God is Shaking Foundations

God gave me a vision a few months ago. I saw the world through His eyes. I saw all peoples from all nations. There were soccer moms herding kids, Wall Street Investors in power meetings, Masai herdsmen with sticks walking parched ground, orphans in Asia, farmers on tractors, teachers, sports stars in training, laborers in the fields, on and on. One thing struck me - none of them were truly taking time to seek God, pray, interceed, read His Word.
Then the Holy Spirit began to nudge me. "The people in this world that truly are seeking me and know my voice are very few. In light of the whole world's population, my bride is a very small group."
I was burdened and grieved by this. I was thankful that I felt that I was one of the few on my knees in prayer, but I have been in the other crowd much of my life. Busy with job, career, raising a family, paying bills and too busy to spend time with my saviour. I have flirted with sin and had my share of vices in life I have had to lay at the foot of the cross.

God is speaking to His church. There are those that are listening to His voice and reading His Word, finding agreement between the two and what others in the Body of Christ are saying. There is a global continuity coming from watchmen, intercessors, prophets, worship leaders and pastors.With blogs, podcasts and websites we can access a global community instantaneously. (I have listed many I read on my sidebar that I feel are safe and can be trusted to be from the Lord.) With a prayerful and discerning ear, we can hear what God is saying to us. The word is good or bad news depending on how you want to look at it.

The Bad News:
God is beginning to bring judgement down on the earth, but especially right now to the "Christian nations" that have progressively gone astray, turning their hearts and minds to materialism, sliding morality, pornography, the killing of the unborn, making excuses to justify a selfish and busy life that has no place for God in it. Sadly, this is the state of the church as well in many of these countries. There is a feel-good, positive thinking, "God - wants - me -to - succeed" type of teaching that takes us away from the cross and a hunger and thirst after righteousness. It allows us to create outreach and church planting ministries that have a goal to bring in numbers of people that never move past the baby-Christian walk. Our "Body" has many members that are worn out, in-debt, busy people, doing the social church scene but denying a life of true intimacy and fellowship with God.

Isaiah 1
This morning I was given Isaiah 1 by the Holy Spirit to read and hear what God might be saying through it:
"Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: "Sons I have reared and brought up have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master's crib; but Israel does not know, my people does not understand."
Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged.
Why will you still be smitten, that you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and bleeding wounds; they are not pressed out, or bound up, or softened with oil.
Your country lies desolate, your cities are burned with fire; in your very presence aliens devour your land (think of the debt we owe our allied nations now!) it is desolate as overthrown by aliens."
Isaiah 1: 1-8
Revised Standard Version

I would encourage you to read the rest of the chapter because no one reading it can deny that the passage is addressing God's people, not the heathen nations. It goes on to discuss vain offerings and trampling His courts, having unclean hearts, hands full of blood, evil doings, rebelling, companions of thieves, running after gifts and bribes. God calls to wash ourselves, get clean before Him, remove our evil ways, cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, defend the fatherless and plead for the widow.

Repent and get right with God:
God says in Isaiah 1: 18 -20:
"Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken."

You might say, "Yeah, yeah. that isn't me, that is for all those really bad people. I am good. I go to church, I accepted Jesus a long time ago. I am "safe". I will challenge you with this: Do you have a passion to be in the presence of God more than ANYTHING else in your life? Do you get on your face and repent and ask for mercy, keeping short accounts with Him daily? Do you truly grieve and feel separation from God when you deliberately choose to sin? Do you spend time reading His word because it is food for your soul - not because it is something you should do out of discipline that is a chore and an inconvenience?
I could go on with many more questions. Let me make something clear. I am NOT saying that if you are not living in close relationship with God that you will be condemned and go to hell. No man can judge another and say that - what I am saying is that if your walk with God is only superficial and you really have no initimacy with Him, when hard times of judgement fall on our nation, you will not be able to survive. You will not be under the shelter of His wing.

I would urge you, brethren, to spend some time with God in a private place of prayer where you can pour out your heart to Him, allowing the Holy Spirit to bring to you the areas that need to be surrendered. Repent of the choices you have made, the things that have stolen you away from your first love.
Make no mistake about it. If we are not tethered to God, our foundation, Jesus Christ our rock, when the winds of judgement begin to blow and the foundations begin to shake, we will be swept away and lost.


The Good News:
I could start sharing specific examples of what is going on in our nation that shows a hand of judgement going on already. Maybe some of you are unemployed, risking losing your home or car, not knowing where you will go or how you will eat when the unemployemnt benefits run out. For you, it feels like God has already started to act. Well, you are right! But he wants to shake YOUR foundations in order to draw you to Himself. He wants to purify your heart and bring you through a sifting and purging so that you might truly become part of the Bride of Christ. Not everyone that is in the church right now will ultimately be a part of the Bride. Remember the parable of the virgins and the lamps and oil? Some were ready and some were not.
Know that what you are going through can be the catalyst to draw you back to that place where you will find true peace and even joy in spite of tribulation.

Don't let God's shaking catch you unaware. Repent, seek God and draw close to Him. He is calling out to you even now.

In Christ our Lord,

Lon