It Was Only a Matter of Time!

Leviticus 26:3-4 - "If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them, then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit." 

I knew it was only a matter of time before I watched Glenn Beck, a conservative radio and television host and political commentator, and Perry Stone, a fourth generation minister, and hear the same messages. 

As I watched an episode of his program Manna-Fest, where Perry and his guest Bill Cloud were telling us that "If you keep My commands, I will bless you," I thought of Glenn Beck telling us how we need to have God back in our country. Their messages are the same...it's all about God. When will everyone understand this?

Just as Glenn discussed food shortages and the rise of prices, Perry and Bill discussed, from a more biblical point of view, what is happening to us and more importantly why. Both have discussed the lost art of canning foods. Perry's wife Pam is learning how to do this. Glenn posed the question, how can we assume we will never run out of food and has suggested stocking up...just in case.

Many see things happening from the world view. Many understand it from the world view, but I'll tell you when you hear it from a solid Bible-believing Christian who sees it from a biblical viewpoint, it can actually be less threatening because we who believe in Christ know that we have a hope in the midst of all the trouble. It doesn't take away all anxiety; it allows us to realize that nothing we go through on earth will take away what is waiting for us eternally. That's the only hope I can cling to. That hope is called Jesus.

Perry brought up how he believes, and I fully agree with him, that this country's Christian foundation changed back in the 60's with the removal of prayer, legalization of abortion and stopping the required draft. Okay, so we understand the prayer and abortion, but what about the draft? His belief is that without military training our younger men lost the discipline and respect for authority necessary in this world. I can see this.

How can these three things (only three?) have taken us to where we are now? These are all an affront to God. Taking Him out of daily lives, going against His belief that life is sacred and He is not to be our authority, we have gotten to that place where it's all about me...my desires, my wants. No authority will tell me what I will do. Our founding fathers believed in those three things. They believed God was sovereign, they called on Him daily in their lives and to them life was sacred.

Because our country has been a nation whose foundation was the Word of God we have been blessed. That blessing is slowly eroding because over the years we have taken God out of the picture. Am I repeating myself?? I think I mentioned yesterday how I noticed things changing back in the 80's. I guess I was off a few years.

God gives each of us an opportunity to know who He is and what He is capable of doing. Whether we make the choice to believe or not is up to us. Take that personal thought and apply it to our nation. We were given inalienable rights. We were given life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But we took them all too far. We decided life is a personal choice, not  a sacred one of God's. When did we decide to say God has no authority over my life, my body, my wants?

We were given liberty by our decision to begin a new life in a new land. That was looked upon for a long time as a great blessing. When did we start to believe it was time for a change? One that, again, posed the question, "what about me?"

The pursuit of happiness is something our founding fathers understood. They fought and worked for it. They strived (and some still do) to keep this country strong and resilient through hard work, not laziness. Nothing was just handed to them. When did we decide someone owes me something?

What happens when the foundational truths of God's word begin to erode? Is it God causing the problem? No, we are doing it to ourselves because we have chosen to push God aside for our own pleasures, our own ideas of what we think is right. That upsidedown thinking I've referred to. What suits us...what gives us pleasure...what we bow down to...and give no consideration to what God explicitly knows is best for us. If we abide in Him, He will abide in us...this goes for individuals and countries or a people.

Bill made this comment: This country was not founded by perfect men but these imperfect men founded this nation on perfect principles because those principles come directly from the Torah...the constitution as it was first ratified has a direct link back to the Torah of Moses. So when He tells Israel to keep My commandments the land you live in is going to prosper. In other words, if you bear the fruit (spiritual fruit) by doing what I say to do the physical land you live in will respond favorably...your fruit will grow, you'll thrive, you'll live in safety and security, you're enemies will leave you alone. Bill went on to say that if we do not do obey God's commands the opposite will happen.

He also pointed out how we are a nation that has always lent to other nations.  And where are we now? Look at our debt. Aren't we even near economic collapse? Will this nation's eyes open up and see before it's too late? We have students and teachers of the Word speaking the same things as Glenn Beck and both sides are being rejected. What do we need to understand this? When will people say, "Oh, maybe we need to adhere to God's principles and begin to fight again for our God-given rights for this country so we can survive."

This whole thing is nothing more than a spiritual issue, not political or social. If we still believed in the godly principles like our founding fathers somehow we would never have gotten ourselves where we are. We see inflation/deflation, crime, corruption and perhaps famine and more disease. It is believed that food prices will skyrocket shortly. Our land is not supplying our needs anymore. Why? Because we have ignored God. When the lives of trees, birds, fish or whatever is more important than the lives of unborn children, as only one example, we have lost our senses.

Beck has been talking about how prices of food will rise sharply just because of corn because it is in so many of our products. Amazing that Glenn and Perry (and Bill), people so far removed from each other, can see the signs that much of our country does not. I wish I could go into all the detail about bee colonies collapsing so fruit and nut trees (about one-third of our food supply) could potentially not be pollinated and how that will affect our produce and what we will have to put on our tables. Do we fully understand what this could mean?

When we see natural disasters combined with our own determination to control how we do things apart from God, we are courting disaster. If one part of our nation's reserves dry up we are all affected. My question, which has no answer is, will we be able to right ourselves or are we seeing the last days coming to, pardon the word, fruition? 

If we do not heed His commandments God will allow us to bring on ourselves the destruction. The consequences will be because of our acting in our own strength and not wisdom but foolishness. If we serve God, put Him at the head of our lives...individually and as a nation or world...believe that He is the Creator, and we take care, as we are told we should, of His creation (but not senselessly), He will not disappoint us in His provision. In other words, He knows just what creatures or plants or trees are important and need to continue to live so we can survive. When we start acting as God and meddle in and control of these things He will let us be.

God never changes. His word is true for yesterday, today and forever. How dare we go against the will of God? We have become so self-absorbed, so believing that we are God's gift to the world when there has only been one Gift given to us that we should accept and obey. I can think of the names of some people in this country who want no more than to play God and bring down the nation's of the world, perhaps even bring destruction of our food supply, in order to buckle our knees and throw us into a very well controlled one world government. God help us....

Even God's people will suffer in all this. Our rights and freedoms are taken away...publicly...but within we still possess this God, this Jesus, till death removes us from this place and plants us in a life eternal. Reminder:

Leviticus 26:14-17 - "But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments, and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant, I also will do this to you: I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. I will set My face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you.