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9-12-2021 Weekly Message

Meditation of the Week: Psalm 91:1-16

Text: Psalm 29:1-11

Word Title: Discern the Signs of the times!

         Jesus said to the mocking hypocrites who did not believe in him as well as God’s judgment:

“When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. 3And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times? ” (Matthew 16:2-3)

         They did not seek to understand the will of God by seeing the signs of the times, but only pursued visible signs that came down from heaven. At that time, Jesus rebuked them as an evil and adulterous generation saying unto  them to give only the sign of Jonah.  They needed most was the sign that God Himself who came down from heaven to die for their sins and rise again on the third day like Jonah. He spoke for them to need to believe in him to be saved. But they became to be blinded spiritually so that they could not understand at all and did not believe in Jesus, and they were unto destruction in hell.

         Jesus spoke of them who practice lawlessness  not preaching the gospel of Christ through the sign of Jonah, but try to show only visible signs:

” Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” (Matthew 7:22-23).

        The text given to us today is about the day when the prophesy of David  through Holy Ghost  will come when the powerful men in the world must give glory and power to the Lord giving him the glory worthy of his name, and worship the Lord with the beauty of holiness.  (Psalm 29:1-2)

        David prophesied of the signs of the times when it is to come:

” The voice of the LORD is upon the waters: the God of glory thundereth: the LORD is upon many waters.

4The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty.…. The voice of the LORD divideth the flames of fire. 8The voice of the LORD shaketh the wilderness; the LORD shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh.… The LORD sitteth upon the flood; yea, the LORD sitteth King for ever.” (Psalm 29:3. 4, 7, 8, 10)

      Given the unimaginable floods and pestilence that have struck many countries in the past two years, millions of people have lost their lives, and the reality that is still going on today. We should not think that these things happened by accident. These phenomena should not be viewed simply as extreme disasters.

        In the old days of Noah, when the world was judged with the flood, people saw too much rain in forty days and forty nights, and they must have thought as a   extremely bad weather, and did not pay any attention to the message of judgment delivered by Noah. Up to now, God has given warning messages to most countries as a taste, but none of the authorities in any country have said that it is the voice of God’s warning.

        The Bible testifies about the rain that fell forty days and forty nights during the flood that occurred in the days of Noah. But God gave the rainbow as a token of his promise that the final judgment would not be done by flood:

” And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.

11In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

12And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.…. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: 22All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, 23And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.

24And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.of all that was in the dry land, died.” (Genesis 7:10-12, 21-24).

        However, in the future, when the Lord Jesus Christ appears and judges the world at the end of the great tribulation, it has been foretold through the prophets that the LORD God will judge with fire, not flood. Therefore, seeing the recent disasters and realizing that it is God’s ultimatum asking to return to God. As Noah and his family entered the ark and were saved, in order to enter the body of Jesus Christ who died for the sin of the world. It is right time for all men to repent thoroughly for not believing in Jesus; and believing on him to be born again by the Holy Ghost to enter the kingdom of God in the body of Christ, which is greater than the ark.  

        If  not listening to the testimonies of the prophets who prophesied about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, who will soon appear to judge the world by fire, then shall be judged like Sodom and Gomorrah that were judged by brimstone fire that fell from heaven not by the flood.  

 “Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence, 2As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence! 3When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence.….

Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand; 2A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. 3A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them..” (Isaiah 64: 1-3, Joel 2:1-3)

      The prophet Habakkuk foretold that pestilence and fire would come first before Jesus Christ appear to judge the world :

“Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet.“(Hab. 3:5)

        God set Sodom and Gomorrah as an example by judging them with fire happening on the Lord’s day, the day of judgment by fire. At that time, the Bible says that only one man, Lot, was a righteous man and his soul was broken in spirit. Even in this day and age, it is sad to see just few people preach the gospel with their hearts broken looking at carnal Christians like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah who were judged:

“The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar. 24Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven; 25And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.” (Genesis 19:23-25).

        The Apostle Peter testified of a warning message, recalling the judgments of God in the days of Noah and the judgments of Sodom and Gomorrah:

“And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;

7And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: 8(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) 9The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:(2Peter 2:5-9)

         The Apostle Peter witnessed and testified of the scene in which God completely melting the heavens and the earth with fire before the end of the Millennium and before the new heavens and the new earth appeared, and before the eternal new world that God cleans the heavens and the earth finally for eternity. :

” But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. 11Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,

12Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? 13Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. 14Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.” (2 Peter 3:10-14).

Amen! Hallelujah!