“Judgment begins with the household of faith”
Praying for God’s judgments?
September 25, 2024
God’s justice is a mercy: why we pray for His intervention
October 11, 2024
Recently, I listened to the testimonies of several individuals who were freed from the LGBTQ lifestyle. The first man who spoke testified of being in despair as he sat for two years in an “affirming” church.
“My sin was bondage,” he said. “Those who called themselves Christians, yet failed to tell me the gospel – not only that I was in sin, but that I could be free from it – did me no favors to let me wallow in it week after week.”
Why must judgment begin with the house of faith, the church of Christ?
In my last post, I detailed how the Lord told me to pray these last four years for the East Wind. I came to understand that the East Wind signifies the Lord’s sudden intervention in the affairs of men, and His judgment and righteous correction. This word initially came in March of 2020, in the very early stages of a phenomenon that was visited on mankind worldwide.
My primary calling is intercessory prayer for government; I believe the Lord is bringing judgment on world systems and institutions that have been corrupted for decades, if not centuries, quietly bringing ruin to the lives of individuals and slipping behind shadows with zero accountability.
Nevertheless, despite the wickedness of Babylon (or in his case, Rome), Peter warned that God’s people must be judged first. Why?
Here are a few important reasons:
- The Lord does not want those desperate for freedom from the chaos and oppression of sin to come to a church that is under the same deception that is in the world (as detailed in the opening of this blog).
- If we have the truth, scripture is plain that we will be judged by a higher standard (see Romans 2)
- Scripture also makes it plain that the saints will judge the world:
- The ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the most high (Daniel 7:22)
- Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Matthew 19:28)
- “Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases?” (1 Corinthians 6:2)
Exposure of the Wheat and Tares
Many have highlighted the events of the last few years as litmus tests for the church as a whole. How Christians reacted to Covid measures, “transitioning” children, Israel, and particularly the Dobb’s Decision overturning Roe v. Wade, has been revealing. The ruling against Constitutional abortion in particular has been particularly eye-opening, with prominent evangelical leaders either silent on this monumental ruling, or even opposed to it.
This is a time of winnowing. Being a church-goer, a famous bible study teacher, a prominent worship leader, or a pastor is no indication that one can’t fall into deception.
The fear of man is a snare for celebrity Christians in particular. It takes courage to go against the cultural grain, especially when one is in the spotlight. It is much easier to regurgitate the secular world’s talking points rather than preach the exclusivity of Christ as the way to the Father, personal responsibility for sin, and the destructive path our national sin has taken us.
“Take heed that no one deceives you,” Jesus warned in Matthew 24:4. Praying the Lord’s prayer regularly is good practice for every believer.
About five years ago, I’ll never forget, an elder in our church stood up with tears in his eyes. He testified of hearing during prayer before the service the Lord say, “I wish My people knew how close they had to stay with Me to avoid deception in these days.”
References:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/204982725-shepherds-for-sale
https://apnews.com/general-news-f5f603eab7723f2698d6d82c50dfe1f5
Michelle Lesley: An Open Letter
2 Comments
Good morning Emily on this rainy day again. 🙁
Thank you for your post and making me think.
A few thoughts I have after reading your latest post. Have you been to Israel? Reba and I were in in March of 2023. I am thankful we did it when we did. It was eye opening. After being there, My position on Israel is that its a complicated situation and that Israel is not all innocent and justified in what they do.
If you believe the US is being judged for its moral short comings and past rulings on abortion. I believe maybe you have to say the same thing about Israel. In my limited research I believe Israel has a much higher support for abortions than the US ever had. If you serve in the IDF. The Israel government will pay for them no questions asked.
After visiting the West Bank and staying there in Bethlehem. I said to a very educated Jewish Rabbi in Jerusalem who grew up in Canada. What is the difference between what is happening here with the West Bank and surrounding wall and what happened to Jews in Poland during WW2 in the Jewish Ghettos? In both situations people were oppressed and did not have the freedom to come and go. He didn’t give a satisfactory answer in my opinion. Side note. There are Christian Palestinians. Its complicated.
Could the invasion of Hamas in to Israel be a Judgement on them for their position on abortion and other un Godly things they do?? On that day there was evil going on on both sides. From my understanding, a Rave is an all night worldly music festival with lots of drugs, sex. alcohol, and debauchery and worship of things and symbols not of God. Certainly not God honoring and something we would want to send our children to. Sort of like what the Israel people did when Moses was called to the top of Mount Sinai. Just to be clear, I am certainly not accepting that what Hamas did was justified in any means. I think Hamas needs to be destroyed.
Within the last month, Israel has opened a Pandora’s box with the pager and walkie talky bombings. I believe that what happened with that is pretty much pure terrorism. It certainly was a modern day trojans horse and maybe justified in a war against Hezbollah. But it sure opened a can of worms. If any other country or terrorist in the world had done that against the US. The Us would more than likely be bombing them. If my six year old daughter was bringing me a beeping pager and it blew up killing her. I would want justice against the perpetrator. War is not fair. Its complicated. Do you trust your electronic device as you are reading this? It could very easy happen to the common civilian for any purpose from an evil person that wanted to create terrorism.
After witnessing the main faiths in Israel. I will have to say that the people are committed to what they believe. At least the Muslims and the Jews. The Muslim’s set aside Friday as their day of prayer and worship. Everything stops for the Muslims. On Saturday everything stops for the Jews. On Sundays the Christians go to church and nothing stops. I think we might be missing something in the current Christian culture.
May we not forget to stay close to Jesus and his teachings.
My current ramblings and thoughts this day.
Rudy
Rudy, it feels like the days of Noah for sure with this rain — I miss the sun but can’t complain 😉
Thanks for sharing those thoughts. What a trip you both had. I’m blown away by how much ground you covered in your time there. And, I’m pretty envious.
With your first statement, you said “If you believe the U.S. is being judged…” I’m not sure I do believe that – some believe that and I don’t necessarily disagree – but I never stated such here. So to be clear, I believe the Lord told me to pray for His righteous judgments on entities, systems, and operations, per my last blog. That is quite different than nations and individuals (the individual judgment I’ll be writing about in another blog. I did a Sunday message on this whole topic but too much info to squeeze into one or even two blogs. Thus, I’m breaking down here in a series).
I also stated that His judgments are His righteous interventions. This is something I think we can agree every believer should want.
Regarding the topic of Israel and the church’s response. You put your finger on some things that I think a lot of people struggle with. It’s a complicated pot. I remember when my pastor traveled to Israel, he enjoyed the trip but was dismayed at the atmosphere of thick agnosticism he encountered.
Interestingly, one year ago exactly, 9/11 kept coming to mind. I couldn’t figure out why as the date had come and gone already. But I found myself down a rabbit trail of the victims’ families and others who have called for investigation into conflicting reports and eyewitness accounts of what really happened that day, WTC 7 falling (and being called by news outlets around the world that it had fallen along with Towers 1 & 2 before it actually did), forensic questioning of how the towers fell like they did by engineering experts, and the whole question of how a plane managed to get that close to the Pentagon (and of course, no clear photos of it ever to be seen thereafter).
All that to say, within ten days of my starting to question the narrative we’ve always heard, October 7th happened and officials kept referring to it as “Israel’s 9/11.” And the same questions I’d had for our own government’s narrative now applied to Israel’s.
Don’t misunderstand, I don’t take any blame from Hamas for what happened. Nor can it be ignored that over 80% of the Palestinian people voted for Hamas in their previous election. And watching what civilians did (and what they encouraged their kids to do) as the hostages were rolled into Gaza was absolutely sick.
All that to say, there is more going on behind the scenes than what the news is showing. Our administration is also playing a game, and they’re acting solely in their own interests.
Concerning Israel, the church is commanded to pray for and bless Israel, and there are also clear biblical instructions concerning the land. The late Bible teacher Derek Prince has excellent teaching on Israel as God’s timepiece and the church’s response; I appreciate that he lived in Jerusalem (and was present during the Six-Day War) and Arabic was the language they spoke at home, although he was also a student of Hebrew. His teaching on the history of Israel, and what happened to nations and individuals that interfered with moving Israel’s boundaries since statehood, are fascinating. “God made a covenant with Israel,” he said in one teaching. “And God is in the business of keeping His covenant.”
I’m glad I don’t have to judge Israel based on its national sins. But as a Christian, I’m obligated to pray God brings about His purposes for the Jewish people as outlined in scripture. And it’s shocking how guilty the church has been down through the ages of not sharing Christ’s heart for His own brethren, and how we’ve hurt Him in this.
Also enlightening was a fact-based film we watched several years ago called Cast a Giant Shadow starring Kirk Douglas, about the formation of Israel as a nation. Almost immediately following the United Nations’ recognizing Israel’s statehood, they began caving and compromising. I’m sure you know that Israel is now only a fraction of the land size originally agreed upon, and that the term Palestinian wasn’t a thing until the last 100 years. (Palestine itself was a name given by the Romans to denigrate the Jewish people).
Namely, Palestinian was only a term after after the League of Nations awarded the Palestine Mandate to Britain in 1922. Arab attorney Auni Bey Abdul Hadi argued before an international commissary that “Palestine” was “not an Arab word.” Auni Bey insisted the correct name of the country was “Southern Syria.” “Palestine,” he argued, had no separate existence and was in fact part of Syria.
For the people today once known as South Syrians, now dubbed Palestinians, I can think of no greater evil that has been done to them than that by the hand of the United Nations. Did you know that the UN has established permanent refugee camps which include 1.5 million of them? Did you know that many of these camps are 75 years old? No one ever talks about this in the news media. I only discovered it from a missionary in the last five years. Nobody ever questions why, or how, this is allowed to happen. The media has also been radio silent about the top Hamas terrorist in Lebanon who was just killed, Sharif, was the head of UNRWA in Lebanon. Radio Silence.
If the terrorists you cited had the same regard for their own children that you do, I am sure the Middle East would look much differently. But when you receive accolades and cash for your children being cannon fodder, and comments on Al-Jazeerah and Middle East Eye news outlets praise the martyrdom of those running vehicles into pedestrians, I think Westerners should look deeper into whether these individuals share our values and principals, even concerning the sanctity of their own offspring.
Finally, what you wrote about commitment, I concur with 100%. I can still remember being a kid and stores being closed here on Sundays. Remember the Tropical Treat? That was a restaurant you could go to after Sunday service, but by and large, most restaurants and retail venues all closed. And even when I was in high school, we never had Sunday practices or games. Now, they hold them even Sunday mornings.
Thanks for your comments. I’m not sure I addressed them as well as I could while still trying to be succinct. I have a neat story to share with you. I’ll send via email.