Michael Bresciani
Spiritually dumbed down - - can't see judgment coming
By Michael Bresciani
In the past week we watched Jeb Bush and then Donald Trump join the ever burgeoning melee of Republicans who have declared to run for the presidency. Both speeches were colored with promises and bold statements about America's recovery. But little time was spent on the so called 'social issues' which of course are same sex marriage and abortion.
The term 'social issues' is without doubt a misnomer and a rather cowardly and slippery means of putting the nation's gross slide into everything fleshy and prurient on the back burner. The slide to pure perversion is seen as a social trend and in some cases as a fight for equality or civil rights.
Preachers, prophets, moralists and politicians who haven't sold out are all warning that these seemingly less important issues are actually the most important matters on the ticket. They are the make it or break it issues for our nation and although the references come mostly from the Bible the consequences for ignoring these issues is so severe that only fools would not give them a serious perusal.
If our view of God is that he is a doting, ambivalent weeping powerless forgive all and let it slide kind of a God, we have never read the bible, much less believed it.
Many are warning that God is pulling back his hand of protection and that allows terrorist to strike as well as natural calamities to befall our nation. Recently Billy Graham's daughter Anne Graham Lotz cited the supreme court meddling with marriage, our weakening support for Israel and the continued scourge of abortion as key reasons why God is allowing and in some cases initiating various judgments across the spectrum,
Without scientific proof the secular minded cannot accept that God controls nature, but the biblical record has a very different story. The bible declares God's intervention in nature as a promise not a suggestion open for debate. The weather, earthquakes, floods, pestilence, wild animal attacks, disease, terrorism and a dozen other upheavals in nature are all listed in the bible as means by which God can, and will, intervene in the affairs of men. These attention getters will be on the rise in the next months and years like never before in history.
From the worldwide flood of Noah to the death of one small sparrow God claims to have complete control over the flux and flow of the earth. In the deepest forest or jungle a single bird cannot fall without the knowledge of God. To wit:
"Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father." (Mt 10: 29)
Whether its micro or macro, God never loses control nor does he wait for the storm to mass – he is the master of the sea today as he was millennia ago.
As a young man I was sailing on an oil tanker through the Bermuda Triangle. After a perfectly calm morning, where the seas were as still as a pond, an enormous storm came up in less than ten minutes. Our captain, a man with over four decades of sailing exclaimed that it was the fiercest storm he had ever encountered.
Swells lifted our bow and dropped the mighty ship to the ocean below with such a thud that the shock wave reverberated like an earthquake down the length of the ship. If the shock could not be absorbed the vessel would easily snap in half.
I ignored the captains orders sent to the aft to stay inside and I climbed to the highest point in the aft quarters, held on to a rail and observed the most furious display of nature I have ever seen anywhere in my life. I was peaceful and like Paul the Apostle, who also encountered a deadly storm while sailing out of ancient Crete, I knew that no one would be hurt on that voyage. (Acts 27: 34)
The storm ended as quick as it began and as I reflected on the great storm I had just seen as I stood on the deck overlooking the now peaceful blue green waters of the Atlantic, another storm came to mind.
The storm was on the Sea of Galilee and the outcome of that fury is known the world over.
"And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm." (Mt 4: 37-39)
Meteorologists, seismologists' and the rest of the world combined cannot see nor predict what storms or calamities will befall us in the future, but the prophecies of scripture says many storms will ensue if the nations do not return to the one true God of creation, natures God and man's judge.
This nation needs to seek more than a conservative presidential candidate, but we must seek safe haven in the God who gave us our nation and will surely hold us accountable for what we do with it during our allotted time. Seek him now as the storm approaches.
© Michael Bresciani
June 18, 2015
In the past week we watched Jeb Bush and then Donald Trump join the ever burgeoning melee of Republicans who have declared to run for the presidency. Both speeches were colored with promises and bold statements about America's recovery. But little time was spent on the so called 'social issues' which of course are same sex marriage and abortion.
The term 'social issues' is without doubt a misnomer and a rather cowardly and slippery means of putting the nation's gross slide into everything fleshy and prurient on the back burner. The slide to pure perversion is seen as a social trend and in some cases as a fight for equality or civil rights.
Preachers, prophets, moralists and politicians who haven't sold out are all warning that these seemingly less important issues are actually the most important matters on the ticket. They are the make it or break it issues for our nation and although the references come mostly from the Bible the consequences for ignoring these issues is so severe that only fools would not give them a serious perusal.
If our view of God is that he is a doting, ambivalent weeping powerless forgive all and let it slide kind of a God, we have never read the bible, much less believed it.
Many are warning that God is pulling back his hand of protection and that allows terrorist to strike as well as natural calamities to befall our nation. Recently Billy Graham's daughter Anne Graham Lotz cited the supreme court meddling with marriage, our weakening support for Israel and the continued scourge of abortion as key reasons why God is allowing and in some cases initiating various judgments across the spectrum,
Without scientific proof the secular minded cannot accept that God controls nature, but the biblical record has a very different story. The bible declares God's intervention in nature as a promise not a suggestion open for debate. The weather, earthquakes, floods, pestilence, wild animal attacks, disease, terrorism and a dozen other upheavals in nature are all listed in the bible as means by which God can, and will, intervene in the affairs of men. These attention getters will be on the rise in the next months and years like never before in history.
From the worldwide flood of Noah to the death of one small sparrow God claims to have complete control over the flux and flow of the earth. In the deepest forest or jungle a single bird cannot fall without the knowledge of God. To wit:
"Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father." (Mt 10: 29)
Whether its micro or macro, God never loses control nor does he wait for the storm to mass – he is the master of the sea today as he was millennia ago.
As a young man I was sailing on an oil tanker through the Bermuda Triangle. After a perfectly calm morning, where the seas were as still as a pond, an enormous storm came up in less than ten minutes. Our captain, a man with over four decades of sailing exclaimed that it was the fiercest storm he had ever encountered.
Swells lifted our bow and dropped the mighty ship to the ocean below with such a thud that the shock wave reverberated like an earthquake down the length of the ship. If the shock could not be absorbed the vessel would easily snap in half.
I ignored the captains orders sent to the aft to stay inside and I climbed to the highest point in the aft quarters, held on to a rail and observed the most furious display of nature I have ever seen anywhere in my life. I was peaceful and like Paul the Apostle, who also encountered a deadly storm while sailing out of ancient Crete, I knew that no one would be hurt on that voyage. (Acts 27: 34)
The storm ended as quick as it began and as I reflected on the great storm I had just seen as I stood on the deck overlooking the now peaceful blue green waters of the Atlantic, another storm came to mind.
The storm was on the Sea of Galilee and the outcome of that fury is known the world over.
"And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm." (Mt 4: 37-39)
Meteorologists, seismologists' and the rest of the world combined cannot see nor predict what storms or calamities will befall us in the future, but the prophecies of scripture says many storms will ensue if the nations do not return to the one true God of creation, natures God and man's judge.
This nation needs to seek more than a conservative presidential candidate, but we must seek safe haven in the God who gave us our nation and will surely hold us accountable for what we do with it during our allotted time. Seek him now as the storm approaches.
-
As a mother stills her child,
Thou canst hush the ocean wild;
Boisterous waves obey Thy will,
When Thou sayest to them, "Be still!"
Wondrous Sovereign of the sea,
Jesus, Savior, pilot me.
© Michael Bresciani
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