Brother Paul
Advanced Member
Member # 7959
|
posted
First, let us look at some of the degenerating conditions of the once godly nation of Israel, in ancient times, just before it’s demise, and maybe we can see and hear, and then hopefully learn? But alas, even though History has oft repeated itself, my guess however is that the wisdom of historical experience as a compass falls on blind eyes. The warning of the watchmen on the wall falls on deaf ears. If you are reading this, you are probably not one of the people who need to! So please copy it and pass it on to others even it draws ridicule from them…you know not how God may use it you to save a few! Now then, as far as ancient Israel was concerned:
a)Their Kings and other leaders in their Capital cities had become idolatrous, and greedy for wealth and/or power. Many were liars,adulterers, cheaters, and filled only with their own self-interest, and political agendas. They didn’t really care about what their people really wanted or stood for, but by persuasion and power they imposed their ways as the right way! In order to save their wealth and positions they compromised with the adversaries. As for the way they treated the people, might makes right, and survival of the fittest, ruled the land. As for their sworn enemies, compromise, diplomacy, and concession led them to eventual demise. Not only did they make excuses for their perversity and sin, but they would even boast of it, and make a joke out of it, persecuting and caricaturizing all those who spoke out against them as bigoted, old fashioned, or even insane! Hmmm!
b)Local civic leaders as well were failing to be concerned for godliness in their administrations and responsibilities, and subtly taking advantage of the less fortunate and the ignorant at every turn, using their positions again for their political agenda, and their own selfish monetary and political gain. Most were filled with crooked purposes and disguised intentions. Hmmm!
c)The religious leaders no longer reflected genuine godliness in their behavior, or in the values that they demonstrated behaviorally, but they themselves, slowly but surely, became filled with perversion and greed. They also were hypocrites, espousing what they themselves no longer believed in or practiced, in order to influence and control the masses. They likewise had among their ranks many who were liars, cheats, sodomites, adulterers, thieves, and so on! The regular persons of the flock, in awe of the alleged authority of the priests and leaders socio-political authority alone, ended up getting used in sometimes very evil ways. Finally, they would often lead the people of the Lord to worship any god other than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They had gotten away with their sin for so long they no longer believed in consequence. Hmmm!
d)Personal gain and self-interest agendas competed in the market place, taking precedence over the common good. The false prophets of profit preached what the degenerating, demoralized masses wanted to hear, and gave them what they wanted for a price. Hmmm!
e)Social injustices widely prevailed for the poor, the single or widowed women and men, the homeless, the orphans, and for anyone who didn’t comply with the program, especially if you were ethnically different. Hmmm!
f)The idea of actual Holiness (being set apart by or for God or the Sacred), was becoming a totally foreign and outmoded concept, save as a means of population control. Real contrition of spirit was lacking, and was acted outwardly in ritual only by the professional priesthood. On the streets, the masses often lacked true compassion and gratitude for one another, and were blinded to the tolerant patience of their loving God, mistaking it for His non-existence, insignificance, or permission. Hmmm!
g)The scriptures make clear that each person was going their own way, living totally by situational ethics. Morals were becoming dictated by the pleasure/unpleasure scale and varied circumstantially, from moment to moment, as carnal impulses ruled more and more supreme in the hearts of men. Women, children, and the needs of the poor, were more and more ignored. Hmmm!
h)The people everywhere were becoming Idolatrous. Cultic mysticism’s appeal had taken hold in the general populace. Goddess worship was becoming the acceptable norm. 1,000’s were flocking to mediums, and the witch’s craft, for ‘Self’ was becoming the god of the day, personal control was an illusion where there was growing unrest because of the conflict of the growing number of Self-gods. Personal power, rationalization, lots of self-exaltation, and immediate satiation were hungered for incessantly.
i)The Nation was in a state of continuous political unrest and competition between manipulative and opposing factions. The Political leadership spent exuberant amounts of wealth wastefully on their own bellies, their attire, drunkin’ orgies, and political compromises while many of the masses were under-employed and in debt up to the top of their heads. Everyone scrambled to make a living sometimes unlawfully.
j)The people of faith, even though they actually did nothing unlawful, because they spoke the truth, or spoke out about God, or shined the light on injustice, were scorned, mocked, jeered at, persecuted, beaten, thrown in jail, or even killed. The good was made to seem evil, and the evil appeared to be the good!
k)The Nation of Israel had many enemies waiting to pounce on them, as their party spirit kept them numbed, subdued, and lulled into a sense of false security and false prosperity with invasive State controls.
l)Social Prophets were ever preaching peace, but it was a false peace, there was no real peace, not then, nor soon to come. Leaders and prophets who exposed the falsehood of the peace, and preached of the eminent dangers, were labeled as doom-sayers, and trouble makers!
m)Religiously, the Orthodox and Mainstream sects were all falling away into gross apostasy, and slowly turning on the God who is, to gods that are not, that could neither see nor hear.
n)Bribery, a non-moral lifestyle, and the maltreatment of others, had become part of the expected norm in and out of “the System“ that ruled in that day.
o)Outbreaks of violence and bloodshed were evermore commonplace, and everywhere you would hear of bands of people, young and old, beating and robbing people, and being drunk and carousing well into the wee hours of the morning, on a daily basis. Fornication, adultery, sodomy, pedophilia, were widely accepted as normative.
p)There was little value to faithfulness, for the love of many had waxed cold. People had become trucebreakers, pride filled, haughty, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Some of them having no mercy, rejecting any knowledge of God, lawlessly practicing deceit, to undermine and even hurt the followers of God!
q)Help for the needy was minimized from the private sector to almost nothing, yet they all justified themselves making rational excuses. The struggling masses barely lived an adequate existence. Taxes were too high, people were working multiple jobs, and children lent out as bondservants to assure their survival were often abused.
r)The poor and disenfranchised were eating swill, and sometimes forced into homelessness, sleeping on the ground, while the leaders drove around on fancy steeds, and serviced their parties with the fatted calf and vats of wine paid for by over taxation and vexation of the poor, and their exuberant tariffs on trade going in and out of the country filled the coffers of the rich.
s)Prices everywhere were skyrocketing, profits were unjustly measured, and interest was unbearable. People had already hocked all they owned. They were in debt beyond the ability to ever pay.
t)If one person could take advantage of another to get ahead, they would do so without hesitation - and then they would boast of it proudly – as if it were expected of them.
Yet overall, for the merchants and leadership, it was a time of partying, creature comforts, leisure, games, and other fleshly pursuits…
Now doesn’t this remind you of the growing State of the Nation here in the U.S.A.? Amen? At that time the children of Israel and Judah were described as spiritually blind and deaf, for they saw not that they were in the grace of a merciful God, who alone was holding back the rushing tides of hell on earth that would be required to bring them back, and God, though loving and merciful, will not be mocked, for He is also Holy and Just, and would surely come with His recompense.
Soon he would lift His protective hedge, and a torrent of unprecedented evil would rush in upon them, and captivate them in torrential confusion and misery. But would they hear? I’m afraid history reveals they would not. It got so bad that the Lord told the prophets not to even pray for them for their many chances had finally run out.
Will we here in America hear today the call of the watchman? Would you just go and read this history for yourself, and look and see if the things I’m describing then were not just as I have implied?
When you do, will you then open your eyes, and see that today, here in this country, things are very similar. Are we in danger of a devastating judgment! If the Lord were to judge us in this fashion, would He be unjust in that Judgment? I think not! A just judgment and a fierce recompense, but alas, who has believed our report?
Oh Holy and Merciful Lord, maker and sustainer of all that is, forgive us our sins, both personal and national, in the Name of Y’shua I ask it, and look upon us in your mercy, and have pity on us, and cause your people to seriously turn to you.
Pray for our enemies that they would change their hearts and minds and turn them from us. Help us to pray for our leaders that we may have shalom.
Draw us to you once again Lord I pray, convict us by your Holy Spirit unto a sincere contrition, and repentance, that we may be spared the lesson of our predecessors, and Lord, lead your people here and the world over into humility. Cause us to turn to you, and seek your face with fasting and prayer…in the Name of Y’shua I ask it….Amen, and Amen! Maranatha!
Posts: 235 | From: Cambridge, MA | Registered: Dec 2009
| IP: Logged | 
|
Printer-friendly view of this topic
