Showers of blessings,
Showers of blessings we need;
Mercy drops round us are falling,
But for the showers we plead.
This is a critical time in the history of mankind both secular and ecclesiastical and we the people of God greatly need the showers that God is even now sending upon us. All people who can read and hear, even they whose only means of communication is via Braille or sign language, can feel the tension building up all over the world. You don't have to be a Bible scholar or one who is versed in world history; you can feel the ominous, faint crackling of the electric forces that often precede the awesome crescendo strike of a lightning bolt followed by the booming thunder reminding us that God is still God.
We are at a most critical time in the history of mankind; we are at a most pivotal juncture in the annals of the worldwide Church. If you are alert, you can’t fail to sense the figurative popping and crackling as the static electricity builds up in the air around us. It presages a series of electric happenings that will seriously impact the life of every saint and sinner on this doomed planet.
Obviously this is not the time to get discouraged by the natural and spiritual dangers all around us. God needs us to be witnesses to the sinners who are on our right hand and on the left, some of whom are as ignorant of God’s will as they were the day they were born. We are required to tell these sinners what they must do to be saved. God wants us to be like the prophet Elijah on Mt. Carmel (1 Ki. 18.19-39), but NOT like the same prophet a day later when a blustering woman scared him out of his wits (1 Ki. 19.1-4).
Some Bible commentators opine that if Elijah had stayed at his post right there in Northern Israel, he would have been an inspiration to the people who heard of his heroic actions on Mt. Carmel. It is possible there would have been a general turning back to Jehovah at that time. But no; Elijah ran for his life, trying to escape the dire threats of a woman who breathed in her life’s breath one breath at a time and whose heartbeat was only as God gave it to her.
God is looking for witnesses who will stand firm in their oral and life testimony in the midst of growing antagonism to all things godly on every side. God is not going to come to earth again to plead with sinners to turn to Him; He came once and was cruelly rejected. Now He is counting on you and me to live and to speak the Gospel under the inspiration and direction of the Holy Spirit.
We can’t have the world’s pleasures and the approval of God at the same time. We can’t send forth fresh water and bitter at once. Clearly it’s time for each individual believer to determine whom he will follow, Jesus or the world. The time for fence straddling is past. Someone will go to heaven with the help of your life and/or oral testimony; someone will go to hell by the lack thereof. Will you now default and have the blood of others on your hands or will you rise to the occasion and give your word of testimony to the Gospel of Christ? And, above all, will you let the life of Jesus shine through you as a continual affirmation of the oral testimony you give?
Comments