Here's The Kicker......Those Warnings Are Just About All Gone

 "For when they say, 'peace and safety!' then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape." That is 1 Thessalonians 5:3. It is one of those many verses in prophecy where we are to keep it in mind....meditate and contemplate on it....even speculate....but ultimately we will not know the exact circumstances until the day that it is fulfilled.

Here is one speculation....and after it I'll give another one....totally different. We have war ahead of us...in America and the world. Seventy-three years of life and a half century of reading history and watching current history unfold has made that clear....to me anyway. In China and Russia there is no avoiding it....for they have gone too far in their planning. In Iran and North Korea a regime change could conceivably turn the countries around....but that is not likely. If war comes....and then it goes....the smoke settles....and there has been no nuclear conflagration....then people would surely say....all over the world....'peace and security.'

There are other scenarios but I'll just give one more. It has to do primarily with the church....more specifically evangelicalism....and even more precisely....anyone in America who considers themselves to be Christian. We have recently finished....within the past four or five years....an approximately fifty year period in the church where preachers....Billy Graham's name comes to mind first but there were many other nationally known preachers and many more in small churches across America....we just finished that era where we were strongly warned....just as Judah and Israel at times were warned....that we had departed from God....and that judgment was coming. Here's the kicker....those warnings are just about gone.

Few preachers warn today. No one seems to particularly care. We have entered into a....for lack of a better analogy....Twilight Zone....in the church where to anyone with eyes to see....we are completely undone in America....at the very doorstep on our Lord's return....and not only that....we should be rejoicing in and hoping for the nearness of His glorious return where every tear would be dried....but to the others....it is as the ship is sinking bow first....and we are hanging on to the aft rail....simply taking in the view as if we were on the high point of a Ferris wheel!

When you have Joe Biden and Donald Trump and Elon Musk and Zuckerberg as your primary influencers....Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse so to speak....and then you go down the line of celebrities and idolatries and influencers of all kinds that we have today....from Tucker Carlson to RFK Jr....when this is your situation and you are not on your knees each and every day seeking mercy and forgiveness....then some sort of period of anesthetization has taken place....some drug given us involuntarily that dulls our senses....the theological description would be in that it ruins our discernment.

What I've tried to do in these posts....is shake the pillars....not to bring the roof down....but to send us outside to look up....hoping to see Him returning in the clouds....to stand as it were at a fork in the road....pointing to the 'old paths....where the way is good"....(Jeremiah 6:16)....and to say to anyone who would listen....using the words from a Puritan prayer in Arthur Bennett's wonderful book....Valley Of Vision....

"May I say to all I meet,
 I am journeying towards the Lord's given place,
 come with me for your good."

Addendum: I had to interrupt my lawn mowing to add this anecdote that Charles Spurgeon gave in an 1880 sermon titled....Do Not Be Afraid. He was encouraging his hearers to continue to pray for their unsaved loved ones....and to never be discouraged. The anecdote is this. Spurgeon heard of a woman in the north end of London who prayed for a long time for her husband....who had no interest in the gospel. She would take her little dog to church with her....and the dog would simply curl up on the pew. The woman died....but the little dog would continue to walk to that church. The husband....out of curiosity....followed the dog one day....and followed him into the church and right down to the pew that his wife had always sat. Spurgeon said that God prepared that minister that night....and the man who sat there with the dog....was converted to faith in Jesus Christ. That reminds me of another story that Spurgeon once told....this from his own experience. He was to preach for the first time in London's huge Crystal Palace....and took the pulpit during the week as craftsmen were working up in the heights of the ceiling. Spurgeon was testing the power of his voice in the large hall. As he proclaimed verses on salvation at the top of his voice....as he was told later....a man high up in to scaffolding....was also gloriously saved. Folks....passing Spurgeon's message on to you....do not stop praying for loved ones who are as of now still unsaved!