Old Testament Reading: Psalm 24:1-10
New Testament Reading: Matthew 24:1-31
“How to Know when God has Abandoned a Nation”
Romans 1:18-32
Wayne J. Edwards, Pastor
If the globalists achieve the changes they have proposed for the next few years, while it was not without its challenges, 2023 could be the last year we enjoyed any level of normality.
- Prophetically, the world is on a fast track to the New World Order, with the events Jesus described in Matthew 24 now happening daily.
- After the rapture of the Church, the final prophetic events will be fulfilled in their proper order.
- The Time of Tribulation – with the arrival of the Antichrist, lawlessness will abound and wars will increase worldwide.
- The Great Tribulation – with the revealing of the Antichrist, the final wars against Israel will begin, which will include the martyrdom of Christians and Jews.
- The Return of Christ. Those who survive the Tribulation will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.
While the whole world is under God’s judgment today, God will soon pour out His eternal wrath upon those who refused to receive Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.
- However, the next event on God’s prophetic calendar is the rapture of the Church. God will soon send His Son to call His Bride to “come forth,” and that call could come today.
- “Since we have been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Him.” Romans 5:9
- “For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Thessalonians 5:9
- “Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole earth.” Revelation 3:10
Until then, Christians are engaged in a spiritual warfare like the world has never seen before.
- The immediate goal of the globalists’ is to bring about a one-world government over which they will rule and reign, and to achieve that goal, they must create a crisis severe enough to cause the independent nations of the world to yield their sovereignty and unite together for the good of the world.
- The ultimate goal of the globalists’ is to eradicate humanity as we exist today and to replace it with androgynous beings who are neither specifically feminine nor masculine” and have both male and female characteristics.
- Once we understand the “big picture,” we can recognize the reason behind the psychological conditioning, the biological tampering, and the cultural grooming to which we are being subjected,
- Over the last decade, the globalists have destroyed the very things that gave us strength, security, and the real meaning and purpose to life, including our faith in God, the love of family, and the freedom to pursue our personal dreams, because a mentally weak, spiritually immoral, emotionally unhealthy population will be more acceptable to the next stage of a post-human world.
- According to the Bible, we are at the end of this age prophetically.
- The few remaining prophetic events will occur after the rapture of the Church and end with the return of Jesus Christ to establish His kingdom upon this earth.
- According to the level of corruption, we are at the end of the age culturally.
- “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” Isaiah 5:20
- “Justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.” Isaiah 59:14
- According to the history books, we are at the end of the age morally, for no civilizations have survived beyond their acceptance of the sin of homosexuality.
- Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, were strong militarily, but weak morally, and like Sodom and Gomorrah, they imploded under the weight of the sins spawned by their acceptance of that sin which God called an abomination.
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The Wrath of God Revealed – Romans 1:18 – “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”
The theology of the contemporary church is that God is so loving that He will overlook our sins and allow everyone to go to heaven, even if they haven’t received Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.
- According to Matthew 25:31-46, those who received Christ as their Savior will inherit the kingdom God prepared for them, and those who refused to receive Christ as their Savior will go to that place of everlasting punishment God prepared for Satan and his angels.
- God’s wrath is the outpouring of God’s judgment upon those who refuse to respect the holiness of His character.
- At this moment, unbelievers are living under God’s eternal wrath, and all believers are living under God’s remedial wrath as He uses the hardships of life to draw us to Him.
There are five kinds of wrath illustrated in the Bible.
- Eternal Wrath – the final judgment for those who refuse to receive Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.
- Consequential Wrath – the consequences of bad choices.
- Calamitous Wrath – the intervening judgment of God on the whole world, such as the flood, or specific places in the world, Sodom and Gomorrah.
- Eschatological Wrath – the judgment of God upon the whole world during the last days – Revelation 6-19.
- The Wrath of Abandonment – God lifts His hand of protection and gives them over to that which has taken His place in their heart and lives.
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The Reason God’s Wrath is Being Revealed – Romans 1:18-23 – “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”
To suppress the truth in unrighteousness is to communicate anything less than a biblical view of God.
- God has revealed what He wants us to know about Himself through several sources:
- Natural or general revelation – the world in which we live, its creation and operation.
- Special revelation – the Bible, God’s infallible and inerrant Word.
- Historical and Glorious revelation – the Person and work of Jesus of Nazareth.
- When we fail to recognize that truth or do not act according to that truth, we suppress that truth from the next generation.
- The suppression of the truth about God has come through:
- The Public Education System – the Bible can no longer be used to support a biblical worldview. Less than ½ of 1 percent of today’s children have a biblical worldview.
- The Media and Entertainment Industry – their purpose is to fan the flames of man’s lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, promoting the devil’s lies about the nature and the needs of man, and how those needs are to be met.
- The Field of Science – teaching as “truth” that which cannot even pass the requirements of the scientific method.
- Those in charge of the culture – there is no truth in any area of our culture – advertising, news reporting, the operation of our government.
- However, according to 1 Timothy 3:15, God established the Church as the Pillar and Ground of truth. “I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.”
- The Bible says Christians are to communicate the gospel truth to the generations behind us.
- “Impress (these truths) upon your children.” Deuteronomy 6:7
- “We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, His power, and the wonders He has done.” Palm 78:4
- “From a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation.”
2 Timothy 3:15
- In John 14:6, Jesus said He was “the way, the TRUTH, and the life.” Therefore, those who receive Jesus Christ as their Savior and fully surrender unto Him as their Lord have embodied that truth.
- However, while Christians can know the truth, and believe the truth, unless we live according to that truth, we are not only living a lie, we are suppressing the truth from the next generation.
- The majority of today’s churches have not only stopped preaching about people’s sins, but they have also stopped preaching about God’s wrath – they are suppressing the truth, because they love to livEDEDEEDEDEe in unrighteousness.
“If you use carnal means to attract people to your church, you are going to have to use even greater carnal means to keep them in the church.”
Paul Washer
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The Results of God’s Wrath Revealed – Romans 1:24-32
When a person or a nation rejects God, the farther they run from Him, the less He intervenes in their lives. God allows them to enter into an ever-increasing darkness of depravity.
- God gives them up to that which is impure – Verse 24 – “God gave them up to uncleanness, in the lust of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves,”
- God created the body to be honored, not dishonored. He considers our bodies as temples of His Holy Spirit.
- While we are to care for our bodies, we are not to worship them, but we are to use our bodies to glory the God who created them in His image.
- God gives them up to that which is unnatural – Verse 26 – “God gave them up to vile passions.”
- Paul refers to homosexuality as a sinful activity that produces its own penalty, a disease that affects the future health of the physical body, but also of the soul, for rather than producing the happiness it portrays, homosexuality creates a spiritual and emotional emptiness that leads to depression and often to death.
- God gives them up to that which is dishonorable – Verse 28 – “God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting.”
- The Greek word Paul used here for “debased” can also be translated “depraved” or “reprobate” – a mind that thinks only of evil constantly.
God has abandoned the Western Civilization because the majority of the people, including many who claim to be born-again Christians, are taking pleasure in unrighteousness on a scale we have not seen since the days of Rome, Greece, and the cities of Sodom, and Gomorrah. To say we are believers, and then to live like unbelievers, is to suppress the truth from those who are lost and need a Savior.
“The lost enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded and are therefore self-enslaved.”
C.S. Lewis
