End Times #9: Is God Drawing Lines in the Sand?

(Reposted from a few years ago, updated slightly.  Part of the "End Times" series.)

It’s amazing and disturbing how brazen our society is in attacking everything about God and everything He created:  marriage, monogamy, sex, family, sexuality, the scientific reality of gender, morality, modesty, the value of a person, the right to life, the existence of "right and wrong," the Bible, Jesus, and Absolute Truth.  Not to mention God Himself, His very existence.

We are destroying everything associated with Him (except nature – we worship that), and then we call ourselves "progressive."

But you know what I think about it all?  

I think that God is letting it happen because He is drawing lines in the sand.  Through all these divisive issues and all the immorality, God is saying “Pick a side!  I am forcing you to decide which side you want to be on ... because I am coming back soon to take My people out of here.  So I need you all to decide:  Me or the world?  Which do you choose?"  

[At least I hope that's why He's allowing all this breakdown to happen, all this conflict and divisiveness and immorality and wickedness.  Because if He's not - if He's not coming back soon - then God help those of us who choose to be faithful to Him.  We're gonna need it!  Update: I wonder also if God is allowing this coronavirus as a "last call."  If it's the last line in the sand.  The last attempt to get man's attention, to cause us to choose.  I pray so!  And if it is, then I'd say that it's even far more gracious than I thought it would be, allowing there to be such a clear, jolting, obvious "sign" before the rapture, instead of "life as normal."  What a great way to get as many people's attention as possible!  Very merciful and gracious!  But, I guess, only time will tell.  Still, don't waste this opportunity.  You might not get another one.  A suggestion for Christians: Go to thrift stores and dollar stores and buy a bunch of Bibles to store in your home for those who are left behind after the rapture.  You can bet that during the tribulation Bibles will be banned, stores will stop selling them, and they will be removed from the internet.  So stock up on a bunch now, and pray that those who need them during the tribulation will find them and share them with others who need them.]

And the people are choosing!  They are choosing to support abortion over life.  They are choosing to support the over-sexualization of children as they dance at drag shows with and for grown men.  They are choosing to boycott and destroy privately-owned businesses if the owners have beliefs they don't agree with.  They are choosing false gods who tell them what they want over the God of the Bible who sent Jesus to die for them so that they could live.  They are choosing to uphold LGBTQ-nonsense over traditional family values.  They are choosing gender-chaos over scientific, commonsense views on gender.  They are kicking God out of all public areas.  They are shaming those who pray and who hold traditional values.  Etc.  Etc.  Etc.  (For some disturbing stuff, see "Since when did this 'drag queen' stuff become acceptable for children?" and "Feminism Nonsense" and "Don't Tell Me How to Live My Life!" and "The Trans-Gender Revolution Is Beyond Insane.")

Let me ask a question:  If there really is a God who created the world, who created people, who wrote the Bible through the hands of men, and who holds all things in His hand ... if there really is a God ... then who has the right to make the rules: Us or Him?

Either there is no God of the Bible or there is.

If there isn't, then nothing matters anyway and we're essentially free to live by our own set of rules and so is everyone else around us.  Because in the end, there is no true right or wrong, no one to answer to, and no one to dish out ultimate justice anyway.  

[Would this thought - that we all end up in nothingness and so it ultimately doesn't matter what kind of life we lived, how we behaved, or how we treated others or were treated by others - be comforting to anyone who was violated or wronged by someone but who never saw the perpetrator get punished?  I think one reason everyone, deep down, wants there to be a God is this: Justice!  

It's just that most people won't realize this until something bad happens to them but nobody's doing anything about it.  I mean, notice how many people completely ignore God when things are going good, but the moment something bad happens they say, "Where was God?  Why did He let this happen?"  

Umm, you mean, "Why did God decide to let something bad happen to me after I ignored Him for years and years and never gave Him praise for the blessings I had?"  They ask, "Where was God?"  But God's saying, "I was here all along.  But where were you!?!"  But I digress ...]

But if there is a God ... then He alone has the right to make the rules, even if we don't like them.

And if there is a God then - even if we don't want to live by His rules and don't think they should be rules to begin with - no amount of disagreeing with His rules is going to change His rules.  And we will all answer to Him someday for breaking His rules.

I think our society's bold disregard for God's rules and God's ways shows just how godless we have become, even if we give lip service to the idea that there is a God.

But if we are allowed to make up our own rules and we don't have to answer to Him, then what kind of a "god" would He be?

Someday, we'll find out what kind of God He really is ... when we stand before Him and give an account for how we lived and what we believed.

Are you really willing to take the chance of being wrong ... just because you want to live by your own rules for a little while?  (I have a feeling that most people are willing to take the chance of being wrong.  Just so they can live as their own little gods.  They simply don't understand or care about the serious eternal consequences of the choices they are making.)

"The Lord says:

'These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.

Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.

Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the Lord, who do their work in darkness and think, 'Who sees us?  Who will know?'

You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!  Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'He did not make me'?  Can the pot say of the potter, 'He knows nothing'?

Once more the humble will rejoice in the Lord; the needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.

The ruthless will vanish, the mockers will disappear, and all who have an eye for evil will be cut down ..."  (Isaiah 29:13-16, 19-20)

Hey, America ... Hey, World ...

Do you really think it's possible to get away with mocking God, changing His rules, kicking Him out of everything, and climbing up onto His throne?



I'll be honest, I've been praying a lot lately that He comes back again.  I can't bear to see the direction our country - our world - is going.  I fear that we have crossed a point we can't get back from.  I fear that we have so lost our morals, our sensitivity to God, even our commonsense ("There is no such thing as 'boy' or 'girl.'"  Seriously, people, what's wrong with your brains!?!), and our desire to pass on any godly things to the next generation ... that we are beyond hope.

I really do think these are the last days.  Romans 11:25 refers to the hardness of Israel which will continue until the full number of Gentiles has come in.  I think the time of the Gentiles (the church age) will continue until basically no additional people are coming to Christ, when the final bulk of those who are going to come to Him have come to Him.  And when we reach the time that people stop coming to Him, that we slide into mass rebellion, He will rapture out the true believers and turn His attention back to Israel.

Are we not living in those times right now?  When more people reject Him than seek Him?  When they teach their children to reject Him instead of revere Him?  When they'd rather have a self-selected, self-serving "religion" than faith in God and the Bible?

The church has grown throughout the course of history ... until now.  While there are pockets of revival around the world, it seems as if more people are rejecting Him than seeking Him.  And I think a huge part of this is the immoral age we are living in, the desire for pleasure and to be our own gods, to live without rules, responsibility, or accountability.  (Thank you, 1960s, for promoting this moral decay!)

And this is seen most clearly in the debate about homosexual marriage and other issues relating to sexuality.  This issue has become a huge line in the sand dividing us into two groups: those tiny few who will abide by the Word and those huge masses of people who won't.  And it's one of the biggest issues to turn people against Christianity, to draw people away from Christ and from true faith.

I think that from here on out, we will see less and less people coming to Christ because they want the "religion" that the world offers.  They want "gods" of their own imagination who let them live however they want to.

2 Timothy 4: 3-4:  “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine.  Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.  They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”

I think the full number of Gentiles has come in.  And there is no reason for God to delay any longer.  We have become so debased, so rebellious, that I don't see much chance of us ever returning to Him.  Not without Him sending a huge wake-up call, such as instantaneously rapturing out millions of believers all over the world.  (Or ... perhaps ... sending a new virus to shake our world?  Allowing the utter lawlessness and breakdown of society to drive us to our knees?)

And so this has been my prayer:

Lord, please come back again.  Just come back.  It's time, and You know it.  The people here want nothing to do with You anymore.  They are turning their backs on You in masses and in every possible way.

They don't want to hear Your truths anymore.  They are trying to kick You out of everything, trying to remove every reference to You that they come across.  They are even using the schools to deliberately spread godlessness to children.  They don't want to even allow Christians to live by Your truth or stand by Your truth in their own lives.  Almost no one wants to pass on any knowledge of You to the next generation.  They want to live rebellious lives and they are passing their rebellious spirit onto others.  They just want You out of their lives and out of their world.

Lord ... give them what they want.  

Remove Your Holy Spirit and Your church - the true believers - from this world.  Hand the world over to them.  A world without You.  Just like they want.  Only then will they realize how wrong they are, how real You are, how horrible it is without Your presence, how terrifying it is to be handed over to the hardness of their own hearts, how dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:31).

It's time, Lord.  Time to show Yourself strong to them by removing Yourself from them.  Time to hold them accountable for their rebellion and self-worship and flagrant disregard for You, for "stoning the prophets" and persecuting those who belong to You, for corrupting others, for leading the next generation astray.

Back in the day, there was another generation that was extremely rebellious and wicked, with no hope of change.  And You decided that the only answer then was to wipe out everyone with a flood ... except Noah and his family.

We are at this point now, where the righteous are very few.  Where the majority wants nothing to do with You, where they mock You, where they won't raise up their children to know You, fear You, or obey You.  They are totally disregarding one of the main responsibilities You gave us in having families - the responsibility to raise up godly generations.  If no one will do that anymore then there is no reason to prolong the end - not when an ungodly generation deliberately and consciously raises another ungodly generation.

Don't let that happen, Lord.  Return now, before we lose more people, more generations, more children, to godlessness.  Return now to wake people up from their spiritual rebellion and lost-ness.  Return now to take out the faithful people, those of us who want You in our lives.  In Your mercy, spare us from the wickedness around us, the persecution that comes as a society and a world grow increasingly godless.

You promised in Your Word to come back again - to gather Your people up to You and to hold an evil world accountable for their wickedness.  It's time, Lord!  Unless there is a revival, it's not going to get better here.  Only worse.  It's time!  And I'm humbly pleading with You to fulfill Your promise.  Return now and begin the process of destroying all evil, making all things right again, and taking Your rightful place on the Throne, as Lord and as Judge.

"Amen.  Come, Lord Jesus."  (Revelation 22:20)

Christians, join me in this prayer.  It's time!

(And for all the people of the world who want to get angry about a prayer like this:  You don't believe in God or the power of prayer anyway, remember!?!  You mock that kind of stuff.  So you can't get mad that I would pray a prayer to a God you don't even believe exists.  I'm just sayin'.  And if a tiny bit of you fears a prayer like this, then you'd better get right with the Lord.  Because He's coming back again someday.  Just watch and see!)

To all faithful believers, for some fun and encouragement, I dedicate these songs:  "Radically Saved"  and "No Way, We Are Not Ashamed" and "We Believe" (say it loud and say it proud).  (I wish the second one had a good video to go with it, but ... Oh, well.)              

And to everyone else, I dedicate "The Champion" and "Secret Ambition".