Good morning. It is Tuesday, August 27, 2024. Our Bible College students begin another adventurous year at New Hope Church and College. Training leaders to reach the lost was the mission that Jesus exemplified and then passed on to His disciples. If you miss that, you lose your future. Judah lost their future because of leaders who exemplified and promoted the wrong values. One of the first signs of God’s judgment is that He gives a nation bad leaders, and now, the era of decadence and division begins. Read on...
Today's Reading:
Jeremiah 52; Revelation 1; Psalms 143,144
Scripture
“It was because of the Lord’s anger that all this happened to Jerusalem and Judah, and in the end, he thrust them from his presence.” (Jeremiah 52:3)
Observation
There you have it. By constant defiance and continued sinfulness, God’s people forfeited an era of His favor and exchanged it for an era of His judgment. The kings were bad leaders, one after another—Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, Zedekiah. These last three administrations all believed they could do as they pleased, with total disregard for God’s laws. Each one successively fell further and led the nation in the same direction. This opened their doors to foreign influences and powers until Judah was held hostage by Babylon for 70 years.
Application
America is entering a similar situation. We are opening the doors to foreign invasion. Homeland Security reports that over the past four years, 9.7 million people have entered the U.S. illegally. Additionally, the United States is in debt to foreign entities to the tune of $7.3 trillion, causing us to pay $892 billion of our tax dollars this year to foreign countries.
Bad leadership.
So, how then shall we live? We see the judgment of God, but let’s not start at the White House. Let’s begin with God’s house.
As God’s people, we must return wholeheartedly to the foundations of our faith—no compromise, no in-fighting, no jealousy, no gossip, and no more excuses.
James reminds us that friendship with the world—or siding with the world’s values over God’s—makes us enemies of God. John concurs: the lust of the flesh (sexual sin), the lust of the eyes (coveting, yearning for sexual pleasures, pornography, etc.), and pride (thinking that my perspective is obviously the right one). These are symptoms we see both inside and outside the Church, and make no mistake—these are the ones God will oppose.
Prayer
Father, we are entering an era of judgment, and we cannot be found dozing, thinking we can just yawn when You speak. Awaken the Church. May Gabriel’s horn sound the Reveille! It’s time to wake up and live as the people of God in a land under judgment. Teach us what to do and how we should live.
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