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"...The church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth."
I Timothy 3:15
Standing on the Threshold
Art Sandlier
From Sound the Trumpet!, December 2013
I am not a prophet, I have no new word from the Lord, however as I look at the world and read my Bible I am convinced that we are standing on the threshold of the “Day of the Lord.”
As I look at the way the world is plunging into wickedness and a crescendo of rebellion against God. As I see the nations raging as the troubled sea. As I see the intensity of the rage against Israel and the determination to destroy her. As I see the increasing hatred for and increasing martyrdom of the followers of Christ. As I see the rising intensity of violence that is filling the earth. As I see the rising intensity of earthquakes, storms and natural disasters. I am convinced in my soul that we have come down to the very end of the age of grace.
The description of the world prior to the flood has unsettling similarity to our world today.
As I see what is going on in America, Europe, Russia, Iran, China and the Mideast I am certain that we are on the verge of the tribulation period. The hour is very late for this wicked world.
We have a parallel between Jeremiah's day as Israel faced the Old Testament “Day of the Lord” and our own day.
Jeremiah faced the nation of Israel on the brink of disaster. For nearly four hundred years the Lord had been sending prophets to warn Israel to repent. About ninety years before Jeremiah the Lord sent Isaiah who said, “Judgment is coming.” Jeremiah said it is here. Jeremiah said the Babylonians are going to come and slaughter you.
Jeremiah stood on the edge of the holocaust. Jeremiah was the prophet of the end of the glory days of Israel. Isaiah prophesied at 11:00 PM, Jeremiah prophesied at midnight. To those who read this article let me warn you it is midnight for our world.
Joel spoke of our day in Joel 1:15, “Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.” Again he said in 2:1, “Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand.”
For 42 years Jeremiah warned of coming judgment, for 42 years Judah refused to repent. Finally the Lord said to Jeremiah, Judah has crossed the line! Their fate is sealed, judgment is now inevitable. “But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone.” (Jeremiah 5:23) The Lord repeated His warning in chapter 7:16, “Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee.” (Jeremiah 7:16) And in Jeremiah 8:20, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”
It is with a heavy heart that I say “I am absolutely convinced that our world has crossed the line and now the judgment of God is both inevitable and imminent". I believe that it is now reaping time for our world.
Remember what the people of our world have sown:
- One billion abortions. When Cain slew Abel the Lord was angry with Cain and said to him, “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.” Our generation has slain a billion babies in their mother's wombs and our generation will pay for that crime.
- Every child in the education system of the western world has been told, thousands of times, the evolutionary myth that there is no God, things just happened by chance. Our generation will reap for sowing such blasphemy.
- Gods' children are being martyred in increasing numbers all around the world and violence is filling the earth as in the days prior to the flood. It is harvest time.
- Sensuality, immorality and homosexuality have been accepted and promoted and are flooding over the world. The world has become a moral cesspool.
- Those that question these violations of God's Word are attacked and persecuted.
IT IS HARVEST TIME!
Now it is true that these things have always been in the world. However we are seeing a last days crescendo of evil spoken of by our Lord in Matthew 24:37, “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”
The world will enter into this time of judgment after the church is raptured, at which time the tribulation period will begin.
There is also a warning to pseudo evangelicals, the last days’ church, the church of the Laodiceans. The warning indicates that the Laodicean church is largely unregenerate and will be spewed out of the Lord's mouth and into the coming time of judgment at the time of the rapture. The admonition of Paul to all professing believers is crucial in this hour. Paul said, in II Corinthians 13:5 “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates” (not approved as genuine).
I believe that if we look carefully at America today we should have an uneasy feeling that the judgment on America may precede the rapture of the church. We have said, along with others, that America is not involved in the end time events; she is nowhere to be found.
By contrast America today is dominating the world scene and is actually preventing the end time scenario from unfolding. It would seem to me that America has to be neutralized or removed from the scene altogether before the Biblical end time scenario can unfold.
Today there are dark clouds of disaster forming over America in the form of many potentially disastrous scenarios. America has totally betrayed Israel in recent years and has placed herself in danger of the imminent judgment of God.
What did Jeremiah do as he saw certain doom approaching his beloved country? We read about it in Jeremiah 9:1, “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!”
If we care we will weep and pray and witness. The ship is going down but we can, with the Lord's help, rescue some of the passengers.
NOAH'S DAY
I can envision Noah in his day as he warned the world of the coming judgment. I can see the crowd gathered around him as he first sounds the warning. They are interested and curious, tell us more, how do you know judgment is coming? But as time rolls by the interest fades away and indifference takes over; no one responds to the message, but still Noah warns.
I suspect the indifference turned to hostility as the years passed. Noah, you're a silly old fool, you sound like a broken record, and there is no such thing as rain. I can see Noah as he saw the clouds form on the horizon and as he came nearer to the fateful day. I think he stood a little higher on the hill and his voice was raised to a shout as the tears began to flow from his eyes.
My dear friend if you are reading this and you are not saved, don't be like the men and women of Noah's day. The dark clouds are forming on the horizon, come to the Saviour now. Don't miss heaven, it's a wonderful place and hell is forever. I plead with you as Noah did in his day.
“For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.” (1 Peter 3:18)