There is a hope that will never disappoint— the hope in the Lord. He will never leave us and He will never fail us. Christianity has been given the greatest hope the world has ever heard— Jesus is going to return to rule over the earth. He will establish His throne upon righteousness and justice. Not only will everyone be treated fairly, but He is going to restore the original paradise that the earth was intended to be. The lion will lay down with the lamb; children will be able to play with cobras; and there will be no more mourning, dying, crying, or pain in all the earth.
There is no utopian hope or hope given in any other religion that comes even close to matching what we have been given. It is true, and will surely come to pass, just as surely as the Word of the Lord is true and always comes to pass. As Psalm 96:10-13 states:
Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns; indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved; He will judge the peoples with equity.”
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all it contains;
let the field exult, and all that is in it. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy
before the Lord, for He is coming; for He is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in His faithfulness.
Not many people are rejoicing like this at the prospect of the Lord coming back to judge the earth, but that is because of their misunderstanding of His judgments. We tend to think of them as condemnation, but they are correction because He loves us. His judgments are to be desired so much that the whole earth, right down to the trees and plants, is going to rejoice when He comes to judge the earth.
This great rejoicing is not just because He is going to get rid of the wicked, but His judgments are coming to save the wicked too. This is not to imply that all of the wicked will be saved, but His judgments will at least give them a chance.
One might look at the troubles in the world and say that we are already in the greatest time of trouble the world has ever known. This is understandable, but we are not quite there yet. There are even more serious troubles coming. However, these are not because He has rejected us, but because He loves us. He is not actually doing these things to us, but we are doing them to ourselves, and He is allowing these troubles until we get the most important message of all—we cannot exist long in the creation without obeying the Creator. All of the troubles coming upon the world are basically the result of mankind trying to run this world without God. The troubles are simply mankind reaping what he has sown. Even so, as we are told in I Corinthians 11:31-32:
For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.
But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world (NKJV).
If we judge ourselves, He will not have to do it. That is the easy way. We can fall on the rock and be broken, or it will fall on us and grind us into powder! So let’s humble ourselves and repent so that He will not have to discipline us.
Hurricane Katrina was discipline from the Lord, intended to help wake up America and get us to turn to Him. So are the earthquakes, fires, drought, floods, and all of the other natural disasters. God is not doing them to us, but they are the result of the earth being out of whack because her king is man, which God gave to the earth to rule over it, righteously.
More troubles are coming, not only to America but to the world, unless we repent. Possibly the most devastating disaster in the history of America could be creeping up on us through some of the most beautiful weather conditions imaginable. The South has enjoyed its most beautiful autumn weather in memory—which is the problem! The glorious sunny days, with near perfect temperatures, are veiling what is potentially the worst disaster to ever hit our nation—a whole region of the country is fast running out of water. Without rain, major cities and a multitude of small towns will soon have to be abandoned, displacing millions of people. It seems that the warning of I Thessalonians 5:3 is especially appropriate for this:
While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them
suddenly like birth pangs upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. Can this be avoided? Yes, as we are told in II Chronicles 7:13-14:
If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people,
and 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, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
The Word of God is very clear that droughts are a curse. Everywhere in Scripture, except for the flood, rain is a blessing from the Lord. If God’s people, not the heathen, will turn from their wicked ways, then the Lord will hear from heaven and heal our land.
Right now the church in America is like Jonah. We have a clear call and commission from the Lord, but we do not want to do it and are determined to go our own way. The storm is not coming upon the ship because of the heathen, they are only doing what they know to do; the storm is coming to wake up the prophet. The heathen actually had to wake up Jonah and tell him to call on his God, and we will soon see the heathen in America begin to beseech the church to start calling on God because of the storms.
Just as in the end of Jonah’s story when some of the worst heathen in his time turned to the Lord and repented, when the church wakes up and preaches what we have been given to preach, the same is going to happen.
The drought in the South is similar to other potentially devastating problems that are all creeping up on us in conditions that seem as remote as they could be from a disaster. The weather is perfect; the sun is out, but the land is dying of thirst! The other conditions are creeping up likewise, unobserved except by a few. There seems to be a veritable “perfect storm,” where a number of conditions all come together at the same time to produce the most devastating storm of all—each one multiplying the effects of the others.
If you are tempted to lay this aside now, thinking that you just do not want to read this type of thing, I understand, but I encourage you to read on because it could save your life. No one likes to prophesy troubles, but for those who can see and prepare for them, they are the ones who will escape the consequences of them. You may call them “negative prophecies,” but by not seeing them, we could be the ones who are crying “peace and safety” just before the destruction comes. The Scriptures themselves make it clear that these things will be coming upon the world, and if you cannot see them, then you are living in a large degree of delusion. Many Christians are in this delusion, and when living in such darkness, even a little bit of light can be blinding. I implore you to please read on, even if it is hard for you.
Seeing the Signs of the Times
The Lord chided the Pharisees and Sadducees for knowing how to discern the weather but not knowing the signs of the times (see Matthew 16:3). Who could have seen such a creeping disaster as this drought in the South when the weather was so beautiful and peaceful? It is very difficult in these conditions to even think of hardship, much less such a widespread disaster as this drought could become. At this writing, some towns have their water turned on for just three hours a day. Note that I said water is turned on three hours a day, not off. This is the last resort to no water being available from public sources, and probable evacuation of everyone who does not have their own source of water, such as a well. However, in many cases, those who do have wells have already had to evacuate because their wells have run dry.
The interesting way that this drought crept up on the South was because of the recent devastating hurricanes, and the predictions of increasingly violent ones to come because of global warming. Naturally Christians, especially along the coast, prayed for protection from any more of those super storms, and the Lord seems to have answered those prayers. However, even though storms can be devastating, hurricanes and tropical storms are a main source for replenishing the water tables and reservoirs in the South. Because the storms did not come, we may have been rejoicing, but few understood that this posed a potentially worse disaster—the lack of fresh water for much of the South.
Things are becoming very difficult in the South in regard to fresh water. This is for our preparation, and we do need to prepare for it. Consider Revelation 8:10-11 concerning water:
And the third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of waters;
and the name of the star is called Wormwood; and a third of the waters became wormwood; and many men died from the waters, because they were made bitter.
I personally believe this comes in the form of terrorist attacks on our water supplies. Since this is a biblical prophecy, is there any way that we can be protected from this? Yes. Whole regions, and maybe even whole nations, can be protected. Even though we may have a high regard for our FBI, CIA, and other intelligence agencies, they will not be able to stop these attacks alone. Turning to the Lord can break the drought, and it can stop many other potential disasters. He will be gracious and help those who seek Him and obey Him.
W hat Is Wormwood?
The attack on the water supplies in Revelation 8 is called “Wormwood” for a reason. In Amos 6:12 it says, “you have turned justice into poison, and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood.” The greatest injustice of all was the cross. The One who was perfect in all of His ways, who did nothing but good, was tortured and crucified by the very ones He had made. This was the ultimate rejection of God by mankind. The ultimate injustice is for those who are made to reject their Maker. Turning from God in any manner is the ultimate injustice and will ultimately become wormwood for those who do it. The
“great time of trouble” that we are told the end of this age will be is simply the result of mankind rejecting the Creator.
Likewise, righteousness, or the right way, is to turn to God. It is seeking to do His will instead of our own. Most of the injustices that men seek to address are injustices between men, but we will never have true justice if it is not built upon the ultimate justice of men giving to God what is due Him.
Because God is love, and He truly loves all men and desires for them to be saved, it does hurt Him when even one turns from Him. It grieves Him deeply when a whole nation turns from Him, especially one that has been so devoted to Him, like the United States. Even so, He is not smiting us out of His hurt and rejection, but to turn us back so that we will not have to reap the fruit of our own sin. The fruit of our rebellion against God is to have the creation rebel against us, as is indicated in Romans 8:19-21:
For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.
For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope
that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
As we are told in Amos, the fruit of righteousness can be turned into wormwood by injustice, and if we are going to be free of the plague of wormwood we must be devoted to justice, first toward God, then toward one another. It is justice that when we rebel against God, the creation that He placed us over will rebel against us.
So is the drought in the South the result of the South turning from God? Yes, but it is also evidence that He loves the South enough to discipline us. A drought in the Southwest is natural since it is mostly desert, but a drought in the Southeast is unnatural. The drought is a wake-up call.
Don’t Worry, Be Happy!
In spite of all of the hope we have from the Word of God, many come close to having a nervous breakdown if they hear about anything bad coming. We must grow up. If we respond rightly, we can change our destiny. All we have to do is turn from our wicked ways and turn to the Lord. Then He will send rain and heal our land.
In biblical symbolism, rain often speaks of teaching. This is why Moses said in Deuteronomy 32:2, “Let my teaching drop as the rain.” The land is lacking physical rain because it is also lacking spiritual rain, the teachings of the Lord. The teachings of the church right now are so weak that studies have shown that 75 percent of our children will turn from the faith within one year of leaving home. Studies have indicated that among Southern Baptists, considered to be one of the strongest evangelical denominations, this number may be as high as 94 percent. Even the most optimistic have to admit that something is very wrong.
Do our children hear one thing at church, and then see something else at home? How can our children believe us if the rate of divorce among evangelical Christians is higher than it is among the heathen? How can they believe when there is no longer a distinguishable difference in the basic integrity and honesty between Christians and the heathen?
The Lord will help us. He is letting certain conditions become serious to get our attention. Let us always keep in mind the exhortation of Hebrews 12:5-7: “‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives.’ It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?”The discipline that our nation and many others have been going through is not because the Lord has rejected us, but because He loves us. Those who follow Him will be ready for what is coming, so that they will be able to stand when others are falling.
Get Ready!
Remember Y2K? Most want to forget about it and for good reason—many Christians and many of my prophetic friends predicted something close to the end of the world and nothing happened. For a while I was the only one who stated that Y2K was not going to be the disaster that everyone was predicting. It has always been interesting to me that I was persecuted more for being right about this than I think I ever have for being wrong about something. I was also right about the rest that I said then—that even though the preparations for Y2K would not be needed for Y2K, but for other things that were coming, learn the lessons, and hang on to that stuff you set aside.
Remember the bird flu? Many think that it has just gone away, but the opposite is true. It is moving relentlessly toward the worldwide pandemic that has been predicted. Governments have been wary of saying too much too soon because of the malaise that tends to come if you get ready for something and then it does not happen for awhile. They are trying to time their warnings right, which is the right thing to do. However, when the warning goes out there may not be enough time for all to get ready.
It is also true that Christians do have the spiritual authority to stop this plague for every place that they have taken their spiritual authority. However, we only have true spiritual authority to the degree that we are obeying the King and abiding in Him, and not many Christians have been doing too good at that. Secular scientists have said that the coming Avian flu pandemic looks like the biblical plague in the Book of Revelation where a third of mankind dies. If it is that plague in the Bible, we will not be able to stop it, but we do not have to die or have our children die in it. If God’s people will turn from their wicked ways and turn to the Lord, we can stop this plague from coming near our houses, and possibly even protect our heathen neighbors as well, which will be to their spiritual as well as their physical salvation.
Hurry Up and Wait!
There are practical things we can do to prepare for the times, but first let’s look at why we are going through so many seemingly contradictory conditions.
When going through boot camp or infantry training, we were constantly given orders and then seemingly contradictory ones right after them. This was to teach us to obey without question, because our lives and the lives of our units often depended on instant obedience. The more serious the conditions, the less time those in charge would have to explain orders. We have been going through similar training also, and it is intended to save lives.
After the South was clobbered by the mega storms, we prepared for storms and a drought came. Not many of the items we had set aside for storms are very useful in a drought, but some of them are. It would also be a mistake to forget anything we learned from our hurricane relief work or the drought.
Likewise, on the West coast we need to learn every lesson we can from the fires and the mudslides. Mudslides may seem like the opposite problem of fires, but they are actually the result of fires. Fires strip the land of vegetation that holds the ground in place when the rains come. If that vegetation is gone, there will be a serious threat of mudslides after a fire. These are not unassociated problems.
The Greatest Harvest?
One of the greatest mission fields of the future is going to be disaster relief. The church was magnificent the way it responded to the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and everyone, including the federal government and the secular media, took note of how much better the church can respond and get things done in such a situation. We can do better than the government. We are here on this earth to be a light in darkness. After loving God, loving our neighbors is our main job description, and few things will be a greater demonstration of this than those who respond to help their neighbors in their worst times.
We claim to be filled with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is the Helper. The ministry of helps is not just cutting the grass or washing the dishes after church suppers, but it is responding to those who are drowning and crying “HELP!” That ministry is a fundamental ministry that every Christian is called to, which is one reason why we were given the Helper to be in us.
Recently, we hosted a disaster response training course that included certification courses for CERT (Community Emergency Response Teams) and CISM (Crisis Intervention and Stress Management). Part of the training was how to set up a shelter during a disaster. This included gathering all of the necessary resources such as food, medical supplies, waste control, and bedding. Then all of the people in this class were separated into several teams, each of which was to plan the setting up of a shelter. This was good team building instruction, and everyone was having a pretty good time. Then one situation after another was thrown at these groups, which they had to determine how to deal with, and it became much more serious.
Some of the problems that these teams were required to find were quick answers for such things as having a man show up with a large knife, a person selling drugs, a sexual predator coming to the shelter, the power going off, toilets overflowing, families showing up that spoke a language no one knew, a blind person who had lost their seeing eye dog, a deaf person, and then they got more serious! What if the bird flu breaks out in the shelter? What would we do?
The point was to have everyone engaged, responsive, resourceful, and proactive in confronting each problem. Without such people in control of these shelters, they can quickly become disaster areas, just like it seemed to happen at the Superdome during Hurricane Katrina.
There are many Christians who feel that because they have the Holy Spirit, He will give them everything they need to deal with any disaster. Faith in the Holy Spirit is both noble and crucial. However, many who have this attitude do not follow the Holy Spirit very well in their daily lives, and are unlikely to be able to do so in the chaos and clamor of a disaster. There is a Scripture for this—Psalm 32:6:
Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to You in a time when You may be found; surely in a flood of great waters they will not reach him (Psalm 32:6).
The point is: Do not wait until the storm hits to try and build your house on the Rock. It will be too late. That is why the Holy Spirit led us to do this very practical CERT and CISM training. The IFOC (International Fellowship of Chaplains) also does some very good training, which is intended to get Christians engaged in our communities and prepared to deal with almost anything our communities will face.
I have been through the IFOC training and attended as many CERT and CISM sessions as I could, and feel every time that it is crucial not only for every pastor to have this training, but for every Christian as well.
Even so, the best-trained people are still going to need to hear and follow the Holy Spirit, and we are going to need miracles. Training and following the Holy Spirit are not mutually exclusive—they are essential. The trained will likely be the ones calm enough to hear the Holy Spirit. One of the biggest mistakes I think we (MorningStar) made during our Katrina relief operations was getting so caught up in the physical needs that many of the spiritual needs were neglected. We had many meet the Lord, many healed, and many helped spiritually, but not like they should have been. We are resolved to not let that happen again, and we are therefore very understanding of those who think too much preparation is being made for the natural man. However, having been in such a crisis a few times, I do not think we can get too prepared in the natural—we just need to esteem spiritual preparation and ministry much more than we have.
Much of the training for crisis intervention is how to bring order into a situation, but more of it is how to deal with situations where there is no order, which is where the Holy Spirit seems to be at His best. When He moved upon the earth in the beginning, it was in chaos, and look at the glorious creation He brought forth! It is going to be in the chaos of some of the things coming down that we are going to see the Holy Spirit do some of His most glorious work. It is not that we have to go through these—we get to!
Even with all of the devotion we are giving to this, we are well aware that there is a limit to what our training can do. Even so, we also have learned the hard way that the ones who come to help who have limited training may have the best of intentions, but they often just add to the burden of those who were trained and prepared. We need to get all of the training possible for our calling and trust the Lord. These are not mutually exclusive, but mutually inclusive.
So What Do We Do?
Every Christian should have between three and six months of food, water, and medicine on hand, all of the time. It should be rotated to be kept fresh and usable, but when the Avian flu pandemic hits, we can expect almost all transportation to be shut down very quickly. Most grocery stores only carry a three-day supply of food for their regular customers. This can be gone in hours with a run on the store. Get ready now. Stay ready. This could hit at any time and without much notice. It is not a matter of if it will come, but when.
Hopefully most Christians will have turned from their wicked ways and turned to the Lord, so that we will be able to stand and protect our families and our neighbors. If Moses could tell Aaron to run into the midst of the camp to stop the plague with a censer of incense, how much more should prayer and intercession, of which that incense was a type, be able to stop a plague. This is why we have “a better covenant;” we do not just have the types and shadows, but the reality of what they were types and shadows of.
Now, for all of the natural preparation you make, storing food, water, medicines, or other supplies, think about the corresponding spiritual supplies you should store. First, we should be storing as much as we can of His Word in our hearts, but in this pandemic people will be told to stay home. Curfews will be enforced, probably with deadly force. Since there probably will not be television, and there may not be electricity in a lot of places to listen to our music, we will have a lot of time to read. After three months or more of isolation with our families and the Lord, we should have a vision of coming out of this as the strongest Christians on the planet, with the strongest families!
A three-month supply of resources will probably be more than adequate; however, it is likely our whole infrastructure will take some time to get back in gear. Therefore, I recommend having a six-month supply so that you can share with others who did not prepare. I also intend to have Bibles and other good Christian books to share with my neighbors.
I realize that in your nice, comfortable, warm homes where you are probably sitting while reading this Bulletin, it sounds far-fetched that something like this could happen. However, it has happened before and it will happen again. It may not come this year. I have been praying for years for more time for the church to prepare, but there will be a time, and in the not too distant future, when it does come. Just think, if you prepare and it does not come, what have you lost? A little bit of time maybe. If it comes and you have not prepared, you could possibly lose your life and the lives of your loved ones.
I was right about Y2K, and I am right about this one. The natural disasters that seem to be hitting us week after week now are grace from the Lord to wake us up and get ready. The most important preparation of all is to turn to Him and away from our wicked ways. If we do this it will be much, much easier for us.
But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief;
for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness;
so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober.
For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night.
But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.
For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (I Thessalonians 5:4-9).