CHANGE IS COMING!!
• Something has changed in the heavenly realms! In the middle of August, I was seeking God for what His emphasis was for this upcoming year. As I sought God I was filled with sadness. I felt like Jeremiah in the book of Lamentations as I looked at our community. I saw the drugs that are killing our people and the gangs that control them fighting for control over our community, I saw abortion killing the next generation and aids and Hepatitis C killing the people and I was inspired to preach a sermon on the coming of God’s judgment unless people repented in August.
• Society in general has drifted farther and farther away from God and pursued their own thing. We had shed any attempt of government, society and even the Word of God to place restraints on our desire to seek pleasure, power or wealth. The question I was asking was have we wandered too far? Yet I had no idea at that time just how soon God’s judgment was about to be released.
• Within a week of preaching this sermon, Katrina had destroyed New Orleans and areas around it and within two weeks Rita again hit it again. In recent history we have seen the London Subway bombings and the 911 attack on New York. As these events unfolded I kept asking God what they meant? But at the same time I was hearing God say enough! Turn to 2 Timothy 3:1-9.
• But God never does anything without first revealing it through His prophets. God has an early warning system. Turn to Amos 3:6-7. God has been warning us through His prophets. John Bevere has been warning the church about God’s desire for holiness. We have heard the same message from many prophets and I even heard it in Nunavut. But what about the Prophets who have been preaching prosperity and God blessing. God’s Word says that in the many false prophets will abound. Turn to Matthew 24:9-14. Today the church needs discernment to sort out all the messages being given. We certainly don’t need more information and confusion what we need is to take the time to hear from God directly.
• New York and London represent the world financial markets that symbolize wealth and power. I believe that God released judgment on them because of society’s preoccupation with and worship of money that has become an idol for Europe and North America. Don’t tell me that some Arabs were mad at the US and Brittan and just decided to attack two cities. Nothing happens in this world unless God allows it. In fact the bible is full of accounts of God using evil nations or people to punish His people who have wandered too far in their sin.
• New Orleans, I believe is just the first of two natural disasters that God has aimed at the moral decay of our society. New Orleans had become a symbol for all that was decadent. Recently it had become a major spokesman for Gay rights. Mardi Gras had descended into a celebration of evil that was as bad as or worse than Sodom and Gomorrah. The bible is full of accounts of how God has and will use natural disasters to destroy this kind of evil. And God’s not done yet. The latest prophecy is that Los Angeles is God’s next target.
• So why does God us calamities to accomplish His goals. First God does not view death the same way we do. God sees death as the beginning of new life. Jesus said unless a seed fall to the ground and dies more fruit will not be produced. God destroys what is evil so that He can recreate something that honors Him. God is looking to recreate our society that is abased on His guiding principles that are founded on His Word. God wants His people to worship, honor and obey Him.
• Do not think for a moment that God is only mad at these cities. No in fact God is not mad at the unsaved sinners. They have been around throughout history. So who is God mad at? His church! We are the salt and we have lost our saltiness and in God’s eyes we are worthless. Salt loses its saltiness when other contaminating minerals that our found in and around the salt eventually leach the salt out. God’s church has been corrupted by the society in which they live. We see the moving of the Lord around us and yet we continue to have church as usual. Then we wonder why we can’t hear God.
• So where will God’s judgment stop? At the place where God has a church that is prepared and yielded to Him so that He can use it to take the city for Him. Does that mean that God’s judgment will come on Sucker Creek and High Prairie? I believe the answer to that is up to us.
• We have prayed that God’s will would be done on earth as in heaven, as Jesus taught us. We have prayed for God to take our cities. These are good and valid prayers but because we couldn’t hear God, we were not prepared for His action. When God’s will is done and God takes a city, He uses destruction and death so that good fruit will come forth. God did it in Noah’s time, He threatened to do it in Moses time but Moses interceded. The church today is not prepared for what God is about to do so we can’t intercede properly or be used by Him to rebuild the communities.
• Turn to Jeremiah 6:10-15. Change is coming! And the change has to start with God’s church. God wants His church to take the cities so He doesn’t have to. God wants His church to be the ones who rebuild the cities He destroys. But we have lost our saltiness and God in His mercy wants to give it back to us. The question is: are we prepared to change? Are we prepared to make the necessary adjustments and pay the price to get into a position so that God can use us to take or rebuild our community? Transformation or transition or revival all mean change.
• What changes do we have to make. I cannot comment on what changes each of you as individuals need to make as that is between you and God. If you earnestly seek Him, He will give you specific actions He wants you to take even if He doesn’t reveal His end plan. What God wants is your obedience to what He asks you to do. Because God cannot use a person or vessel that is not yielded to Him completely.
• While I can’t tell you what changes each of you need to make, I can described the changes I believe God wants in His church. First God is calling His Church to live holy lives submitted to His Lordship and obedient to His commands. Without holiness we cannot come into God’s presence. Unless we have submitted our lives and obey God’s commands how can He lead us to accomplish His plan through us when we want to do our own thing or are preoccupied with our own goals and plans.
• Once God has His church that is submitted to His Lordship, He will begin to add the saltiness to it. God does that by producing the Fruits of the Spirit within the people and the church. What are the Fruits of the Spirit? Turn to Galatians 5:22-23. For God’s church to regain its saltiness it needs to spend time on developing the Fruits of the Spirit. We have spent too much time on developing the gifts. But the gifts won’t get us into heaven. Jesus said that we will be judged based upon the fruit in our life.
• When Adam fell in the garden he lost his mind. He lost his remembrance of God’s holiness and God’s purpose for his life. Since we are Adam’s decedents and we are far removed from his time in the garden we have also lost our identity. Today God wants to renew our minds so that we can remember who we are and what our purpose is. At the time of creation we were in the loins of God and God’s plan included you and I being here at this time and place so we can fulfill God’s plan for today. Nothing happens in God’s Kingdom by accident.
• Relationships are the key to Christianity. Christianity is abased upon our relationship to God and His son Jesus. But it is also based on our relationship with each other. That is why unity within the body was so important to Jesus that it was the subject of his last prayer before he went to Jerusalem to die. Jesus prayed Father let them be one as You and I are one. When we are united with each other and under the leadership of God nothing on earth can stop us and that is why Satan tries so hard to prevent unity from happening.
• The church’s relationship to the community is also important. God did not tell us to unite with them. In fact He told us to separate ourselves from them. We are not to allow society’s values to influence us and we are not to partner with those who do not believe in God’s Word. But that does not mean that we are to ignore them. God wants His church to nurture the right relationships with the community.
• We must have compassion on those lost in their sin. We must stop being selfish and develop compassion for the poor, the widows and the orphans. God is calling His church to be our brother’s keeper. We are to provoke one another to do good works. The church must be in the right place at the right time to serve our communities whether that is after God’s judgment or when we work with Him to take our cities. We are not only to be there to meet their spiritual needs with the right answer, the gospel message, but we must be there to meet there physical needs as well.
• We need to be ready for what God is going to do. God is tired of His church always being late. Because we are not listening to God we are not in the right place at the right time. We need to know what God is going to do and have a plan on how we are going to be part of God’s solution. We need to show up with the answers to societies’ problems either before God judges them, so that they can change and repent from their sin, or after the destruction when they will want to know what happened and why. We need to be either part of the solution or God will judge us as part of the problem.
• So how is this going to happen? The church needs revival now! We need our minds renewed. We need good information and values on which to make our decisions. We need to fall in love with God over again. Over the next few weeks and months I want to look at revivals of the past and use them as benchmarks for what we need to be doing as a church. I also want to spend time looking and teaching on the Fruits of the Spirit and most importantly I want us to spend time listening to and obeying what God is telling us to do.
• Let’s close today in prayer. Dear heavenly Father forgive us for not listening and heeding Your Word and Your prophets. Forgive Your church for loosing our saltiness. Help us Lord to be4 ready to be part of Your solution for our community. Lord renew our minds as it says in Your Word. Help us to develop right relationships with our community. Fill us with compassion for the unsaved and the poor. Send Your Holy Spirit to help us develop the Fruit of the Spirit. Lord send revival We ask this in Jesus name AMEN.
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