Sunday, July 19, 2015

Start Time: 5:05 AM

End Time: 5:50 AM

Title: Our Journey In The Darkest of Times.

Scriptures: Matthew 24:3 - 22

God’s Message/Promise/Commands:

For the past month, God has shown me what’s happening in the world, not literally, but every day, He would let me see how the world is changing day after day.  I had seen a lot of news locally and even internationally about the evil that mankind is capable of.  And though the impact is not huge to some of the news, there are others that made a tremendous change not only to 1 certain group or person but to the whole world.  Because of my work, I got expose to these bad news daily.  And don’t get me wrong, I don’t wake up in the morning, sat on my computer and go to FB or youtube to search for these bad news.  I don’t come looking for them but it seems God has opened my eyes to them and find ways for me to come across them while I’m at work.  A month ago, I heard of a woman in a gang raped, how her life was gruesomely taken from her, like these men didn’t see her of any value.  A few weeks ago, I heard of this group of teenagers celebrating for the legalization of same sex marriage, who were partying on the streets and got burned alive.  The next week, I saw an expose of an underground party help locally in the Philippines exclusively for young people, some very young (10 years old), where photos of the party shows young women wearing nothing but their brassier and very short shorts dancing on top of young men.  The photos were sexual by nature and you will see as young as a 10-year old boy in that group.  Another is a body of a 4-year-old found in a plastic bag dead for what the police thinks, her death was caused by accidental poisoning but no one has come forward to claim her even to this day.  And there are many more sad and horrifying stories like these each day.  God has been showing me what’s happening in the world, which is actually an answered prayer but the story is for another time, and there’s one thing that I realized out from all these horrible news I came across with for months now.  It’s the reality that today, what’s WRONG is not becoming RIGHT!  Humanity has somehow twisted the truth and managed to turn sin into something good.  Last night, I watched the video of Caitlyn Jenner’s speech and even before it ended, I cried.  I cried not because I was moved by her words, although her words were very powerful and touching, but I cried because I was hurt.  I was in pain.  The truth is, if I don’t know the Bible or if I don’t know God’s truth, and I listened to her talk, I will definitely say, she’s right!  I will believe and side with her.  But thank God, He revealed the truth to me.  Caitlyn Jenner was once Bruce Jenner, he was an Olympic champion, a role model during his time; a respected athlete; a family man with 5 kids or more (I’m not sure); had 3 wives – all divorce now; but all the time he was winning gold medals, raising his children and nurturing his relationship with the women in his life, he was struggling with his identity.  And after so long of hiding, he has now come out and decided to become a transgender.  Her coming out was a huge moment for all gays and transgender in the world.  In fact, Caitlyn has become the face of transgender in the world.  Her speech was about acceptance – about accepting people for who they really are.  She spoke of the transgender as the victims; how teens transgender are bullied, stab to death, murdered and even killed their own lives because people are not able to accept them for who they are.  She portrayed them as the victims of this world and for those who will stand in their faith and say what they are doing is wrong, they become the bullies.  After that video, I cried because as I listen to her words, I realized that she was not talking to us, us who are standing in our faith and the truth in Jesus; her words literally directed to God.  It is as if she’s telling God…”This is who I am God, take it or leave it!” She spoke these words to the God who created him as a man for a purpose.  She literally defies God’s purpose for her.  So I cried and thought, she didn’t know what she was doing.  She didn’t realize what she’s saying.

Anyway, the truth is the world is turning into evil and soon, this world is not going to be so nice to live in anymore, especially for those who will carry the Name of Jesus, as spoken by Jesus Himself in Matthew 24.  Jesus warned us and spoke these words so we would know what we are getting into in the last days.  So I went back to the Bible and looked into the stories of the people who were in the darkest times of their lives too.  And I found:

Noah – God decided to wipe out humanity except him and his family because of the evil nature of men

Abraham during Sodom and Gomorrah – God decided to destroy the city because of the evil nature

Jonah – God was planning to destroy the city of Nineveh because of their evil ways if they did not repent

Jesus – The worst times of all where the innocent were slaughtered and killed before the people; the right made wrong; the sin became right…

There are others but I want to focus on these 4 men because like them, their times have become evil.  I found 3 common things from these great and amazing men:

1)       Communication with God – all 4 communicated with God; God is not the only one speaking, but they also talk to God; so there’s a two-way communication

In this dark times, it is crucial that we have our communication with God open and ready at all times; that’s why it is important that we pray (we talking to God) and read the Bible (God talking to us) in this dark times of our lives.  As we enter into the worse of life, it is key that we continue to pray and read our Bible.

2)   Intercession – each men intercede for another and let me elaborate on that.

I searched Google and found that Intercession means two things:  

a)       the action of saying a prayer on behalf of another person. 

b)  the action of intervening on behalf of another.

synonyms: mediation, intermediation, arbitration, conciliation, negotiation; intervention, involvement; pleading, petition, entreaty, agency; diplomacy

I want us to focus on the 2^nd meaning – intervening

Noah - Noah's righteousness intervened in the death of his sons.  The Bible says only Noah was righteous at that time so even his children were wicked yet they were spared because God has chosen Noah and his family because of Noah's righteousness

Abraham - He negotiated with God for lot

Jonah - he was reluctant and disobeyed God but in the end, he obeyed and became involved in the salvation of Nineveh

Jesus - well, let's look at the meaning of arbitration...

arbitration - the use of an arbitrator to settle a dispute.

Jesus is the arbitrator to settle a dispute/problem.  We are to die for our sins but He paid the price for us; he was our arbitrator and bought us for a price to settle the biggest dispute for humans (dying for their sins)

So all four men, one way or another, intercede for someone.  In the darkest of times, we need to intercede with one another and for the world.  Whether we pray for another, or preach God through the message of our lives or literally preaching His words to others, or negotiate to God for someone else’s life, or get ourselves involve with someone’s life…we need to intercede for one another in this dark times.

3) Mission – All 4 men had a mission and whatever their mission was…it was all for the purpose of one thing…SALVATION!

Noah – built the ark for what?  To save him, and his family and the animals

Abraham – To be a great nation and Lot was his family (Lot’s descendants were the Moabites and the ammonites); so the result, lot was saved

Jonah – prophesied to the people of Nineveh…the result, the whole city was saved!

Jesus – Died for us…the result the world’s salvation

We, too have a mission as we pass through the dark times of our lives, Jesus left us with the Great Commission to go and make disciples, baptizing them in the Name of Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey the Word of the Lord.  This is our mission and ultimately the result is still SALVATION!