For some reason, and in God’s large and grand purpose, He is going to allow the enemy freedom to destroy the earth. That however, is not the last chapter. It is the chapter before the last chapter. These things must come to pass before the judgment. We ought not to fear, but to take heart. The kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ will come, and He will reign for ever and ever. The scriptures also teach us that we will reign with Him.

So, take heart, the last chapter is already written. The enemy of our souls has already lost. We must go forward, pray, share the Gospel and live like children of the Great King whom we serve.

"For such a time as this"

The book of Esther (found in the Old Testament) recounts the true story of a beautiful young Jewish girl who is taken from her uncle Mordecai, her guardian, into the harem of King Ahasuerus. After months of preparation, Esther is taken before the king, and he quickly falls in love with her and makes her his queen.

Not long after, Mordecai learns that one of the king's most powerful men, Haman, is plotting to exterminate all the Jews in the kingdom. Mordecai notifies Esther of Haman's plan and begs her to petition the king on behalf of her people. To do so, would mean Esther would have to go before the king without being summoned. Esther replies to Mordecai, that if she were to do that, she risked losing the king's favor as well as her life.

Mordecai answered back, "For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

Esther sent word back to Mordecai that she would pray and fast, then go before the king. Her final thought was, "If I perish, I perish." Esther prayed and fasted, then went before the king without being summoned, and she won his favor. In the end, Haman was killed, and the Jewish people were saved.

It was a horrible thing for Esther to be taken from her home as a young lady and banished to the harem of the king for the rest of her life. It was risky to go against the king's wishes. In short, the circumstances were not stacked in Esther's favor, and yet God placed her in those circumstances so an entire nation could be saved.

Recently I was talking to a friend about the difficult times in which we are living. The economy is bad, people are losing jobs, houses are foreclosing, the world is in turmoil. I t looks like we are heading into the worst depression this nation has ever faced, and war or revolution is probably just around the corner. It's down right depressing if you think about it too long. As we continued to talk, my friend reminded me of something her grandfather used to say, "You were made for your time." In other words, God didn't just drop us into existence in 2009, He made us just for the time in which we are living. My parents grew up during WWII, and my grandparents survived the Great Depression, and God gave them what they needed to survive it. It is no different for us.

How does that play out for us? How are we to live? Knowing that God made us for our time means that we need to readily accept from God's hand whatever He brings our way knowing it will ultimately accomplish His purposes. It means that we need to take our eyes off the misery and woe of our times and fix our eyes on God knowing nothing will come our way that hasn't passed through His hand first. It means we should get on our hands and knees and like Esther fast and pray and repent of our evil ways and believe in our God who never fails.

Ultimately, it is a privilege to live in the time in which we live, because we were made for it. If we cower and hide instead of trusting our God and boldly facing what He brings to us, we will miss out on the blessing. We will miss out on the closeness we could have had with Him.

God made us and put us here "for such a time as this".

Are You Thirsty?

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." Isaiah 55:1

Have you ever been thirsty? I'm not talking about the mild thirst you have when it's been two hours since you had anything to drink. I'm talking about the kind of thirst you have when you've been outside working all day and forgot to bring some water with you. I remember being really thirsty once.

A friend of mine and I decided one day to go to a local state park for a short hike. We had all day, but were only thinking about being out for an hour or so. When we arrived at the entrance to the hiking trails, we found a sign that marked out three trails. The first was about 3/4 of a mile (a one hour hike). I don't remember the length of the second, but the third hike was 1.5 miles. The sign said the hike would take 4 hours.

I laughed when I read the sign. Four hours? The other trail said it would take one hour, and I'd hiked it many times, it never took more than 30 minutes. "That sign must be wrong," I said. "How could it take four hours to hike 1.5 miles?" We opted for the longer trail.

We took off at a comfortable pace making great time. We rounded a bend and suddenly the trail got steeper and steeper and steeper. It looked like it was going straight up. Our quick pace soon slowed down to a serious crawl. The day grew warmer and the hike seemed to never come to an end. We stopped several times to catch our breath. By the time we reached the summit (yes, the trail was up the side of a small mountain), we were hot, sweaty and very thirsty. Two and a half hours had passed, and we still had to go back down. As we neared the end of the trail, we came to a mossy spot on a rock that looked out over the mountains. The view was breath-taking, but we could not enjoy it. We sat down to rest trying not to think of how thirsty we were.

Just then some hikers turned the corner and one of them called out my name. I couldn't believe it. There stood a friend of mine and her boyfriend. She immediately assessed our situation and asked, "Didn't you bring any food or water?" "No," I replied, a little embarrassed. She then opened up her back pack and pulled out two bottles of water and some snacks. "Here" she said, "I brought extras. We don't need them." It didn't take us long to finish off the water. It was one of the best drinks of water I've ever had.

I've experienced another type of thirst that can't be quenched with water. It was not a physical thirst, but an inner thirst, a longing to know God. No bottle of water could quench that thirst.

John's Gospel tells us that one day Jesus went to the well at Samaria. When He was there, He met a woman who was drawing water from the well. He told her that He could offer living water. If she drank it, she would never thirst again. He was speaking to her of the water of life that only God can give.

Are you thirsty in your soul? Isaiah says, "Come everyone who is thirsty. Come to the waters" Drink and live. If you are thirsty, come. If you long to know God, come. He will quench the thirst you feel.

On the day we hiked up the mountain, our thirst was temporarily quenched. We hiked back down the mountain (It did take an entire 4 hours to complete the hike.), and by the time we reached the bottom, we were thirsty again. God quenched my inner thirst, and it is for eternity.

Do Not Fear

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,and the flame shall not consume you.

For I am the Lord your God,the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

Isaiah 43:1-3 (ESV)

Our pastor is taking us through the book of Genesis in our Sunday morning worship. In the last few weeks, we've been focusing on the life of Abraham. As we gone through the events in Abraham's life, I've been impressed with how human Abraham was. He had his ups and downs, mistakes, failures, victories and blessings, and the great Abraham experienced fear. In Genesis 15:1, God said to Abraham "Fear not, I am your shield and your great reward." Since God told Abraham not to fear, he must have been afraid.

This past week, my daughter was telling me about the irrational behavior of the parent of one of her friends. She could not understand why the parent was behaving in such a ridiculous manner. As I thought about it for a moment, I responded, "This person is afraid, and it is fear that is driving them to be irrational. The person is not trusting God.

As I've thought about Abraham, the irrational parent and me, I realize that one of the greatest hindrances we have in our Christian life is fear, and we fear because we do not know or trust our God.

God understands this about us, and He assures us with His promise that He will not fail us. And as we were reminded this morning, God came through on His promise to Abraham and to us, by giving us Jesus Christ and redeeming us. We do not need to fear.

These Times in Which We Live

NOTE: As you might have noticed from my posts (and lack of posts), this past summer was a trying one. Many changes for the good have taken place, and I can see God's hand working both in my personal life and in the lives of my family. I am grateful to the Lord for what He is doing. Writing, however, has been difficult. Thanks, to you, my readers for your patience.

Righteousness exalts a nation,but sin is a reproach to any people.

Proverbs 14:34 (ESV)

Last evening, I was watching a series of programs on the Roman Empire. It featured some of Rome's great accomplishments and great failures. One of the programs featured Caligula, a particularly wicked emperor who terrorized Rome and its citizens in the short time he served as their ruler. More than once, the commentator said Roman citizens "cowered in fear" of what Caligula might do next. Murder, incest, treachery, you name it, Caligula did it. And Rome's citizen's endured it.

As I listened to the horror stories of Caligula, I couldn't help but think of the above verse from Proverbs. Why? Because Caligula was nothing more than a representation of the wickedness that was rampant in Roman society. Of course, not every Roman citizen was as bad as Caligula, but the society, in general, had been tolerant of the behavior. Instead of saying "no" to the sin, Rome had embraced the sin by allowing it to continue.

Sadly, American society is not unlike Rome in the days of Rome's emperors. While our society has never been perfect, it has not always openly tolerated sin the way it does today. Marriage is at all-time low, broken families are common, sins we would never have dreamed of speaking about publicly are joked about on the airways. Throughout our history, when we have tolerated sin, we have worn our reproach, and eventually God has punished us.

Rome paid for its sin in the reign of terror brought on by Caligula and other similar leaders. America will pay for the bad decisions currently being made by Wall Street and Congress. The outcome of the election will tell how dearly we will pay for our foolishness.

All is not lost, however. Nations rise and nations fall, and God is in control. Caligula was only allowed to serve for a few years before Roman officials had him executed. His reign of terror strengthened the Church and though many died for their faith, many more were brought to Christ during that time.

The healing of our land will most likely not come before we see our reproach, but for those of us who put our hope in God, these are not times for panic or despair. Rather they are the time to repent of our sin and draw near to God Who promises that if we do, He will draw near to us.

If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. II Chronicles 7:14 (ESV)

Comments--A Note

I sincerely appreciate all the comments I receive from my readers. I like to know how I can serve my readers better. Please keep the comments coming.

If you posted something to my site, and I did not publish it, it was probably for one of the following reasons (Hopefully, it wasn't because I accidentally deleted it!):

I do not publish comments that are unrelated to the topic at hand.

While I sometimes publish controversial topics, and I will post a controversial comment (if it has something to do with the post), I will not publish comments that are unrelated AND controversial. This only serves to cause unnecessary friction that is best left debated elsewhere.

If you wish to debate or discuss a topic with me that I have not addressed directly on my site, please feel free to send your comments with an email address to which I can reply directly. I love theology. I love to be challenged by other believers, and I do care about every one of my readers.

Thanks.

God is My Strength and Portion Forever

My flesh and my heart may fail,but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73: 26 (ESV)

Have you ever felt as though the whole world was against you?

When we look at the prosperity of the wicked, it can feel that way. The rich get richer by cheating the poor, the powerful grab for more power and trample the weak, and the wicked feed on the innocent like lions on a fresh carcass. And where is lady justice? She's been removed from her pedestal; her scales broken and thrown in the rubbish heap.

In these times, we feel all alone, as if God has completely abandoned us and nothing will remedy our situation. While it is a comfort to read Psalm 73 and know that we are not the only ones who have felt this way, it is a greater comfort to realize that the end of the righteous is not the end of the wicked.

For those of us who belong to God, we have the comfort of knowing that He is with in our struggles. If you are struggling today, may you find strength in the words of Psalm 73.

Truly God is good to Israel,to those who are pure in heart.

But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,my steps had nearly slipped.

For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek.

They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.

Therefore pride is their necklace;violence covers them as a garment.

Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies.

They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression.

They set their mouths against the heavens,and their tongue struts through the earth.

Therefore his people turn back to them, and find no fault in them.

And they say, “How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?”

Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches.

All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.

For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.

If I had said, “I will speak thus,”I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
But when I thought how to understand this,it seemed to me a wearisome task,until I went into the sanctuary of God;then I discerned their end.
Truly you set them in slippery places;you make them fall to ruin.

How they are destroyed in a moment,swept away utterly by terrors!

Like a dream when one awakes,O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.

When my soul was embittered,when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you.
Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel,and afterward you will receive me to glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you?And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.

But for me it is good to be near God;I have made the Lord God my refuge,that I may tell of all your works.