Final Warning

It has been 14 months since my last post and there has been much change since that time. The reasons for my absence are many and varied and I will not delve into them. As I stated in my title this is my final warning unless God says otherwise because no one seems to be listening or paying attention anyway but I feel I must make a last appeal in hopes that a few will have eyes to see and ears to hear. We are on the verge of Jacob's Trouble as the Bible proclaims or otherwise known as the Great Tribulation that lasts for 7 years. I thought as we got closer to that period of time that people would become more aware of what is happening but it seems just the opposite is taking place. There seems to be a kind of blindness that has overtaken many so they are not aware that the wolf is at their very door. The Bible proclaims that this period of time will be the worst time of trouble the world has ever seen. If you had lived during the time of the Jewish Pograms or the Armenian Exodus or the Holocast then one would wonder how much worse it could get but the Bible is always right so you can expect worse. It speaks of a time when a person is fleeing from a lion and meets a bear face to face or if he makes it home and goes into his house for safety and leans his arm against the wall that a viper will bit him. That clearly reveals a time and condition where there's no place to hide. The only safe place is to be found in the Secret Place of the Most High God where He will cover you with His wings. Ps91:1 There's also a time coming when it will be too late to make that decision. The Scripture says "My Spirit will not always strive with man". I do not know how many times you can reject the urging of the Lord to make a decision for Him but there's clearly a limit. Some of you out there are holding back because of someone else. Perhaps your spouse is not willing. Should not matter for how do you know if your decision and the resultant change will not affect him or her. The Scripture speaks of this, asking the question "how do you know if your righteous manner of life may save that unbelieving spouse?" Now many out there who have not made a decision for Christ may think that it's all about going to Church but I can promise you that going to Church will not make you a Christian any more than standing in your garage will make you a car. Some have their eyes open to what is happening in this country but their trust is in what they have accumulated. They think that no matter what happens they will have whatever they need to see them through. The Scripture tells of a king that had amassed a fortune and one evening he was standing on his balcony observing it all and said to himself "look at all I have acquired I can now take my leasure and enjoy the remainder of my days in prosperity and making merry" At that very moment the Lord said "this night your life will be taken from you" and indeed he died that very night. There is no security in wealth when what the elite have planned for us comes to pass. The Bible even declares that silver and gold will not do us any good. The Bible states that God knows those whom are His and knows how to shield them from harm. My concern is that many people will wait too long before making a decision and will not have conducted enough business with God to have an ounce of faith. Life giving and life saving faith does not come overnight. A simple example, you may ask someone if they know of a good upholsterer and they will tell you go see John Martin. So on their recommendation you come to me to get a job done. Now this job is very important and takes special skills and I want a lot of money to do that job. You may be hesitant to hire me for the job because you really don't know me or the level of my skills, you only heard about me from someone else. However, If you are a repeat customer and I have done several jobs for you and you found my work to be the best then it could be said that you have faith in me to deliver what I promise. God is like that, until you stop listening to other people and come to Him for yourself you will never know if what others are saying is really true. The Bible says "he that would come to God must be believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him". At some point you have to get off that fence and surrender and you will discover what an amazing experience you have been missing. The important thing to consider here is that it takes time to develop a deep trusting relationship and the longer you put it off the greater the chances are that you will not make the decision at all or if you do that you will not have made it soon enough to allow you time to build the kind of trust that will take you through the difficult times and rest assured that the difficult times are right around the corner. It is said that God is a God of love and that is very true and if it is true then why would He permit things to get so difficult? The answer is very simple, He has a goal in mind and that is to have a people who are filled with His Spirit and are faithful to the end and He will use them throughout eternity in His kingdom. Very few have a lot of patience and the wait will reveal those that are really His. We become solidly grounded and rooted in Him as we dedicate ourselves to His word, His ways and to prayer. As I said before, Church going will not make you a Christian, it is all the days and hours in between. Church was God's plan to make you not feel that you are alone. Unfortunatly it seems to have become something else. Many people view Christianity from the standpoint of keeping a set of rules, otherwise known as the law. Unfortunatly that does not change us, we simply are externally keeping rules that may make us appear righteous but we remain unchange inside where it counts. Now if you are Born Again through the blood of Jesus and surrender yourself fully to Him then He puts His nature within you and your old nature takes a back seat. What happens then is a litteral change in your value system and your desires change and it becomes second nature to do those things which are pleasing to God. The diffence is that you will not become prideful because you will be utterly amazed at what has happened and know that it was not you but a supernatural work of the Spirit of God. There's a dramatic difference between one who is Born Again and one who has got religion. One is a work of the flesh and the other is a work of the Spirit. If the law has no value then why did God impose it upon the Jews for 1500 years before the appearance of Christ? He gave them the law and allowed them to stumble along for that long to show them that no one through the deeds of the flesh could ever please God. Then by sending Jesus mankind could enter into the rest of God and cease from his own labors and rejoice in the goodness of God that He wanted for us all along. To take it a bit further let me explain something about sin. Sin disrupts God's perfect order. Take some time and consider the way the universe works. Everything is perfect in it's order and timing. Change the timing of the sun or moon or the orbit of the planet and chaos takes place. In the perfect order that the body functions, if something gets out of order then sickness takes place. Sin did the same thing in God's kingdom and the result was death. Man was created in God's image and God is said in scripture to be 3 in one, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We as humans were also created 3 in one, body which is your pysical flesh, soul which is your mind, will and emotions, these we are very aware of, then the third part is our spirit. We are not aware of our spirit because in effect it is dead. When God said to Adam and Eve, "do not eat of this tree which is in the center of the garden for if you do you shall surely die". What He meant was that their spirit would die and it is our spirit that allows us to know God and have fellowship with Him. Adam and Eve were in the garden and were naked and thought nothing of it and had no shame but when they disobeyed the command of God, instantly they were aware of their nakedness and were ashamed and hid themselves and tried to cover themselves with fig leaves. God came looking for them knowing what they had done. Sin always have consequences and always requires the sheding of blood. You may ask why that is so if God is sovereighn and I cannot tell you, it is simply the way He designed the universe and any time something disrupts that perfection there is consequence. So that day God Himself killed an animal and made the skin of that animal as a covering for their bodies as well as a covering for their sin. Then for nearly 4000 years it continued in this manner that whenever someone sinned it required that an animal be slain and it had to be an animal that was perfect in every way or it could not be accepted. Then as the Scripture says "in the fullness of time God sent His only Son to earth to die as the perfect sacrifice that no longer would it be necessary to kill an animal everytime someone sinned. You see it was a one for one exchange. Adam sinned and because of that sin the curse came on every human born from then on. But when Christ died He was perfect and because of His perfection and spilled blood, deliverance from the curse of sin came upon the whole world. The only thing is that though it is there for everyone there is a requirement and that be that each person must decide for himself if he wants it or not and since Christ in His humilty laid down His own will and chose the Fathers will we are required to do the same. It is not enough to say I believe, there must be a decision to lay down your self life and take up His purposes instead. It is an amazing trade off because He is an amazing God but you will never know unless you get off the fence and decide to follow Him. So when you make that decision that includes a complete surrender you spirit is revived and comes to life and that is why you are said to be Born Again for indeed that part of you that has ability to have fellowship with God has come to life. Your comments are welcome, john Martin justjohn@eoni.com