no stopping this juggernaut? | suffering and opportunity | how do we prepare?

REVIVAL IN AMERICA?

NO STOPPING THIS JUGGERNAUT?

[Note: Director’s comment]: This is not political comment. It sets the stage for what I believe is coming upon the church, and that’s why it’s important. With spending spiraling out of control, and federal budget deficits now poised to destroy our economy, most Americans turn angry cries of “Stop this insane spending” towards their politicians whom they say have become disconnected from reality. Are they? Are they so different from us? Every time they try to save a dollar of spending, some group rises up and screams bloody murder, “Stop spending, but not on my piece of the pie!”

The fact is our politicians cannot stop spending because we cannot stop spending. 80 years of the good life have affected us, whether we want to think so or not. We’ve become used to our Medicare, Social Security, and something for nothing living. The fact is there are far more takers in society around the world than there are producers. Because the takers have the same vote as the producers, we will continue to vote into office those who take from the producers to give to the takers. We will therefore not be able to significantly cut our spending, because the entitled aren’t about to allow it.

Like the European Common Market we are heading for total financial collapse in America, and that would send shock waves around the world that would drag it into a meltdown as well. There is no stopping it. We are far beyond the point of no return, and rioting now seen around the world in any country trying to deal with entitlement spending makes it clear we are powerless to deal with it in any meaningful way.

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SUFFERING AND OPPORTUNITY

While I don’t relish for a moment the pain and suffering this meltdown will cause so many good people, I believe it will be absolutely necessary if there is to be any true revival of the fellowship of believers in America. Jesus said that a man cannot serve two masters: God and money. We have been serving the God of money for many years now here in Laodicea. As retailing has gone big box our churches have done likewise. Christian’s homes are just as large, our cars and toys just as new and expensive, our mortgages and debt just as stifling, and our credit card use just as rampant as society’s. I don’t believe we’re about to give up on this entitlement lifestyle unless and until God rips it from our unwilling clutched fingers, and that is precisely the way I see it happening through current events.

That’s the bad news. The good news is the potential for revival that will bring! The opportunities for the true church to arise out of the malaise we now see and shine will be incredible, and the possibilities of what that will mean for the Gospel will be phenomenal! There are so many looking at the system we have created here in America, knowing it looks little like the model they see in their Bibles, and wondering, “Isn’t there a better way?” Not while we serve the idol of mammon. But after it’s removed from us and replaced with true sacrifice and suffering, oh what a church I believe we will see God raise up from the ashes!

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HOW DO WE PREPARE?

While many are preparing their “bunkers” for the coming perils, what is of flesh is of flesh and will profit us little. What is important is that we prepare ourselves spiritually for what is coming. First and foremost, as has been the pattern of God’s desire throughout biblical history, is that His people bow in humility, repentance, and prayer. Those who are wise will humble themselves now, that when the humbling is forced upon us it will not catch them unawares. We can pray:

That the Lord restores a healthy fear of Himself in our lives, for as just one of the many promises made in the Psalms to those who fear God says, “To those who fear Him there is no want,” and it will be a time of great want coming upon us.

For our men, for they have fallen asleep, and for our women because our apathy has put them in positions God never intended.

For forgiveness for the things we have done in His name, the religious systems contrary to His teachings we are guilty of constructing, and the consequences of the love of money we have embraced along with the worldliness that has infiltrated our ranks because of it.

For mercy and His strength to endure in the face of what is coming, “for those who endure to the end shall be saved.”

We can take personal responsibility for following Jesus, rather than asking our congregations and their leaders to do it for us. Those who take John 15 to heart, and seek now to abide in Him and bear His fruit, will be able to lead all those who will be desperately seeking answers when the collapse comes. We can seek out the fellowship of others like us who long for a revival in America, and are willing to do whatever it may take regardless of personal cost to be faithful to it.

We can begin to preach and teach the real Jesus: the God of grace AND truth, the Savior AND Judge, the Lamb AND Lion, the One to be loved AND feared, the God who issues forgiveness AND command, and the One who always accompanied His call to follow with a warning to come prepared without strings attached. Many will look on in fear, and “many will fall away” when the Jesus of grace divorced from command and love divorced from reverence we now preach in order to fill the coffers of our temples is not the One who shows up to revive His church.

Finally, men must heed the words of our true and everlasting Savior, and “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, that all other things might be added unto us.” We must seek to follow Him above marriage, family, career, security, convenience, and all of the other lesser pursuits we have embraced here in the land of Laodicea. If we are spiritually prepared, then we will need not worry about what will happen to our flesh, nor that we will lack the provision of what we truly need. If we forsake this truth, it will matter not what bunkers we build to preserve our flesh.

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