Flee the Wrath

The following list of 20 attributes pertaining to the Kingdom of Babylon the great, mother of harlots, was taken from the website America, the Babylon.

The list is drawn from old and new testament scripture specifically relating to the End-Time Babylonian Kingdom that is destroyed at the commencement of the “Day of the Lord”.  It pretty much lays to rest those out dated and bizarre teachings that she is the catholic church or Israel or the re-emergence of a Middle East Nation.

1. It is the KEY Commercial Nation and Engine of Wealth for the World’s Economy.
2. The chief city of Mystery Babylon is a “DEEP WATER PORT CITY”!!!
3. Leading center of imports and consumption.
4. She is also a manufacturing nation
5. Center for Merchandising and Marketing
6. Known as the World’s “policeman”
7. Known for “showing the flag” or “gunboat diplomacy”
8. Sensual, Materialistic lifestyle
9. Intoxicating high-society lifestyle as a world example to emulate
10. Elegant, Sumptuous lifestyle
11. Noted for its bright gaudy-colored lights and nightlife with round the-clock partying.
12. Noted for its Drugs and Drug use
13. A land of immigrants
14. Land of Rebels in its birth
15. Land of Agriculture (when was the last time you saw wheat combines and corn-pickers harvesting crops in Vatican City? How about Hog farming? A cattle ranch?
16. Described as a “Land” of many waters. “Land” is a term designating a nation not a city and not an organization or church.
17. Where the world’s leaders “stream” to meet (Jer 51:44 — where they all come at once to get together on a regular basis… also Rev. 17:18)
18. Last of the Super powers
19. Defenses reach up to Outer Space
20. AND LAST BUT BY NO MEANS THE LEAST… THE MOST LITERAL OF ALL: –A populated city named Babylon with deepwater port facilities and the city is considered the “chief city” or most important city of the nation. This is how people of the first century AD referred to a nation, by its chief city.

An Evolutionary atheists statement of faith, and first verse of their book.

We believe that all things were created by nothing.

1. In the beginning all things were created by nothing, and by nothing, all things were created. 2. And the nothing formed nothing into living creatures and trees and oceans brimming with life. 3. And the nothing was worshiped and given a name, a name by which all men might know it. This nothing, umm whatever it was, like umm some energy force or something?   4.  And the name it was given was Evolution, and men beheld it’s glory, this nothing called Evolution.  5. And men bowed down to  “Evolution” and worshiped it, for out of it they were created, and from it, all diversity of life was formed. And they saw that it was good, and was worthy to be praised.

The sad reality is that this is exactly what evolutionary atheists believe. Though they themselves deny that it is a faith, it most certainly requires great faith to behold this creed.

2000 years ago the apostle Paul wrote of the futility that would abound in our day, in the book of Romans chapter 1.  God has indeed handed men of this generation of to futile thinking, because they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Professing to be wise, they became as fools.

Rom 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,Rom 1:19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.Rom 1:20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,Rom 1:21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Rom 1:22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, Rom 1:23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man–and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. “aka Evolution”

There are so many needs in our world today. Needs that could be met in Christ if we were willing to commit our lives wholeheartedly to this call. I for one am convicted by this 3 minute video.

Some 150 years ago, a man by the name of Horatio Spafford penned the words to a now famous hymn, “it is well with my soul”. This hymn, though written so long ago, has since gone on to be recorded by a few of today’s popular Christian bands.

Like so many who have heard the words Horatio faithfully wrote, I was struck by something upon it’s hearing. It is deeply soul stirring, troubling, and though at first I could not quite fathom why it challenged me, in this post I’m attempting to do so.

Here in this Hymn are the words of one like Job, who’s life was beset by sorrow, yet finds the strength in Christ to testify “Whatever my lot, though hast taught me to say, even so, it is well with my soul”

For those who have not heard his testimony, perhaps you could take the time to read it below, then re-read the words he penned in the hymn.

In this hymn Horatio confesses truth as he has come to understand it.  Not a God who meets the need of a man in every material sense as we know it, but rather that the knowledge of God and the hope in His justice and redemption grants him sufficient strength to overcome his sorrows.

Here in this hymn are the words of one who trusts his Saviour, in spite of lifes trials.

In our modern world we often tend to glorify God in our prosperity. We pray and give thanks to Him for His abundance. We testify of our material blessing and glorify His name and so often we expect Him to maintain our perfect Christian facade lifestyles, and should He do any less than this we would find ourselves ashamed, wondering what gross sin we’ve committed that we should be beset by such trials.  Should He do any less than this, we would challenge Him as to whether He is being just on our part.

Today I believe the Christian faith often tends to portray God quite distinctly different from that of Horatio’s understanding. Our modern God often says that you don’t have to accept your lot, for God has a better material/carnal plan. You can change your life by the power of prayer, the power of a positive attitude in Christ. He will give you a new improved version of life. Perhaps like the so popular lifestyle home improvement programs which are broadcast today. Get God, and get a new improved life, get wealth, get success, get prosperity.

I can’t help wondering as a result of our modern understanding of Christ that we might place demands on God which He is altogether unwilling to meet. You know like James said “you ask amiss” Therefore sadly and mistakenly perhaps we also place expectations in the hearts of believers and portray God as a sugar daddy from heaven, then when sugar daddy does not grant your wish, what then? A falling away from the faith perhaps? Because as it turns out God was more interested in you doing His will, rather than Him responding to yours.  Selah!

Is the faith of Christ really all about meeting your every need as we understand it, from our natural and carnal perspective, or is it about giving you the ability to endure, to overcome, to live life to the glory of God, that comes by the certain hope placed within you, the Blessed assurance.

I’m sure God is well pleased to bless men with material wealth and prosperity, but I believe God is glorified most of all when the one who has no reason to hope, expresses and overwhelming hope in that which is unseen. God is most glorified when men might have no earthly reason to trust, yet have an abiding trust in their creator. Men like Horatio Spafford, who having lost that which he loved expresses the words “whatever my lot, Though hast taught me to say, even so it is well with my soul”.

Horatio Spafford commentary thanks to Wikipedia.

This hymn “it is well ” was written after several traumatic events in Spafford’s life. The first was the death of his only son in 1871, shortly followed by the great Chicago Fire which ruined him financially (he had been a successful lawyer). Then in 1873, he had planned to travel to Europe with his family on the S.S. Ville du Havre, but sent the family ahead while he was delayed on business concerning zoning problems follow the Great Chicago Fire. While crossing the Atlantic, the ship sank rapidly after a collision with a sailing ship, the Loch Earn, and all four of Spafford’s daughters died. His wife Anna survived and sent him the now famous telegram, “Saved alone.” Shortly afterwards, as Spafford traveled to meet his grieving wife, he was inspired to write these words as his ship passed near where his daughters had perished.

Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, even so it is well with my soul.

The Spaffords later had three more children, one of whom (a son) died in infancy. In 1881 the Spaffords, including baby Bertha and newborn Grace, set sail for Palestine. The Spaffords moved to Jerusalem and helped found a group called the American Colony; its mission was to serve the poor. The colony later became the subject of the Nobel prize winning Jerusalem, by Swedish novelist Selma Lagerlöf.

Hymn Lyrics :

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blessed assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

In this life there are two loves wrestling with each other in every trial and temptation: Love of the world and the love of God. And whichever of these two wins, that’s where it pulls the lover by force of gravity. It isn’t, you see, on wings or on foot that we come to God, but on the power of our desires. And again, it isn’t with knots and chains that we find ourselves stuck to earth, but with contrary desires. Christ came to change our love, and to make lovers of heavenly life out of earthly lovers. – Augustine of Canterbury

One of the first and most profound changes in my life at the time I was “born again” is what I would call a hunger.  I gained a hunger to know God, to know His word, His people, understand biblical history, you name it. I was consumed and consuming whatever I could get my hands on.

As a young Christian I was incredibly grateful to have so much biblical information at my fingertips. What a tremendous blessing it was to have a Christian radio station with good biblical teaching, television evangelists preaching the word of God, even if it meant getting up at 6am to watch. It was like entering a new world.

No longer would I have to, as the generations before us have had to “wait upon the Lord”. Now if I needed to hear from God or learn something I could dial Him up on the web, switch Him in on the radio and receive my spiritual nourishment from another source.

There are many pluses for growing up a Christian in my generation, however I believe that there are some serious disadvantages as well, most of which your average popular pastor or teacher is reluctant to tell you about, for fear of becoming redundant.

The apostle Paul foresaw our day rather clearly, when he wrote to Timothy :

“2Ti 4:3,4 A time will come when people will not listen to accurate teachings. Instead, they will follow their own desires and surround themselves with teachers who tell them what they want to hear. And shutting their ears to what is true, will be turned away to belief in foolish stories.

I see it like this. We have grown impatient in our “instant” generation, not willing to wait upon the Lord, we feed on the word of God as delivered via a third party. We become microwave Christians, instant Christians, like instant mashed potato, just mix with water and Wallah.

The tragedy is that the day Paul spoke about, the teachers appointed by the listeners to speak their popular messages which offered to satisfy their itching ears, well that’s our day. We’re it bro, sis, we’re in the middle of this stuff, like no generation before us has been, were surrounded by it.

The tragedy is that so many of us build our house on someone elses gospel. So many of us swallow some foundational teaching that is shaky, then build our houses on it.

I’m going to tell you what perhaps some pastors don’t want to tell you, especially the ones making a good profit on their latest release teaching. Go listen to God for yourself! You’re born again aren’t you? You can hear from God too!

You can read can’t you? Well read His word and pray about it.  Go, and pray and wait upon the Lord. I’m pretty sure that He said that He would lead you down paths of righteousness, if you would listen, if you would abide in Him.

At the risk of sounding like a hypocrite. The stuff on this blog, maybe it’s helped you, maybe it’s just adding to the noise out there in Christian Blogsville. I’d really rather you read stuff on this blog and pray about it. Let the Lord direct your understanding.

That doesn’t mean you are to be a loner though. God desires to work in and through you and the lives of other believers, that together we might bless each other with encouragement and understanding.

All I’m saying is that I’d feel much better if I knew that the Lord was the one leading you, not my blog or the million other blogs out there, which in my humble opinion are often like “noise”, opinions running in all sorts of directions on many different subjects.

Maybe I’m piking out here, but I don’t want to be the fall guy for anyone who stumbles reading my blog. Maybe I’m just adding to the noise. God knows, ask Him!

Hamas leaders’ son finds the truth, renounces Islam.

Christians need to pray for this man. Pray that God will allow his testimony to bring others to Christ.

Some of my most intimate times with the Lord occur in the most unusual of places. For me, the vegetable garden has become one of those places. A place where I often sense that still small voice of God attempting to help me understand what He’s doing in our lives.

I am in awe of the way in which the little seed brings forth such beautiful fruit. I bite into a fresh picked plum and think, how the heck does God make something so delicious out of dirt?

I tend the tomatoes, weed the beds, prune back the lemon tree, all of these things I do, and I assist in this work, but God brings the growth. He brings the increase, I’m just a part player, a co-worker in this veggie garden of mine, His.

Until yesterday I had been bearing patiently with all long suffering a humble squash plant. It was large in size, looked healthy enough, but since the day it first produced fruit, the fruit has always split and gone rotten before it had ripened. I’ve fed it, I’ve sprayed it, I’ve fertilized, I’ve tended to it for three months now and no change.

Yesterday with great delight I tore that squash plant out of the ground, having granted sufficient time to produce good fruit, now the time of grace had passed. No longer would I expend time, effort and energy on something which had looked promising, yet constantly failed to produce any good fruit.

In that moment, as I tore the plant from the soil, I sensed the word of the Lord, from Matthew 7:17.

Mat 7:17 “Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
Mat 7:18  “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.
Mat 7:19  “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

I guess the scary part for me was that I took great delight in tearing that unfruitful squash out of the ground. Now the soil, that piece of ground would be made available to another plant, something able to produce good fruit for harvest. No longer would I have to look upon that squash plant with a sense of hope and expectancy, and find myself continually disappointed.

I wonder, does God think like this?  Indeed he who Christ considered greatest amongst men, John the Baptist, earnestly believed that the Lord of Glory was such a God, who had an expectation that the earth would prove fruitful , and this belief John asserted with the following statement :

Luke 3:9 And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Perhaps it was just me God was talking to in that moment in the veggie garden, perhaps He is not well pleased with my fruitfulness, perhaps He was simply reminding me of the consequences of failing to bear good fruit in my own life. I’m not sure, but either way I was reminded that God has an expectation that we will prove to be fruitful in Christ.

How do you, or how do I know that we are truly disciples of Christ. How do we know we are not just kidding ourselves, living a make believe fantasy life of religiosity.

Here is the answer! Disciples bear fruit for Christ, good fruit. This is how you shall know them, by their fruit.

Jhn 15:1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.
Jhn 15:2 “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away;[fn1] and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
Jhn 15:3 “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
Jhn 15:4 “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
Jhn 15:5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
Jhn 15:6 “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
Jhn 15:7 “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will[fn2] ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. Jhn 15:8 “By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.

The following 9 minute video is an excerpt from a BBC produced documentary on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan in 1945.

I’m not sure exactly why I’m posting this video except to say that it is entirely plausible that a western nation may have to endure a similar scenario in the not too distant future. In fact from a biblical perspective, it’s pretty much assured.

Clearly there were things that the population of Hiroshima would have wished they had known, like don’t drink the black rain.

It is presently estimated that somewhere between 24,ooo and 33,000 nuclear weapons exist today, the vast majority belonging to the US and Russia. Considering the destructive power of the Hiroshima bombing, and putting it into context with the present stock of nuclear weapons, one can’t help being confronted by the tremendously destructive power presently available to humanity.

Interestingly in the scriptural account recorded in chapter 8 and 9 of  Revelation, concerning what sounds like nuclear warfare. We see a third of the earth destroyed and the waters made bitter, leading to the death of those who drink the bitter water. This comes as a result of a star named “Wormwood”

My belief is that this “wormwood” is a nuclear weapon, and the bitterness of the waters refers to the highly radioactive content that comes as a result. Basically that same scenario which led to the poisoning of so many Japanese during the Hiroshima bombing.

Rev 8:7  The first angel sounded: And hail and fire followed, mingled with blood, and they were thrown to the earth.[fn1] And a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up.
Rev 8:8   Then the second angel sounded: And something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood.
Rev 8:9   And a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.
Rev 8:10 Then the third angel sounded: And a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water.
Rev 8:11 The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the water, because it was made bitter.

Please see viewer warning at the bottom of this post before watching the video.

Went out last night to pick up a couple of things from the supermarket. On the way out the guy in front of me was pushing his trolley along and accidentally ran it straight into the pillar at the door entrance. We had a laugh together and I advised that he should get some driving lessons. But the noteworthy point in this meeting being that the first word that departed his lips as he hit the pillar was “Jesus”

How often when I’m at work, someone comes in to pay for their fuel, something goes wrong, i.e. swipe the EFTPOS card, card rejected, insufficient funds. So often the first words to depart the lips of the customer, “Jesus Christ”

The boss can’t get the books to balance, or something disastrous has occurred in the office. How often I hear it, either “Oh my God” or “Christ”

What is that? What is is about that name? That people who neither go to church nor confess a genuine belief in God, take delight in using that name.

When the Hollywood directors cast a scene that requires an impacting use of vocabulary, how often do we hear it, time and again “Jesus Christ”

I’ve watched German subtitled movies,  can’t understand any of the language, except the occasional “Jesus Christ”. What is that?

Why not Buddah, or some Hindu god. What about a devil, like Baal, or Lucifer, why the name of Christ?

What is it about that name?

WARNING : Many of you have probably seen the very short clip below of one of the WTC towers being hit by an aircraft, never the less, if hearing four letter words or the name of Christ used in vain offends you, then I suggest you do not watch the video.