Back in 2008, I had a run in with sickness that brought me to look for answers from God.  I cannot remember the number of hours over years I spent reading, studying, digging, praying and pondering about healing, which led into many wonderful findings and various topics.  My eyes are open to some degree now and things appear much more clear than they did at one time.  While that is a good thing, there is a darker side to this insight and that is most people do not want to hear it as it means their lives will change.

Yes, I discovered many things about healing.  Yes, I did find many things about being an heir of God and who we are in the Christ along with our rights and responsibilities.  I learned a lot about sin, redemption, blessings and authority over the enemy.  But there is much more, some of which I already knew, but is now confirmed.

I already knew we are in the Last Days of this Age and the Lord is soon to return.  There really is not a need to look for signs of the Last Days as there are so many out there today, it is more like we are standing in a sign shop, they are everywhere anymore. 

Being we are in the Last Days, that also means we are in the Last Day’s church, which explains many of the things we see in the Church as a whole today.  Sin is running rapid in most churches today, either public and in plain sight without anyone being concerned or hidden and flourishing.  Conviction seems to be low in most churches and sin is seldom preached unless it is followed by disclaimers that comfort people and make them ignore the conviction they are feeling, pretending it to be condemnation, as many in the pews have no clue what the difference is between those two words.

We actually have ministers that say, even though a person is bound in sin such as adultery, drunkenness,  homosexuality, etc, if they have every prayed that prayer of salvation and become a Christian, they will still be in heaven, they just might get there faster than the others.  They have changed Grace into license, they have changed God into some type of wish Genie, there to fulfill your desires.  They need to spend a bit more time in the Old Testament and remember just WHO is this God we claim to know.  In Deuteronomy and Hebrews, God is called a “Consuming Fire”.

With all the sin coming into the churches of today, the results are an ineffective church that cannot obtain the promises of God, as God will not work where so many are given to sin and not listening to the Holy Spirit.  Their ineffectiveness creates doubts about the promises of God and the Gifts of God, thus becoming spiritually dead, relying on entertainment, rather then the power of God.  This just leads to a spiraling path down to death. 

Perhaps it is time to write “Ichabod” over the doors as the “Glory has departed”, until people turn.   There has never been a time such as this that the Church as a whole needs to remember:

2Ch 7:14  If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

It is time to turn from sin and drive it out to the churches.  If people want to stay in their sin and not turn, then they need to be out with the other sinners, it is time to clean the House of God for those that WANT and DESIRE God and are not living for the things of this world.  It is time for the presence of God to be in the churches and the conviction be found so strong, people cry out in repentance as they walk into the building!

We also need to get back to:

2Ti 2:15  Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Many people filling pews today, do not like the word “Study”.  They are lazy and spiritual blind, they want others to feed them spoon by spoon and not offend them in any way.  I am so fed up with people in church saying, “oh, come one, don’t be so hard on people”.  Where does this come from?  Where is the Scriptures saying we are never supposed to have anything hard to deal with?  My Bible says:

1Pe 4:17  For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?

Even in Communion, it says:

1Co 11:28-31  But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.  For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.  For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.

We are to be hard on ourselves and judge ourselves, examine our hearts, pay attention what comes out of our mouths.  In all things put God FIRST!

It goes even more beyond this though, we are told that our life here is as a vapor, but we live like we will live forever here.  We build our kingdoms instead of God’s Kingdom.  Our hearts are more on the new house, new TV, or new car, rather than on God and the Word of God such as getting souls saved or perhaps spending time with God to have His Spirit flow through us were we can help others.  What a concept for some, we should live our lives to help others? 

This is just the very tip of what is exploding in me, but it is enough to prime the context for this post.  When you see you life as gone and ready to face our Lord, you start to think of just how much we have or have not made Him Lord of our lives.  I remember the story:

Luk 16:19-31  There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:  And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.

And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;  And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.  And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.  And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house:  For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.  Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.

And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

This rich man had many issues to which he had to deal.  First, he was a child of Abraham and should have not been where he ended up.  He had that relationship with Abraham  and that promise should have kept him safe from the flames.  It does not say that this rich man sinned or had great hidden sins causing him to be cast off into this eternal punishment, it was simply because he had wealth and did not help the one at his door needing help.  He did not have the compassion and it cost him eternally.  This reminds me of:

Mat 25:41-46  Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:  For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:  I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?   Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

It’s not just “hear”ers of the Word but “do”ers that will be in heaven.  If you do not try to act (live your life, to be like) Jesus, then you have need to worry.

When a person is in a position such as this rich man, you clearly see things differently.  He could see how his life caused him to suffer and he did not want it for his family, but it was too late.  He had his eyes opened to that world around him that he had not noticed, but now had no way to tell anyone.

Well, with what I have leaned over the last couple of years, has shown me the world from a little different perspective, but thankfully, I am still alive to do something about it.  Much like Scrooge waking up to find he still had time, I have woke up some and know I need to share the warning so others do not follow that path.  The problem is that many of those filling the pews are on the same path or worse, but they will not seem to listen.  They act like they hear it but it does not get in them, just goes in their ears and out again.

The message is simple.  It is time to WAKE UP, time to:

• Get about the Kingdom business, we need to make God number one in our life above all other things that fill our time. 
• It is time to get the sin out of us and get holiness in our lives!
• We need the Word in us regularly, and that does not mean once per week at church, we need to study and get busy building our knowledge and relationship with God.  Study..  Study…  Study…
• We need to seek the Lord in prayer, praise and worship.  It is time for a new song, we need to become people that cannot help but declare praise to our God everywhere we go.  It is time to see God as our prize!
• It is time to seek the Gifts of the Spirit to manifest in us.  It is time that the signs follow us as believer’s (Mark 16:17-18) and flow in the Spirit.  God left us His Holy Spirit to led and guide us, to work through us.  Time for flowing to begin.  These Gifts are needed into today’s church.  The Gifts of Healings and Miracles are drastically needed and the others not to be left out.  To see a church body with all the Gifts freely flowing in every daily meeting the goal.
• While mentioned last, it is by no means last, it is time to bring in the harvest!  We need to get the lost into the Kingdom and get them grown up in the faith, that they can go back out and get more in of the harvest.

I look at it this way, they enemy came in and tried to take me out with sickness, but it just drove me into the arms of God and this caused me to launch out into a deep river.  As I have not quite reached the other side of that river yet, my boat is at least far enough over to the other side that I can see what is up ahead and it is crushing wave that will bring pain, sorrow and suffering in so many ways if people do not get in their boat and get to the other side while they can.  You do not want to be caught on the wrong side of this river when the flood of sorrow comes.  The water is deep now, but people are not paying attention the water in which they are standing, they simply ignore it.

The storm is coming and we need to get to the other side, there is no time to delay, it is time to move.  We have to become do’ers while there is daylight, we only have a short window of time.

Let me see now, is there any other way I can say this? 

W A K E   U P!

If not for you, FOR YOUR family.  This coming storm will destroy people if you are not firmly grown with God.  If you need doctors now, if you need loans and time payments now, if you need entertainment now, if you do not closely hear and follow God now, if you do not flow in the Gifts of the Spirit now…..  You had better get your life cleaned up and get ready.  The warning is here, it is time to blow the trumpet and sound the alarm. 

“IF MY PEOPLE, WHICH ARE CALLED BY MY NAME….”