Following Judah's Lion: Behold the End Approaches

Following Judah's Lion: Behold the End Approaches

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Behold the End Approaches

BEHOLD THE END APPROACHES

There is no fear of God.

I Pet.4: 7 But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.
Does that not concern anyone anymore? Has our play church become so inoculated as to be numb to the many warnings? Do we even believe it anymore? Do we even believe anything anymore? Watch as church goers go and come and go and come, smiling and nodding with seemingly nary a care. But as the signs accumulate around the world the church continues to listen to the music of their own self centered lives.
Tears? Night watches? Fastings? Who are we kidding? Those were practices of a religion believed in the past, but we have traveled far since then. The culture has imprisoned our minds and spirits, and while hoof beats are approaching we still play games. Through lifeless doctrines and exuberant activities and week long mission excursions we have carefully crafted an ecclesiastical structure which asks for little and satisfies our spiritual obligations. But over the hill of eternity legions of angelic hosts await the divine word to go forth.
You think it is a little melodramatic and some created imagery? But, my friends, what will come to pass outdistances any metaphor or imagery. The coming return of Christ is beyond any cataclysmic event known to fallen man. The brightness of one supernova expends more energy for a few seconds than our Sun will expend in its lifetime. That is child’s play when compared to the brightness of His coming. I have no firsthand knowledge, but I am convinced that many alive today will be a witness to His coming.
Every moment announces His coming. But where are the clarion calls within the church for repentance and, oh yes, prayer? Yes, we do not operate in fear but we should, we must, have a healthy and holy fear of Him who holds the keys to death and hell. This is no Lord of the Rings. This must be presented as a coming reality and that only by the grace of God has it not happened yet. But underneath the powerful shadow of the coming God lives a wretched and pitiful collection of sinners who claim to know and represent this creator God.
Soundly the church sleeps. The alarm is loudly sounding but the church continues to push and repush the snooze button. Serenaded by the noise of its own activity and buoyed by the chords of its own carnal dreams, the western church walks its redundant road to nowhere. Day after day after pitiful day the church sinks deeper and deeper in the quicksand of culture and humanism draped in a thin veneer of religion. Hiding behind written doctrines believers live fully in the path laid out by fallen systems, and yet they walk in utter blindness without a hint of concern. And all this is taking place against the backdrop of His eminent return. As He said, will He even find faith on earth when He returns?
Spiritual ambivalence reigns. There is more excitement over an election than there is over His coming. There is more concern over a country than there is over lost souls. There is more energy expended on the temporal than the eternal. There is more prayer at a restaurant table than in any prayer closet, and more dedication to athletics than to immersion in His Word. More tears over the national anthem than over the plight of the lost.
But all this does not hinder what is coming and what must be. The event of His coming is so powerful and glorious that we who have nothing to fear should still be shaken indeed. Not because of what He will do to us, but because of the prospect that we could have been the recipients of His wrath were it not for the ministry of the Spirit through imperfect men and women and the ministry of the Spirit through His prefect Word.
I realize it is most difficult to extricate our minds from the temporal and envision events entering from the eternal. But that is precisely what God’s Spirit does in and through us. We must break the chains of the seen and the now and soar to new and vivid heights of faith and understanding. We walk physically within temporal corridors but spiritually we walk in the heavenlies. The end is upon us. I have been a believer for lo these 37 years and I can remember charts and timelines and even bumper stickers that made much of His second coming. I do not sense the same expectation in today’s community of faith. Today God is used for our profit. Today God leans toward America.
And so without a massive awakening all is lost collectively. The western church has played the harlot and even now beds down with the world and its systems. She gladly receives the gratification from the voices of fallen spirits speaking through the sirens of lying lips. And even in a state of spiritual adultery she still claims to love and follow Christ. And far from begging God for forgiveness and asking Him to repair the relationship, the church continues its fornication and assumes God must accept such treason. We may not have to wait long before the Righteous Judge will come and make known the secrets of men.

And when the Master returns and calls His servants before Him, what will you tell Him when He asks for your own accounting? Do you think you can unfurl your doctrinal statement and receive His approval? When you tell Him you rejected the ministries of Joel Osteen and Rob Bell, do you believe that will engender heaven’s applause? Will He understand you were much too busy to pray? Will He be impressed by your exegetical expertise? After all, you believed in the cardinal doctrines of the faith and you were almost accurate prophetically. Please, do not minimize the depth and length of His accounting of those who call Him Lord. If that does not concern you greatly then you do not understand any aspect of it at all.

Many years ago in a small country community in the midwest, I forget the name, there was born a set of twin boys to a certain couple. The mother had red hair and the two boys had flaming red hair as well. The entire town rejoiced and fell in love with these two infants. They grew to be two years old and continued to draw the attention and affection of the community. The entire community embraced them as their own. One day, while they were taking a nap, the mother quickly walked the eighth of a mile to the neighboring house. She could keep her house in her sight and she would only stay a few minutes at her friend’s house.
As she and her friend spoke they stood and looked out at her house. But suddenly they saw what appeared to be a swirl of smoke coming from that house. The mother shrieked and ran to her home while her friend called the fire department. By the time the mother reached her home the fire had spread greatly within the house. She tried desperately to enter but the fire burned her and she was repelled. As the firemen arrived they had to restrain her physically for she had become almost insane. Those two year old boys perished in the fire. Well the entire community felt a profound sense of collective loss, and the mother was never the same. The loss was so devastating that the community would speak of it often and experience an inward grief only they could know.
So often we convince ourselves that just arriving in heaven will suffice and that we will feel a saturated sense of ecstasy. And just because we might “suffer loss” as the Scriptures warn it will not be that bad. We do not fully understand the implications of the Judgment Seat of Christ for the believers, but this I do know. The loss felt and experienced by that mother and that community cannot be compared with what we may feel when we understand how deeply we have disappointed Him and how much loss we will suffer and just how many rewards we might have laid at His feet.I urge you all to rend your hearts and allow the Spirit to break up any fallow ground and plant new and fresh seeds of faith into your hearts. Meditate upon Him. Remind yourself that He comes. Look to the skies and anticipate His coming.
Is.40: 3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:
5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
Rev.1: 7 Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.
The war has been won and the battle will soon end. God is calling all men everywhere to repent and believe. That includes the church.