I Wonder Why? Part III

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world. I John 2:15,16

    This three part Message is meant to open the eyes of those who will take a hard look into why all of these catastrophic events and terrible plaques are coming against the American people and to observe the consequences of our behavior against a holy God that "We the People" have deeply offended by our Devotion to the world! Christianity is not trying to be, or should I say, look good, by attending a church on Sunday and doing your own thing all during the week. It would be like spending one hour a week with your spouse and then telling them that you will have to go spend time with all of your other lovers, but will see them again next Sunday for an hour!

    Say it ain't so, but it is, most Americans, yes, even so-called church folks love many other things rather than God. The New Testament commands given by the Lord Jesus Himself state that the greatest of all is to love God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love everybody else as you would yourself. Well, as Dirty Harry would say, "Do ya?" Of course we say we do, we even in most cases want to love God, but lets be honest, we don't because that takes a lot of effort on our part and besides there are so many other things that demand our attention! Lets face it, the world has a lot to offer, riches and pleasures of all kinds: TV, Internet, games and anything imaginable to fuel our inward lust and desire for everything our little hearts desire, that is except God. After all, God has changed, He isn't the Hell, fire and brimstone God of the Old Testament anymore, throwing lightning bolts and destroying His own people just for grumbling and complaining, He's a loving Father who enables us to do anything we want because we are under grace and not law, right, no! Very wrong!

    Imagine coming home from a long day at the office and walking into your bedroom and seeing your beloved spouse having sex with your best friend and enjoying it immensely as you gaze upon their erotic behavior, they unaware that you are watching continue their adulteress affair without a thought of how it will effect you! Now take a moment and feel the emotion that you would feel and the thoughts that would flood your mind if this would have happened to you and what you would do to them as they defile your bed with sexual pleasure for one another. It happens everyday, wives, husbands, lovers, commit murder, being enraged by the adulterous affairs of their spouses, the stuff that books and movies are made of, and then think how God feels when we do the same! As the scripture says in Hebrews: "It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God!"

    Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity (ill will and mutual hatred) with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. James 4:4

I WONDER WHY GOD IS NOT IN MY LIFE?

    Because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out My hand and no one regarded, because you disdained (despised) all My counsel, and would have none of My rebuke, I will also laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your terror comes, when your terror comes like a storm, and your destruction comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. Proverbs 1:24-27

    As the late Keith Green used to say, "Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to McDonald's makes you a hamburger!" So true, many attend to ease their guilt, think they are pleasing God because they went, meet and greet friends, or maybe the music and the Starbucks coffee is good, none the less just attending with a half-hearted attitude will avail you absolutely nothing from a holy God who demands all of your heart and Devotion!

    We have been so deceived into believing that attending can somehow make us "Christians" and if we can just make an appearance on Sunday, God will be pleased so that we can do anything we want without Him all week! Brother, we missed you last Sunday, sure you did, if you really missed me you would have called to check on me, what you really missed was counting me present so you could boast about your numbers. Give me a break! Lets be honest, God is not in your life because you are not in His. True? Think about it, how much time do you spend with Him on a daily basis, five minutes on the way to work listening to some sermonette to make you feel better about you spiritual condition, pray only when something bad happens, read your Bible once a year? How much money do you give Him, does He have control of your finances or do you only give to be seen by others?

    The truth of the matter is this: you just don't have time for God, after all its a busy life with the job and kids and so much to do, why just making it to church on Sunday is all we can possibly do. God understands doesn't He? Yes, perfectly well, and that's the main reason He is not in your life because you love your life more than Him and the riches and pleasures of this world appeal to you more than the riches and treasures of Heaven! If God doesn't have all of your heart, then who or what does? You have answered your own question, the reason for all the Hell on earth is because we have left our first and only love and gone a whoring for the lusts and pleasures of the world rather than devoting our lives and hearts to Him who gave His life for us!

    "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. "For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. "For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his soul?" Luke 9:23-25

WHAT SHALL WE DO?

    "When I shut up Heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land." II Chronicles 7:13,14

    Solomon was dedicating the temple to the Lord and he prayed that when God brought adversity upon His people that if they would repent of their wickedness He would forgive them and restore what was destroyed because of their disobedience. In this much quoted, but I am afraid for the most part just mouthed with a half-hearted confession, God is not looking for us to just confess, He is wanting a complete and thorough turn about by the repentance of His people!

    Repentance means to change your mind, your direction and to stop doing what is displeasing to the Lord. For instance, take abortion, the murder of fifty million innocent children! To just say, we are sorry is a gross mistake in the eyes of a holy God who holds us, the people of God responsible for this great slaughter of the un-born. What the people of God have done in America by letting this travesty of justice continue makes Hitler look like Ned in the first reader and yet we rail against the unjust acts of the Nazi's against the Jews! We the people have done this, not the abortionist, not the women who made the decision to kill their babies, not even the government, but the people of God! How you say? By not preaching the true gospel of Jesus Christ to an ungodly nation of ignorant sinners has allowed this nation to totally disregard the words and commands of a holy God deeply offended by our actions. The government does not set the standard for morality, the church does, but because we have become silent, the wrath of God has descended on us all who refused to repent!

    You don't have to wonder why any longer, all you have to do is open your eyes and your heart to what is happening around you and realize the consequences of the actions of the people of God and repent of being silent against sin by not telling the truth of God's word to a people who are perishing daily and falling headlong into the fires of Hell! Our politeness and political correctness is a stench in God's nostrils and our ridiculous blaming of the government for all of our woes is absurdly foolish when it is our responsibility to warn the wicked from his wicked ways and to proclaim the consequences of the "Day of the Lord," God's justice in the sight of an ungodly people! Voting will not change a nation who has defected from a holy God, it's too late, only by truly repenting of our sins and rebellion and by praying and fasting for God to relent from the total destruction of this country will change the hearts of the wicked and ultimately heal our land!

    "Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house? (the house of God) "Then they will answer, 'Because they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods and worshipped them and served them; therefore He has brought all this calmity on them.' " II Chronicles 7:21,22

Your servant in Christ, Timothy Laughlin
  Minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ