Preface: The following post is from September 13, 2019. It was a warning about a storm that was coming. Two months later a cluster of patients in Wuhan, China developed pneumonia symptoms that did not respond to treatment. Billy Graham wrote his book Storm Warning in 1991. It was published on New Years Day 1992....and the book was "completely revised and updated" in 2010. I no longer have the 1992 edition....so I don't know if the following comment from page 73 was also in the earlier edition....but I tend to think that it was not. He wrote...."I look back on my many years as an evangelist and wonder, Have I made the Christian faith look too easy......in my eagerness to tell the world about the greatest gift that comes from God....I ask myself if I have comprehended the price He paid for our freedom....Have I adequately explained the price we must pay in humbling ourselves, turning our backs on pride, and sacrificing our earthly desires out of obedience to the Lord?" I do believe that this comment was in the original....."[This] storm warning carries a booming jolt of truth--Trouble Ahead; Prepare to Meet Thy God."
Storm Warning.....September 13, 2019....[and a whole lot has happened since then]
As I watch with everyone else the progress of Hurricane Dorian....I'm reminded of another hurricane force storm that occurred in the eastern Mediterranean almost two thousand years ago that was recorded in great detail in the 27th chapter of the books of Acts. That storm also lasted a couple of weeks. There was a similar storm at the end of September 196. (Mediterranean storms that might be equivalent to a category 1 hurricane are somewhat rare.) In that storm a 20,000 ton tanker struck a reef near Malta and split in two.
As of this evening....Dorian just doesn't want to move away from parts of the Bahamas.....very similar to how Paul and his 275 other shipmates fought and fought the storm for many days. We still are not sure of the exact path that Dorian will take....but we are sure of this.....God rules the waves of the sea as he rules every atom in this universe.
I wonder how many of those Roman soldiers....and that ship's crew.....and the inhabitants of Malta....eventually came to faith in Christ because of that storm? An "angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve" told Paul....and Paul relayed it to his shipmates.....that there would be no loss of life.....but the ship would be lost. God's Word speaks similarly to us today in that there will be no loss of eternal life to those who belong to and serve Christ.....but the ship will be lost. Paul himself must have been gravely concerned at first for the angel told him not to be afraid....and he then in turn told all that were with him to take courage.
There is another storm coming folks. Meteorologists speak in terms of rotating low-pressure weather systems and maximum sustained winds but God's Word as it pertains to this storm that is coming speaks in terms of birth pangs. The rotating low-pressure....as it were....is almost becoming unbearable to watch.....while the maximum sustained winds are increasing.....the cries of pain all over this earth are increasing....and the contractions are coming closer together. We are still told to take courage....but therein is the rub....there is a difference between knowing what is ahead and yet remaining calm.....and having no knowledge of or concern for what is ahead......and remaining calm.
Folks....we....meaning Christians.....on the whole....could not care less about judgment coming. You would have to have lived in the 80s to know what it was like for the church to know how far we had fallen....and that God was giving a strong warning of impending judgment....but our discernment is just about all gone. The Pre-Trib rapture has done it's damage as Christians think that they are going to get beamed up out of an NFL football game if necessary before the tough times start. Look at what's on Christian television....it's as if God exists just to make us happy....and what was left of us were taken in by a huckster in Donald Trump whose idea of wisdom is getting every dollar owed us around the world. It is eerie.....personal opinion here....to see how we have regressed....but it in itself seems to be part and parcel of what God's Word tells us that the world will be like upon His return.
He deconstructed conservatism....and built in its place Trumpism....with faulty steel and cheap concrete....and an ideology-free foreign policy built on the best sale price at the moment....weakening policies that which had kept us out of world war for seventy years. Domestically he has tortured us....purposely....poking and jabbing every day to stir up anger.....and foment hatred. He has been a destroyer his whole life....(seventy-five books...now 102....on his entire life have shown me this)....with not an ounce of empathy for any living thing.
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I'm adding a second older post here....and I'll add an anecdote from a few days ago....August of 2024. There is an older man...a little older than I am....and he is and has been a pastor and a minister his whole adult life. I was told this second hand....it came from his wife. They can't be in the same room together anymore because he always has Fox cable or some podcast on the computer. She just doesn't like Donald Trump....while this minister of the gospel is obsessed with Trump returning to office. As the end of this older posts warns...."Flee these people on talk radio and Fox prime time cable....or at least moderate considerably their input....and use the mind that God gave you."
I posted this thought back in August of 2020...."I have never given up hope that Donald Trump would for the first time in his life show some personal humility. I thought that God might have him eat grass on the White House lawn....(figuratively speaking)....because of his blasphemous arrogance....as did Nebuchadnezzar graze in the fields. I don't wish him ill at all....I just wish him to be a one-term president....primarily because his psychological disorders are so many and so serious....that dealing with our enemies is more than problematic....it is a recipe for disaster."
Preface: Well Donald Trump did eat grass on the White House lawn....the Ellipse to be more precise....but he never came out of it....primarily because this is the same Donald Trump as in his youth. Trump's nephew....Fred Trump III....patriarch Fred Trump's grandson....has a book out now titled....All In The Family....The Trumps and how We Got This Way. It takes you into the Sunday dinners and the lives of Donald Trump's four siblings. I pleaded in these posts since 2018 with words like these....'Thank you President Trump....but you have to back away....we cannot deal another four years with the rage that you instill in everyone. Please retire with the great accomplishment in life as having become the 45th president of the United States.' Well in retrospect that was an impossibility with him....and today America's vaunted constitutional republic is in ruins. The following post....Let Trump Be Trump....was first published on October 14, 2020....twenty days before the election. Those who tried their best to hold Donald Trump accountable were summarily purged. Pastors all across America....men who should have known better....were at best AWOL....absent....without leave....and reminiscent of the ten spies....fearful of the giant.
"Let Trump Be Trump"
We begged them time and again in those early days.....hold this man accountable.....for there is a big problem here.....but their response increasingly became...."Let Trump be Trump." Well....that we did....and his actions tore America apart as quickly and savagely as would a Yellowstone bear a box of Honey Nut Cheerios. He ripped apart the Republican Party....dragged the conservative movement into a house of ill repute....and replaced the cross in our churches with a bully pulpit. (and flag) Today we continue to follow him around the country....(really only to swing states)....as faithfully as would hardcore Deadhead fans.....perpetuating the myth of a smart man that has done a lot....because he cares for us so much.
Conservative talk radio had every opportunity to hold the newly inaugurated President Trump to account....as a matter of fact it would have been their responsibility....but they blew it. There was Ivanka & Jared....and the fake Obamacare repeal & replace....and there was Luther Strange....this just in the first few months....and dozens of instances after that....and literally thousands of lies....and each time we just sat there....afraid to say anything.....as he got worse and worse and worse over time....until now as we are nothing but captives to his whims.....with no voice to even question his antics....where we find ourselves forced to defend the most grotesque incumbent president nominee for reelection that America has ever witnessed.
It's become so surreal that evangelicals now....(this during the pandemic)....in order to get a false prophet and wolf in sheep's clothing reelected....seem to care very little for older people....and those with a higher health risk...."for they're going to die anyway"....and as for the poor....and minorities....he said this last night in a community not far from me..."So can I ask you to do me a favor, suburban women, will you please like me? Please, Please. I saved your damn neighborhood, Okay?"
We were deceived by a most extraordinary con man....with a lifetime of evidence of such right before our eyes....but we utterly refused to read....the 'fake news' and the 'hoaxes' that he labeled them to be. There were some good candidates the first time around....that would have ushered in an economic turnaround....without the recklessness.....and the constant incitement of hatred and anger....but we chose the loudest voice on the planet. Now we have no choice of a responsible and honest president to take us through the turmoil that surely lies ahead....but we have Christ....to return to as prodigal sons....seeking His mercy....and all for His glory....not ours.
I pleaded also back then....this from early in 2021
"Flee these people on talk radio and Fox primetime cable....or at least moderate considerably their input....and utilize the mind that God gave you. This is serious psychological manipulation that they are involved with. Donald Trump changed them into his mold....as we now call everything a fake....suppress evidence....purge those who will not follow....and deny anything that we do not want to face up to. We use the devil's tools today and think nothing of it. This is the exact opposite of edification! Go back to your Bible...to your prayer time....to common sense thinking.....to humility.....to depending on God alone....before what you have enlisted in shows an even deeper and darker plan for you."
Which it has!
