God Is Trying To Get Your Attention

Resurrection Sunday April 11, 2020

God is trying to get your Attention, because He loves you

• On November 08, 2013, A Typhoon hit Haiyan in central Philippines, killing nearly 6,000 people and displacing more than 3.6 million Filipinos . We looked on as news reports frightened us, but America refused to even thank God and acknowledge that He was taking care of us.

• By the year 2014, Ebola was ripping through West Africa. A total of 11,310 people died. Americans watched from a distance in shock, but we continued with our lives as if nothing happened, not even thanking God for His protection and His mercy.

• On April 25, 2015, a 7.8 magnitude-earthquake struck Nepal, killing more than 8,800 people. We were horrified at the devastation but there was no national call to seek God in America to pray for our safety.

• By 2016 after almost nine years, bloody civil war in Syria had left more than 380,000 people dead. This shook us up but not enough to cause us to pray for mercy.

• Next came 2017 when over 250,000 people in East African nations such as Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia died of starvation. We were saddened greatly by this catastrophe, but we did not cry out to God or change our ways.

• In 2018 America experienced widespread disasters; Hurricanes Michael and Florence on the East coast, Flooding in Maryland, Mudslides, and Wildfires in California that took lives and destroyed billions of dollars of property. We saw these things and were disturbed but still the United States of America was not listening to the voice of God. Like Pharaoh in Egypt our hearts were even more hardened to God as we reveled in the putrid gutters of sinful idolatry, immorality and outright rebellion against God.

• Then in November 2019, there was an Outbreak of 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Wuhan, China, killing hundreds of people daily. We knew about it but never dreamed that in April 2020 we would be hoarding hand sanitizer, bleach, food and toilet paper, unable to attend church, school or work, wearing gloves and masks, locked up in our homes and seeing television reports that more than half of a million Americans are Coronavirus positive and over twenty-thousand have died already and many more may die. It is an evil that we may want to think had come upon us without warning, but that is not true, God has been speaking to us, God has been calling us, God has been trying to get our attention to tell us that He has a better way for us to live on this planet. We have been running away from Him for far too long. So, now we are forced to stop and to listen. Many people do not even reverence or respect God or His name. Some only use the name of God in swearing and joking and for text messages, like, OMG. For some people, they only went to church for a wedding, a funeral, Mothers’ Day, Christmas and Easter, and Easter used to be just a time to dress up and go to church to keep up the religious act. But there is no going to church this Easter, this is now between you and God. We are following the rules and staying at home because we want to live. You may be ready to live, but are you ready to die?

Is your heart right with God? Have you confessed your sins and made your peace with God? You may say, “I’m fine, I never killed anybody, I live a good life. I am not a sinner.”

Listen to me for a few minutes:

The Creation

The Bible tells us that God created the heavens and the earth and placed the first humans, Adam and Eve in the Garden in Eden. These two people enjoyed sweet daily fellowship with God and one another and all the plants and animals in a perfect environment. God gave them one restriction and that was not to eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If they ate that fruit God told them they would die.

The Fall

After some time, they were tempted by satan in the form of a serpent and their heart desired the fruit more than they desired God. The fruit became an idol to them, and they longed for it. Eventually they ate the fruit and fell into sin. Their lives changed immediately. They became subject to sickness, the environment became harsh with freezing cold, blistering heat, earthquakes, tornadoes and the animals turned violent and fierce. The bugs and insects became destructive and the ground grew thorns and thistles. Adam and Eve became mortal or doomed to die and worst of all their descendants were separated from God because of their sin.