"The Lord said . . . the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah [or America, UK, Germany...] is great, and . . .
their sin is very grievous" (Genesis 18:20). We all love to hear about God's
mercy, grace and longsuffering. But we do not want to face the fact that
someday soon He will come against everything that is of Sodom.
God
revealed His nature to Moses this way: "The Lord passed by before him,
and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering,
and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving
iniquity and transgression and sin" (Exodus 34:6-7). Yet in the very next
phrase, God added: "[I] will by no means clear the guilty" (verse
7).
The Lord was saying, "I will not wink at sin! Yes, I am merciful
and longsuffering, but the time is coming when my patience with your sin will
end. And that is when Sodom [or America, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia...] will burn!"
Two angels came to Lot and
warned, "Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters which are here; lest
thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city"
(Genesis 19:15).
Apparently Lot did not take this warning seriously
because he slept in the next morning and the angels had to rouse him. His
sons-in-law must have thought, "If he really believed the warning, he'd be on
his way out of here right now. He doesn't believe it, so why should we?" This
should be a lesson to us all. We need to live as if Christ is about to return
so that others will listen to our witness.
I believe in what are
called "divine ultimatums"—times when the Holy Spirit knows your sin is about
to bring you to ruin. The Lord comes to you and says, "I am the God of grace,
and I want to deliver you out of this. Now, turn from your sin. Obey My
Word!"
These ultimatums are found throughout the Bible. For instance,
Acts tells us
Ananias and Sapphira were warned not to grieve the Holy Ghost
by lying to Him. But they disobeyed and lied—and instantly dropped dead (see
Acts 5).
It does not matter how much you pray or fast, or how faithful
you are in doing God's work; if you do not believe God will deal seriously
with your sin, you are deceived!
David Wilkerson
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How true, where are the men who will call sinners to repentance? Where are the men who will, like Noah, warn of impending judgment? Where are the men who will speak of the seriousness of sin and God's hatred of it?
ReplyDelete" The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty" Numbers 14:18
The remnant, what is left of the whole, must bow the knee and the heart, repent and recommit to following our LORD. The church is apostate, judgment has come due to the churches weak tolerant position and the remnant must pray through. Some will be saved - others......
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