Warnings
About America's Future: a
Supplemental
to Last Week's Message
by Web
pastor Paul J. Bern
To view
this on my website, click
here :-)
I
have decided to write this week's commentary as a kind of addendum to
my message from last week after getting an even stronger than usual
response from my readers, and I humbly thank you all for that. For
anyone who missed the posting, you can see it on Wordpress.com here
or Google Blogger here.
Hundreds of views, not counting hits of course, plus dozens of
comments have compelled me to do a follow-up piece for this week in
that same vein. One of the comments came from an acquaintance of mine
who is also a Web pastor and street preacher. This gentleman referred
me to a certain book in the Old Testament, but when I read it a while
ago and contemplated it as I prayed about its suitability for God's
purposes, I found myself turning just two pages further to the quote
I'm going to use this week to give ample warning that the USA is in
far more serious trouble than it collectively realizes, regardless of
who is currently president.
There
is one other thing that bears mentioning here before I get into the
meat and potatoes of this week's commentary. Although the reaction to
last week's post was positive by far, the negative responses fell
into two categories – religious and patriotic. Some “Christian”
responses were deeply critical of my alleged quoting of the Book of
Revelation, calling it “out of context”, among other things. It
never ceases to amaze me how well-meaning yet misguided religious
people can be. Unfortunately, many of them are also mean and
ill-tempered, which makes me wonder why they bother going to church
to begin with. They sure as hell don't practice what they preach! A
few other responses accused me of being unpatriotic at best and
treasonous at worst, along with other things I can't print here. If
you don't love America with no questions asked like they do, then
they maintain there is something morally lacking about that
individual. I, on the other hand, maintain it's the other way around.
So
for this week, having put on my Armor of God (see Ephesians 6, verses
10-18) to shield me from the flaming arrows and words of those who
are hostile to the authentic cause of Christ, allow me to present a
few verses from the prophet Zephaniah. In
Zephaniah
1:1, the author introduces himself as “Zephaniah son of Cushi,
son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah.” Among the
prophets, this is a unique introduction with its long list of fathers
back to Zephaniah’s great-great grandfather, Hezekiah. So why stop
with Hezekiah? Most likely, the prophet wanted to highlight his royal
lineage as a descendant of one of Judah’s good kings. We
can begin to pinpoint exactly when Zephaniah prophesied by accounting
for a few details in the text. First, in 2:13 the prophet predicted
the fall of Nineveh, an event which occurred in 612 BC. Further,
Zephaniah made frequent quotations from the Law (for example, compare
1:13 to Deuteronomy
28:30, 39),
a document that remained lost in Judah for much of Josiah’s reign.
Therefore, Zephaniah more than likely prophesied in the latter part
of Josiah’s rule, after the king discovered the scrolls of the Law
in 622 BC (2
Chronicles 34:3–7). The first part of chapter 1 deals with the
apostasy of and impending destruction of Judah, which is part of the
nation of Israel today. But the following section of this small Old
Testament book – it's just 3 chapters, about a 5 or 6 minute read –
is the one that prophesy's about what it calls, “The Great Day of
the Lord”. We can take this to mean something far off into the
distant future, which would be our modern times since this prophecy
has yet to be fulfilled.
The
text I'm going to use for this week's commentary begins in chapter 1
and verse 14, and I quote: “The
great day of the Lord is near – near and coming quickly. Listen!
The cry on the day of the Lord will be bitter, the shouting of the
warrior there. That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and
anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a
day of clouds and blackness, a day of trumpet and battle cry against
the fortified cities and against the corner towers. I will bring
distress on the people and they will walk like blind men, because
they have sinned against the Lord. Their blood will be poured out
like dust and their entrails like filth. Neither their silver nor
their gold will be able to save them on the day of the Lord's wrath.
In the fire of his jealousy the whole world will be consumed, for he
will make a sudden end of all who live on the earth. Gather together,
gather together, oh shameful nation, before the appointed time
arrives and that day sweeps on like chaff, before the fierce anger of
the Lord comes upon you, before the day of our Lord's wrath comes
upon you. Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, you who do what
he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be
sheltered on the day of the Lord's anger.”
(Zephaniah 1, verses 14-18; chapter 2, verses 1-3)
The
first thing that needs to be pointed out here is that this passage is
not directed only at individuals. God is not up in anybody's face
accusing them because that's not how God works, although there are
multitudes of 'religious' people who would love to have an
opportunity to sway your opinions about that. One of the names that
Satan goes by in the Bible is “the accuser of the brethren”, so
it is for that reason that I do not believe this is directed at
individual people, nor necessarily at groups of people. This is not
directed at nationalities or ethnic groups either. This is directed
at countries, or more accurately one particular country, the United
States. Why do I think this? Hey, there are clues all over the place
as to why this is so, so let me address these one at a time. But
first comes a dire warning starting in verse 14. “The
great day of the Lord is near – near and coming quickly. Listen!
The cry on the day of the Lord will be bitter, the shouting of the
warrior there.”
'The shouting of the warrior' tells us that this “Great Day of the
Lord” in the above passage has to do with a great military
conquest, causing a bitter cry to come up out of the land that is
conquered. This also tells us that only a portion of the populace
will be wiped out by this calamity to make sure there are enough
people for that bitter cry that is prophesied in this passage.
Then
the prophecy gets very specific about what will happen on this 'day
of the Lord': “That
day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of
trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and
blackness, a day of trumpet and battle cry against the fortified
cities and against the corner towers.”
It is conceivable that this could be a prophecy for some type of
terrorist activity, but from the wording of Zephaniah's narrative the
'day of the Lord' appears to be a widespread event. Although the
prophecy doesn't specify anything, it is evident when we read in
between the words. A 'day of wrath' would be a day when Mother
Nature, and God by extension, goes completely haywire. A mega-storm
or typhoon, an exceptional tornado outbreak, an enormous earthquake
or some other kind of natural disaster all come to mind. A killer
impact from a comet or asteroid is another distinct possibility, and
such things are predicted to occur in the second and fifth Trumpets
in Revelation chapter 8. Moving along in Zephaniah verse 16, the
“battle cry against the fortified cities” signifies an attack on
a major military power. Since this prediction occurs in our time
frame (I will finish proving this as I go along, so please stay with
me), the “corner towers”, which once signified the outer
fortifications of a city, could be roughly translated as 'tall
towers', or today's skyscrapers.
“Their
blood will be poured out like dust and their entrails like filth.
Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the
day of the Lord's wrath.”
Blood turning into dust is a reference to the book of Genesis. To
find out more about the mention of human blood being “poured out
like dust” please click
here. For now, let's move on to the next phrase,
“entrails...poured out like filth”. On the surface, this seems to
be a metaphor for people being turned inside out, but it could also
mean people being cooked from the inside out. In that event, their
insides would be liquefied; not a pleasant thought, to say the least.
There are only two things in existence that will do such a horrible
thing – a thermonuclear explosion or microwave weapons. Nothing
else I'm aware of would fill the bill, not in this case. The silver
and gold hoarded by all these people will be worthless, since it will
be melted in the nuclear blast or microwave attack along with
everything and everybody else. So you can all forget about investing
in gold or silver, and don't believe the sales pitches of the
ubiquitous precious metals dealers either! They're all trying to milk
you for a fast buck, which in itself is shortsighted since the US
dollar is going to be devalued
soon as well!
“In
the fire of his jealousy the whole world will be consumed, for he
will make a sudden end of all who live on the earth.”
The “fire
of his jealousy” will
consume the whole world! The “fire
of his jealousy” will
make manifest a “sudden
end of all who live on the earth.”
One of the names the Bible has for God is “a consuming fire”,
something that dates back to the Book of Exodus, when the Israelite's
followed a pillar of fire out of Egypt. But we're not wandering in
the desert anymore, nor are we on our way out of Egypt. Moreover, of
all the descendants of those ancient Israelis, over half of them live
in the United States. So, although the “fire of His jealousy”
will consume Israel, it will consume America as well since Israel's
#1 ally is the USA. “....gather
together, oh shameful nation, before the appointed time arrives and
that day sweeps on like chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord
comes upon you....”
“Shameful nation” is another major clue, since it alludes to a
world power or super-power that wages war continuously and oppresses
its people. Any American who does not think Americans are not
oppressed by their government – constant surveillance, systemic
corruption, economic inequality, abuse of authority at all levels,
the abuse of our own children by brainwashing them with materialism –
where have you all been? Wake up! Is it any wonder that God has such
“fierce anger”?
“Seek
the Lord, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands.
Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on
the day of the Lord's anger.”
Seek the Lord, and him personally! This means we are charged with the
responsibility of forming and maintaining a personal relationship
with Jesus Christ. We can't have a personal relationship with God, I
don't think, but we can approach him through his Son. Do what Jesus
commands; seek righteousness and humility. Wear them on your shirt
sleeves right next to your heart. If we do all these things, loving
the Lord our God “with all our mind and all our heart and all our
strength” and “loving our neighbors as ourselves”, we just
might stand a decent chance to escape the calamity to come. Will this
calamity be a series of natural disasters and devastating wars? Yes,
it will be both. Do I know when these things will occur? Absolutely
not! But I'm certain that it will, and that's why I'm getting ready.
Are you?
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