Preparation For The Coming Birth

Preparation for the Coming Birth

By Rev. James May

Thanksgiving is passed. The leftover turkey and dressing still lingers somewhere in the back of the refrigerator. We’ve somehow managed to survive Black Friday. If you were like me, it wasn’t hard to survive because I refused to get out there and fight the crowds in the first place. There is nothing in the stores I want bad enough to get into the scenes that happened on the opening day of the Christmas shopping season and it appears that the most dangerous place to be on Black Friday is in the Walmart consumer electronics departments.

There was a video of a mob in action shown on the news that started over a prepaid cell phone at a Walmart in Georgia. This video of the screaming, pushing and fighting among people out of control gave very appearance of a feeding frenzy of sharks. Americans have gone mad over gadgetry. Most people will spend everything they have just to have the latest TV, cell phone or game console for their computers. It was a miracle that no one was hurt in the process.

Californian’s are among the worst. You don’t want to be caught in Walmart on Black Friday in California. In 2011, a woman pepper-sprayed a crowd at a Wal-mart in Los Angeles. She was trying to get a Wii for 60% off.

In 2010, crowds at a Sacramento Wal-Mart forced the store to evacuate every shopper in the store when they started pushing and shoving, tearing down displays and getting into fist fights over deals on consumer electronics at 5:30 am.

In 2009, at another California Wal-Mart, store clerks and managers needed police protection from unruly crowds in the early morning hours in the consumer electronics department. The store was closed a few hours, along with another store in nearby Upland, California, until the mobs could be brought under control by police.

The worst Black Friday for shoppers so far occurred in 2008, when a man was trampled to death. Despite being 6'5" and 270 pounds, a worker was smothered to death when crowds stampeded into another Walmart; this time in New York. The mob was trying to get to a sale in the electronics department. Over 2,000 people stormed, pushed and broke down the doors, trapping the worker in a vestibule where he was working, probably as a greeter. Eleven other people were also injured, including a pregnant woman who almost lost her baby.

Such is the mentality of a nation gone wild; a nation that is losing its fear of God and focused only on the things of this world.

Our world is caught in gross darkness; with people always on the edge of panic. Black Friday, with its fears of not getting the best deal, or being first in line at all costs, is but one small indicator of the true condition of the hearts of men. Around the world, just a small incident can quickly escalate into a full panic and riots in the streets. If all hope of man is bound to the things that this world alone can give; then the thought of missing out fosters panic that somehow we won’t survive another day.

Satan has blinded this world, and filled mankind with a heart of fear; but mankind has also fallen so far from God that he worships things made with his own hands more than his Creator.

But do not despair for the evil that is around us; or for the desperate actions of those living in fear. God is still God and He is on the scene; working in the hearts of men; seeking to save those who are lost and looking for answers.

Just as surely as the World if ripe for panic and fear of the things that are coming; the world is also ripe for revival. It’s ripe for the arrival of a great outpouring of the Holy Ghost and the ministry of a church that is on fire for God and a new birth of hope through the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I believe that God is setting the stage; preparing the hearts of men who will receive Him as Lord and Savior and that God is raising up a church right now that will step out into the darkness of this world and preach the gospel as never before.

I believe God desires to raise up some John the Baptists in these last days that will go forth and prepare the way for the birth of Christ in the hearts of men.

The church has sat back, by-in-large, and watched as the world plunged ever deeper into the darkness. But now it’s time to rise up; to let a new birth of the power of Almighty God come forth in the church; and for men and women of God to get a fresh anointing; a holy fire; and word from the Lord; and go out and become soul winners for the Kingdom of God.