Posted by Josef Larsson on 12/30/2001, 8:59 pm

The imminent war (part 1) Posted by Josef Larsson on 11/17/2001, 8:59 am Every day that I live I realize more and more how sleepy we as a nation have become. Sometimes it is very hard to imagine that our lives will ever dramatically change. This is hard for any generation who has not seen massive changes in their lives before. Judah just couldn’t see how God would allow “the apple of his eye” to be destroyed. They persecuted Jeremiah because of this and called his prophesies nonsense. But the day came when Jerusalem was laid siege to and many thousands were carried away, even to Babylon! We might think in our Christian minds “why couldn’t they just see it, even after they saw this?” “surely if I lived back then, I would have repented and changed”. God has spoken through his watchmen for many years about the demise of America. God has said about the churches that they “honor man” and “serve a god of money”. Most other preachers seem to discount these watchmen, because they don’t in general believe it. Probably because it is hard to. We are so used to pulling up to Safeway and having 20 different cheeses to chose from. We are so used to being able to freely come together and love and worship God. We are so used to surfing through our 100+ channels in search of “a good show”. However, if we can pull our souls and minds away from the powerful slumber that the spirit of this age would have us in, we would see how blind, naked and wretched we are as a nation, perhaps even as Christians. Most of us remember, from the teaching that we once received, that there WILL be a world government. It is clearly shown in scripture. This cannot happen unless the US, in its current form, falls very low. However, the powers that be, cannot simply destroy the US today at will because it will not happen until God allows it. And I am absolutely convinced that God will allow this because of what America has become. We are far from the revolution days when God intervened numerous times in the struggle with England. I want you to know that I do not say these things flippantly. I say them with great trembling. Consider for a moment, the penetration of Hollywood. Hollywood has taught the American youth to kill, curse, mock authority, to be hateful, haughty, unable to be corrected, lazy, lousy, uneducated, followers of demonic fashions and on and on it goes. This is hardly the behavior of a city on a hill, separated to God. As a matter of fact Christianity is being persecuted and alienated throughout this country while all other religions are allowed. This is astounding! What about the church? The church has varying degrees of love for Jesus. They attend services and, in general, have some morals. They have some phileo for Jesus. They pray, usually when there is a need in their life or they are genuinely scared about something. But Peter had phileo for Jesus. He was willing to die for him, he thought but he realized that he did not agape his Lord yet. Some churches are preaching that Godliness has very much to do with financial gain. Some refuse to embrace God’s second anti-typical feast, Pentecost. Others will attend a church until they get upset at someone else, or the pastor or they don’t like some decision that was made. I believe that we, as a church in America, are in deplorable shape! Some people would respond “this is an extremely harsh statement and a wrong blanket judgement against people whom God loves, there are millions who love God in this great country, you are just all about doom and gloom...” I have wavered in this camp myself at times, but now I realize that what America needs in this hour is not a bunch of sugar-coated jelly beans but instead some humble pie and some “bread of affliction”. We need to remember who God is. He is a just God and a righteous God. And he DOES judge, even his own people. I want you to know that I’m writing this as much for myself as for anyone else. We desperately need sobriety. Desperately, desperately, desperately! This great nation could be transformed in one day. It’s economy could crumble and our way of life that we have enjoyed for 50 years could disappear forever in ONE day! If someone doesn’t believe this, first go and read in the Bible about Babylon, then go and take a course in macro-economics, and then ponder upon this excerpt from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first inaugural address: So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. then ponder about how absolutely defenseless we are against terrorism. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that Afghanistan is the end of it! It is just the tip of the iceberg! AND terrorism is not the only threat, there are several nations with nuclear arsenals that could easily take hostile stance towards the US. In the end the truth is: Ps 127:1 1 Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. (NIV) We are simply and utterly defenseless without God in this country. That is the bottom line. All the things above are natural phenomenon that can be observed with our senses. However, as we know but forget at times, the real issues are taking place in the spiritual realm. That is where the real battle is going on. America has not had war on its soil since the Civil War but the spiritual battle has been raging ever since the “Mayflower” arrived. This war is getting more intense all the time. In America it is still lying slightly hidden under a surface of social policies, political correctness etc. But in many other countries Christians are getting slaughtered, tortured and hunted. Of course this is not important enough for any of the major networks to mention. Part of our weakness as a church comes from that fact that we fail to live our lives day to day as though we are in a spiritual war. But there are demons assigned to us. They are trying as hard as they can to ultimately rob our salvation from us. And we do know that they will succeed with one out of every three of us! And then with roughly one half of the people who do not make the rapture! If you are in a war, you are very careful. You crawl up every hill, you run for cover when you think the enemy is approaching etc. In this spiritual war, we need to apply the principles that were taught by Paul: take every thought into captivity, think on only these things pure, lovely etc, try the spirits! My belief for this hour is that we do not need to hear about “Power of Pride” (of America), “United we Stand” (behind what? a nation that has rejected God?). Instead we need to weep and repent as a nation and as Christians for allowing ourselves to get so sleepy. There is a huge spirit of complacency in the church in America. If you read this post and have feelings like “oh that’s a bunch of scare tactics, doom and gloom....he is wrong, American Christians are much stronger than Christians in other countries because they don’t really need God as much because they have everything so they really have to be strong to withstand.....” or you feel any anger about these words that I have said. Take that thought into captivity and ask yourself if there is anything scripturally wrong with what I’ve said. This is a spiritual warfare, remember? Demons are extremely real. (If anyone chuckles at this, they are spiritually blind and don’t realize that they are in a warfare). The Devil wants to make us think that demons are not that active and all that stuff at the chapel went way overboard etc. This is part of the general sleepiness. We need sobriety. We need to shape up. Please take these words to heart. I’m writing this for myself too. I need to be sober, there is one whom I should fear! He is the one who can take both my body and soul and throw them into the lake of fire! Our salvation must be worked out with fear and trembling. We should pray every day that we can escape all these things and stand before the Son of Man! This is not a post to simply read and then forget 30 seconds later. God is speaking to this nation through men of God like David Wilkerson. God is not mocked. This is a matter of life and death in the spirit and the spirit of the age has a powerful sleep on Christians. Does anyone remember the tract at the chapel where a man was running out of a theater because there was a fire but everyone else just kept watching laughing and eating popcorn. This is happening now. Do we believe our Lord’s words or not? Matt 24:38-39 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. (NIV) continued in The imminent war (part2)