Are we too soft???

Saturday, May 26, 2007
The last few things I have sent out have been long and maybe sort of scary to some of you. I have felt some condemnation about them and thought maybe I should not burden you with them. As I pray about that I get the sense that the Holy Spirit is saying He gives me these thoughts to share with others for the time may be getting short and people need to hear these things to be able to make up their own minds. We may fast be approaching the time when people’s salvation may be at stake. The spirit continues to bring the scripture in Ezekiel 33 to mind. Once again it’s not my job to sell these things to you. It’s between you and the Holy Spirit. Should you not have the time or effort to follow thru then it’s on your head and I’m in the clear because I have warned you!!
The church has talked and believed for years that America is a blessed nation because somehow we were founded on God’s principles and all of that may be true to a point. The problem as I see it is how we have handled that over the years. As I read church history I see movements of God in the 40’s – 50’s that swept thousands into the Body. Then you look at the areas where that took place and they are not the biggest hot beds of sin in the country. How do you suppose that happened?? Could it be that when man began taking control of the movement, with all the best reasons in his mind, that the Holy Spirit stepped back? At that point the enemy moved in and we see what happened. It seems to me that the only place the true Body of Christ is really flourishing is in the countries that persecute them day and night in horrible ways. Could God be attempting to bring that about here and we fight it tooth and nail. Could it be we are way too comfortable calling ourselves Christians with no danger in the outcome?? As the softest Christians in the world would we be able to stand up against even a small portion of what’s going on around the world?? Would we be some of the first to come against those that begin preaching the true gospel as heretics and demand they be put to death?? That’s what has taken place over the years among the so called Christians. It’s time you began to exam your life and standing with Christ before you have to put it all on the line in the blink of an eye. Remember what Jesus said about those who deny Him!!! Here is something from a newsletter from the 1950’s that might be of interest!!

I am your brother in Christ and maybe your worst nightmare!!
Jim
If we add one further sign of the times, for the moment, it would be that movement over the earth in which Christians are being tested by fiery ordeal and trial. A large part of the world is already undergoing this "baptism", and the waters are moving steadily on over widening areas. They are moving from the Far East toward the Nearer and Middle East and the Near East.
While Christians in parts of the West can still meet in conference and debate the question: "Will the Church go through the tribulation?", many believers are asking - "Can the tribulation be any worse than that through which we are now passing?" For one it is all objective, future, and doctrinal. For the other, real, actual, and ghastly. It would be more healthy and valuable were we to face the matter from another angle and ask - "Have we reason to believe that the Scriptures point to an end-time in which all artificial supports, 'foreign' aids, external forms, and all that which keeps Christians going from the outside, will be stripped off, and they will stand or fall in so far as they really know the Lord and He is more real than all the accompaniments and things of Christianity?" This will be the ultimate criterion, whether in the increasing spiritual pressure upon believers more generally, or by the force of adversity such as that which is now spreading over the world.
God will have reality. For Him His Son is the only reality. He, as such, is the End, the Amen, and God works all His works toward Him, "that in all things he may have the pre-eminence".
First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Sep-Oct 1956, Vol 34-5
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