We cannot ignore the wickedness that is engulfing our world as global catastrophes are occurring and civil unrest is escalating. In St. Louis rioters attacked police and reporters and destroy property as they protested a jury’s acquittal of a white policeman in the shooting death of a black man.
In France, 4 young American girls were taken to the hospital with facial injuries after having acid sprayed in their faces by a crazed attacker.
And another terrorist attack in London was celebrated by ISIS as a bomb exploded in a subway sending 22 people to the hospital with severe burns.
The church has a duty in this time of unprecedented calamities and catastrophes, both natural and man-made, to remain steadfast in upholding the word of God in the face of all these rising tensions and conflicts. We cannot ignore that there has been a moral failure on the part of the churches to call the world to repentance and to identify the cause of our world’s problems. The world is mocking the notion that our sins are somehow responsible for the condition that our world is in.
“That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD: Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits” Isaiah 30:9, 10.
Our churches and ministers hardly even preach from the Bible. Why? Because they are giving the world what the people want to hear. People want smooth things. People want to be told that they are OK. They want to be told that they are doing the right things and that God is going to bless us all. People want to hear that we are going to be protected and that God is with us. But where is the straight testimony today that points out our nations sins and tragedies and calls men and women to repentance?
“God does not send messengers to flatter the sinner. He delivers no message of peace to lull the unsanctified into fatal security. He lays heavy burdens upon the conscience of the wrongdoer, and pierces the soul with arrows of conviction. The ministering angels present to him the fearful judgments of God to deepen the sense of need, and prompt the cry, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ Then the hand that has humbled in the dust, lifts up the penitent. The voice that has rebuked sin, and put to shame pride and ambition, inquires with tenderest sympathy, ‘What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee? ” (Desire of Ages, p. 104).
Sadly, our world chooses pastors and ministers who don’t quote Scripture and who don’t uphold God’s standards. The church wants to jump on the bandwagon of bringing healing and blessing to our world, but they reject vehemently any suggestion that there is any need to repent. All we want to do today is mourn the loss of life and these tragic events through vigils and memorial services hoping that this will bring us comfort; however, this response is not solution to our problems.
“Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.” Isaiah 58:1.
We need to preach truth and we need to say what God says about our world condition because it is repentance that is desperately needed today.
“Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.” Hosea 4:1-3.
God has a problem with the inhabitants of the land. He has a problem with their sins. And because of their unwillingness to repent and to be instructed in the ways of God’s law – destruction will follow:
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.” Hosea 4:6.
They reject God’s law, His authority and obedience. The world wants to conveniently leave all this out. Yet God still says that if you forget His teachings and instructions He will hold us accountable and we will be cursed. The preachers, the priests and theologians are supposed to be society’s moral leaders but they are the ones who are forsaking the Creator God and have become society’s followers.
“Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD. Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the LORD.” Jeremiah 23: 1, 2.
This is a message against the pastors, the ministers, the priests, the evangelicals and all the Laodiceans (Revelation 3:15, 16). They will be held accountable for what they say and for what they preach – and for what they don’t say. Even among those watchmen who are supposed to warn the world, they have forsaken the God’s word.
“For both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in my house have I found their wickedness, saith the LORD. Wherefore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will bring evil upon them, even the year of their visitation, saith the LORD.” Jeremiah 23:11, 12.
This is the cause for this great moral collapse of our generation. The clergy of this generation is supposed to warn the world and uphold the truth and declare it. And what the churches have failed to say is this: there is only one way to avert the coming destruction:
“All the world will be warned that there is a God who will display His authority as God. His unseen agencies will cause destruction, devastation, and death. All the accumulated riches will be as nothingness…Calamities will come–calamities most awful, most unexpected; and these destructions will follow one after another. If there will be a heeding of the warnings that God has given, and if churches will repent, returning to their allegiance, then other cities may be spared for a time. But if men who have been deceived continue in the same way in which they have been walking, disregarding the law of God, and presenting falsehoods before the people, God allows them to suffer calamity, that their senses may be awakened” (Evangelism, p. 27).
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