The title of ”Judgment is Coming”, I fear, is too hopeful. It may be that we are already judged!
…the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” (15) And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. (Revelation 9:14-15 NIV)
Sometime in the future, perhaps nearer than we think, the forces of retribution and bloodshed will be unleashed.
It may just be a humorous poster in a New York subway, but it may also be fiercely prophetic (without the humour).
The Euphrates River runs through the geographic heart of the Islamic world, and it is from there that those demonic forces, apparently bound and restricted throughout the centuries, will be released to “kill a third of mankind”.
Shocking? Yes.
Why? Because this generation has descended into wickedness. Just one example will suffice! We have killed the most vulnerable, our own children. An entire generation of humans, before or at birth, have silently screamed. We call it abortion. We’ve justified it, legalised it, and smugly sanitised our crime – which compounds our guilt!
And one day we’ll be held to account for those sins.
But, even then, with a third of humanity killed in less than a year, it seems, in the words of the prophet John, we’ll still be reluctant to confess our guilt.
Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts. (Revelation 9:21 NIV)
It will take a far greater Judgment to teach us what is right. God hasten that day.
Surely someone will speak up on behalf of our children! Acquiescing to a popularist, media-driven agenda is nothing less than dangerous – if not fatal.
The definition of marriage and family life is one father, one mother, married for life, providing both emotional and spiritual nurture for their children. Anything else, like homosexuality, paedophilia, adultery, fornication, incest, bestiality and the like are an aberration. In other words, these deviations are plainly sinful and wrong.
Who says so? Why, Jesus, of course! And so do His followers – or at least they should by their example.
When entire countries, supported by their judiciaries and driven by the media, begin “voting in” and incrementing what become sweeping immoral changes, then perhaps we ought to spare a thought, first, for our grandparents who would shudder to think that such immoral antics are undermining the very society they pioneered, and secondly, for our children whose minds and hearts become irreparably damaged because they’ve never known the true love and identity that only a loving father and mother in marriage can provide.
The greatest of civilisations rapidly declined when their morals also waned. Babylon, Persia, Greece and then Rome were once thought invincible. The writing is again on the wall.
Violence today is generally accepted to be on the rise, whether highlighted in other countries or in our own suburbs. Mental illness is a growing scourge, with suicide dramatically increasing. And when our children become the pawns because of our immorality (deprived of a father and mother combination), when we kill the unborn with abandoned wanton (and call it “pro-choice”), when our sophisticated, immersive entertainment becomes more violent and pornographic – then it isn’t long before the law of natural consequences catch up.
Political correctness is dangerous as it is deceitful. We label a baby in his or her mothers’ womb as an “embryo” or “foetus” as the underlying notion is that they are not human. They are. They’re our children. And yet we so easily succumb to a politically correct violence that dissects their little bodies before they gain their first breath of air. And we proudly call it “pro-choice”.
We’ve thrown “God” out of our society. “Hooray”, you say! We no longer introduce children to the Bible. “Ditto”. We no longer believe in absolutes, that right is right, and wrong is wrong. And so, if this God has anything to say about this, it’s in the law of natural consequences that He designed.
Jesus said, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet and show my people their sins.” (Isaiah 58:1)
He said the defiantly rebellious would be “pursued with the sword, with famine, with pestilence; they’ll be delivered into trouble among all the kingdoms of the earth – to be a curse, an astonishment, a hissing, a reproach among all the nations… because they have not heeded My words…” (Jeremiah 29:18)
“The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head and you shall be the tail. All these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God…” (Deuteronomy 28:43-45)
And so, accordingly, history is beset to repeat itself. Nations of strange language and customs seem to assert their power as never before. The Islamic State, for example, defined by their throat-cutting brutality and an ominous black flag seem uncannily unstoppable – perhaps because our will-power and weakened response has become one of containment. Their goal is to raise the black flag of Sharia law on the entire world, and they begin by enticing our gullible youth.
Another example is the increasing Chinese influence through trade and expansionism. It isn’t all that it seems, as this economic juggernaut sponsor the construction of military bases well beyond their recognised international borders. Our policies of acquiescence, appeasement and containment will not work. No need to reiterate the details of the Ukraine crisis at the moment.
The days of western dominance and economic might are over.
Hope for a return to basic morality might seem distant. Revival and right relationships, according to history, do however return, but only it seems after a time of suffering – a time of suffering when our enemies are victors, when perhaps Sharia law displaces democracy, and when the entire world is at war. That is, in effect, what Jesus says. That’s what the Christian Bible echoes in both old and new testaments. And that’s what we need to understand.
War is coming. We have the nuclear missiles, the warships, tanks and planes, as well as the protagonists. And in this war, be it outright conflict or through years of attrition, because of our immorality, it will quickly become apparent who is the weaker side.
Now the “politically correct” might describe our embrace of Jesus’ teachings as “homophobic”. They also commonly tout the term of “marriage equality”. Such trendy buzzwords are subtle inventions designed to linguistically sound appealing to the voting public. And yet marriage historically and culturally has always been defined as the covenant lifetime relationship between one man and one woman to the exclusion of any others. Homosexuality isn’t marriage.
Followers of Jesus cannot remain silent; we’re called to shine the light in both our life example and in the things we speak out for. And as our words find momentum and authorship in the Holy Spirit, then we would have committed the greater sin by remaining silent.
So, cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet, and allow Jesus’ words to again echo across this country. Someone has to speak up!
Written by John Klassek
John and Rebecca have been married for 26 years and have six children. He serves in ministry in the Church of God (Seventh Day) in Australia, and works as a film producer for MessageWeek Ministries.
y John Klassek