Saturday, September 13, 2014

THESE ARE NOT NORMAL TIMES

To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: Ecclesiastes 3:1
In peaceful times only unbalanced people will be obsessed with disasters. 

  • There are people who cannot be happy without extreme drama. There are fire fighters who start fires to create excitement and pose as heroes.

The Old Testament prophets warned Israel and Judah about their sins. They warned of disaster to come if they did not repent. 


  • They were ridiculed as mad trouble makers but they were right.

In the 1930's Winston Churchill was warning Britain of the threat from Nazi Germany. He urged Britain to prepare for war. 


  • It was not long before he was proved right but for several years he was seen as a dangerous extremist. 

The Prime Minister of Britain from 1937 to 1940 was Neville Chamberlain, a religious idealist who believed in human goodness. 


  • He was a man of peace who believed he could keep peace with Hitler by diplomacy. 
  • The doctrine of Neville Chamberlain from 1937 to 1939 was “land for peace”. It didn’t work.

When Chamberlain was finally forced to declare war in 1939, Britain was not prepared and Hitler succeeded in conquering most of Europe. Britain came dangerously close to defeat.

Events proved Churchill right and in May 1940 Winston Churchill became the Prime Minister of Britain, the leader of the British Empire and the champion Christian civilization’s resistance against the evil coming from Berlin.

Business as usual can be a good policy in peaceful times but a very dangerous policy in an emergency.
  • We must be ready to respond urgently in a crisis. Like Winston Churchill we must  recognise emergencies before it is too late.

It is very good to learn from history but we must also live in the present, not in the past.


  • There are some people who still see Germany as a bad nation and a potential enemy. This is quite wrong and very unjust! The enemy today is not Germany. 
  • The Nazi spirit is alive and menacingly powerful in militant Islam, not only in Iraq and Afghanistan but in fanatical groups in Europe and America. 

But the enemy is not only fanatical Islam. 

The enemy is also in our own society, in the decline of our own culture, in the indifference to the love and truth of God all around us and sometimes in our own hearts. 

These are not normal times. Moral corruption and extreme violence are increasing alarmingly around the world. 


  • The news is full of terrorism, random brutality and civil wars. 
  • It seems strange that so many people today do not believe in a real personal devil, the Prince of Darkness and his legions of demons. 
  • Your Muslim neighbours are not the enemy but rather the spirits of darkness.

As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

  • For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 
  • and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. 
  • That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Matthew 24:37-39 (NIV)

In the book of Genesis, the days or Noah are described rather differently.

The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. Genesis 6:11-12 (NKJV) 

We see the same opposite trends in today’s world. We see horrific crisis and complacent business as usual. 

Will you listen to the voice of Jesus?
  • Will you hear the urgent call of His Spirit and enter into His presence, so He can use us as His messengers.

And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.
  • But he who endures to the end shall be saved. 

  • And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. Matthew 24:12-14 (NKJV) 


HOW DOES GOD FEEL?

If you are a mother or a father with a heart for your children, you know what it means to be vulnerable. 

  • When your children suffer, you suffer. 
  • If your son or daughter has ever run away from home, been addicted to drugs or gone missing, you know what anguish can be. 


Jesus is respected by millions around the world as a great teacher and prophet but this is not what Jesus said.

Jesus said he was sent by Father God to show us what our heavenly Father is like. 

God is not a remote creator and judge, as Mohammed taught. Mohammed taught Allah is NOT a father and Allah has no son and no children. The Qur’an pronounces a curse on all who believe Jesus is the Son of God.

Jesus taught something quite different.

Jesus prayed to God as his Father.

After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: "Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.
  • For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.
  • Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. John 17:1-3 (NIV) 

The ancient Greeks, like the Hindus of today, believed in many gods. Like the ancient Greeks, Hindus believe some of these gods have visited the earth in human form.

But Jesus was different. 

He was born as a human baby but claimed to be the only son of the one and only supreme God.

No one has ever seen God. But the one and only Son is himself God and is near to the Father’s heart. 

He has revealed God to us. John 1:18 (NLT) 

Only Jesus revealed God as the supreme creator who is also a supremely loving Father.

... the Father himself loves you dearly because you love me and believe that I came from God. John 16:27 (NLT) 

The Father in Heaven gave his only son to reveal his love and truth to his lost children, including you and me.

Jesus always acted with love and compassion for suffering men and women.

The Apostle Peter summed up the practical love of Jesus in these few words.

You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. 

 You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached-- 

 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him. Acts 10:36-38 (NIV)

If you are a heartbroken mother or father, God understands your pain because it is also His pain. 

  • He wants you to know Him as your Father who also loves your children. 

If you are a young person abandoned by your parents or a wife rejected by your husband, God wants you to know He watched His son Jesus dying in agony on the cross, a victim of cruel religious leaders.

God is not the supreme puppet master who determines everything. 

  • He has given you and me freedom to choose. 
  • That is why this world is a mess, because of the bad choices of  men and women, including you and me.

You must choose what to believe and who to trust. 


  • Will you decide to trust in the Father in Heaven who loves you enough to sacrifice His only Son Jesus for you?

Jesus suffered and died on the cross but he did not stay dead.Three days later he returned from the grave. Death could not defeat the eternal Son of God.

"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;
  • and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" John 11:25-26 (NIV)