Awhile back I was getting a lot of robo calls, so I found a feature on my phone that can block them. Before long I was blocking a lot of numbers. Then someone told me, “I called you five times. Why didn’t you answer the phone?”

I was blocking people I actually wanted to hear from because I was getting messages from people I didn’t want to hear from.

In some ways that’s like a lot of people when they hear that events in our world and in our culture today are signs of the times: “Oh, give me a break! I’ve heard that before! They’ve been saying forever that Jesus is coming back, and nothing has really changed.”

Actually, a lot of things have changed. I believe we’re living in the last days.

Just look at the aggression of Russia on so many fronts recently and the provocative statements from President Vladimir Putin about their nuclear capabilities and a willingness to use them.

Russia has developed a new intercontinental ballistic missile that can hit any target they choose. NATO calls it “Satan 2.”

There is the emergence of China, not only as an economic superpower but as a military superpower as well. China is becoming more aggressive, launching massive drills in the South China Sea. Then there is the weaponization of space.

Many of China’s space capabilities are designed to counter U.S. military advantages. In a very technical sense, we’re literally headed to Star Wars.

Add to this rogue nations like Iran and North Korea, the constant threat of Islamic terrorism and ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

Not all the advances in technology today are being used for good things. Everything we do is recorded. We’re becoming more aware of this, especially in light of the fact Facebook reported that the data of 87 million people might have been improperly shared.

We realize that our information can be hacked and that someone with sinister motives could use it for some very bad things. One day that person, known as the Antichrist, will come on the scene.

Maybe this is why the famous Doomsday Clock was moved forward in January of last year. It’s now two minutes to midnight, the closest it’s ever been.

The keepers of this so-called clock, a group of atomic scientists, are saying that because of the threat level and recent developments, we’re that close to an all-out nuclear exchange. It isn’t a theologian who’s saying this; it’s atomic scientists.

We scratch our heads and say, “What in the world is going on?”

Are you ready for the answer? We’re racing toward Armageddon.

It’s as though everything has been sped up, moving rapidly toward what the Bible calls the end of days or the last days. Jesus compared it to labor pains: The closer to the moment of delivery, the closer together the labor pains will be. That is how it will be in the end times.

There will be warnings, things that remind us that it’s coming. And as we get closer to the actual unfolding of prophetic events, these “labor pains” will get closer and closer together. I think we’re seeing this happen before us now.

So what are we supposed to do? Jesus said, “Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near” (Luke 21:28). This means we’re to look to Heaven and be reminded of the fact that God is in control.

We need to know what is happening in our world, and studying Bible prophecy helps us remember that God is in control of all events in the world today. It can be very scary. We wonder what will happen. God is in control. Things are going according to schedule.

Studying Bible prophecy also gives us a heavenly perspective. I think we often lose that. I remember going to visit a 30-year-old woman from our church who was in the hospital. They were running all kinds of tests, trying to figure out what was going on and what they could do for her.

As I talked with this woman and her husband, she ministered to me more than I ministered to them. She told me that God was with them, and they were trusting him. Then she said, “Pastor Greg, I’m very excited about what is happening. The Lord is at work.”

She could say something like that because when you’re a Christian in a time of difficulty, God is with you in a special way. Maybe you’re more aware of how God is with you, and you’re hanging on to him more tightly. God’s strength is made perfect in weakness, the Bible says. (See 2 Corinthians 12:9.)

I think we all need that in our lives, because we can go through an entire day without a single thought about Heaven. We can go through an entire week without even thinking about eternal things. But when you’re on your back in a hospital bed, the only way you can look is up.

We need a heavenly perspective, and we need to be reminded of this simple fact: Jesus Christ is coming back, and he’s coming back soon. Are you ready? If you really believe that Christ could return at any time, it will impact the way you live.

In a single moment in time, you can make a decision that affects your entire life. The most important decision of all is Jesus Christ – whether you accept him or reject him. The biggest decision of all is what you do with Jesus Christ.

Jesus makes radical claims. He claims to be the only way to the Father. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

Jesus died for you on the cross and rose from the dead. He stands at the door of your life and knocks. If you’ll hear his voice and open the door, he will come in.

A lot is at stake. I really believe that Jesus is coming back. He could return today, tonight, or tomorrow. Will you be ready?

Get right with God. Get right … or get left.

Copyright 2019 Greg Laurie FaithWire.com All rights reserved.

I still believe the United States is the greatest country on earth. But our country needs help. While have a lot of enemies on the outside, I’m more concerned about the enemies we have on the inside.

As Historian Will Durant wrote, “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within. The essential cause of Rome’s decline lay in her people, her morals. …”

Does that not apply to our country today? How we have strayed. Despite what some revisionists would tell us, our nation really was built on Judeo-Christian values. There is no question about it. But what has started as freedom of religion is now turning into freedom from religion. It seems like so many have gone out of their way to get God out of our courtrooms, out of our classrooms and out of our culture. And as we sow the wind, the Bible says, we reap the whirlwind.

Then we have the breakdown of the family. You can directly connect it to almost any social ill in our nation today. For instance, 63 percent of youth suicides are committed by those from fatherless homes. Ninety percent of all homeless and runaway children come from fatherless homes.

Eight-five percent of youth sitting in prisons today grew up in a fatherless home. It is not just a breakdown of the family; it is the absence of strong male leadership. In no way is that a criticism of women. They have stepped in when men have not stepped up. But it is time for men to step up and be the godly leaders God has called them to be as well.

A family can survive without a nation. But the nation cannot survive without the family.

I know something about coming from a broken home. I have seen it up close and personal. I didn’t have a father when I was growing up. My mother was married and divorced seven times. She was a raging alcoholic who would pass out every night from drinking.

I tremble to think of where I would be today had it not been for the intervention of God in my life when I was a 17-year-old kid. But God did intervene, and that is what needs to happen in our nation as well.

I think of the words of our first president, George Washington, when he warned, “The propitious [favorable] smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a Nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.”

Then there are the words Peter Marshall, who, as a chaplain of the U.S. Senate, said, “The choice before us is plain: Christ or chaos, conviction or compromise, discipline or disintegration.”

And President Ronald Reagan made this statement: “America needs God more than God needs America. If we ever forget that we are one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.”

There is only one hope for America today, in my opinion. I don’t think it is a political solution, although there is a place for politics.

I thank God for the men and women, especially those who love the Lord, who want to go into that arena and be a godly influence in our country, because the Bible says, “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice” (Proverbs 29:2 NKJV). But the ultimate solution is not political.

I believe the only hope for a real change in our nation is a spiritual awakening. That is what we need to be praying for. America needs a revival.

We throw the world revival around a lot, but what does it mean? It means to restore to the original condition. Have you ever seen a cool classic car, like a totally restored ’57 Chevy Bel Air, cruising down the boulevard? You may have said, “That is art on four wheels. That is a thing of beauty.”

We need to be restored to what we were but also to even more than what we were: what we potentially can be. We need divine intervention. We need a spiritual awakening, and we need to be praying for it.

There is a passage in the Old Testament that was given contextually to the nation Israel. But I believe that in principle, it applies to any nation, including our own.

God said, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14 NIV). I have always found it very interesting that God said, “If my people who are called by my name …”

God doesn’t point his finger at the White House; he points his finger at his house. It’s easy for us to say it is the fault of Washington or the fault of Hollywood. But God says that when a nation is breaking down, the problem is “[his] people who are called by [his] name” who need to “humble themselves and pray and seek [his] face.”

I want to address Christian leaders for a moment. If there is a mist in the pulpit, there will be a fog in the pews. If you want to start a fire in the pews, then it has to start in the pulpit. It has to start with you. Do you – do we – need spiritual revival today?

Are we being the godly people we should be? Is there compromise in our lives? God says, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways,” then he “will hear from heaven … will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

That is what we need to be praying for – a spiritual awakening in America today.

As the psalmist said, “Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?” (Psalm 85:6 NKJV). That is my prayer for America today. May the Lord send a mighty spiritual awakening that will turn the hearts of men and women and boys and girls back to him.

© Copyright 2016, WND

Why is there so much suffering in the world? Why is there so much hatred? Why is there so much evil? It can be summed up in one word: sin. We were born with a nature to do wrong. That is why it’s ridiculous when you hear some people say the answer lies within.

The problem lies within. The Bible says the heart is “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9, NKJV). If you believe that humanity is basically good, then you must be having a hard time right now as you look at what humanity is capable of. It’s astonishing how wicked humanity can be.

It all comes back to the way we were born, with the nature we have inside. It goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. There was a man put in that garden whose name was Adam.

He was given a free will to choose right or wrong and the freedom to obey or disobey God’s commands. And he made the wrong choice. He rejected God’s way and went his own way instead.

Many, if not most, of the problems in our culture today can be directly traced to our refusal to live God’s way. We disobey his commandments. We disregard the guidelines he has given us to live healthy and productive lives. We kill. We steal. We lie. We commit adultery. We do whatever we want if it will advance our interests.

So when we look at a society falling apart at the seams, let’s not shake an accusing fist at our Creator and say that he has somehow botched this. It is because of our rejection of the standards our Creator has given us that we are seeing the problems in our world today.

The history of the human race has been the story of our futile efforts to gain back the position that was lost by Adam’s fall.

The Bible says that “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned. … One trespass resulted in condemnation for all people” (Romans 5:12, 18, NIV).

But why should we suffer because of something someone else has done? The truth is, if you or I had been in the Garden of Eden, we would have done the same thing. Every day we are presented with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of choices to do right or wrong, to do good or evil.

Do you ever choose to do wrong? Of course you do. This simply indicates that you would have done the same thing – because the same nature is in you. In fact, there isn’t a single day that we don’t face the same test that was set before Adam.

The same two paths that God set before Adam have been set before us today: life or death, blessings or curses (see Deuteronomy 30:19). We are still free to choose life or death, blessings or curses. We still have the choice of good or evil.

The reason there is so much hatred in this world is that man chose, and continues to choose, to disobey God. We reap the miserable consequences because we are selfish, because we are prejudiced, and because we have wicked hearts. So let’s not blame God. The fault lies with us.

Like Adam, we were created to know and walk with God. And like Adam, we were made in the image of God with a conscience and the ability to clearly reason.

There are people today who claim that humans and animals are all equal. This is wrong, and it is not what the Bible teaches. Animals are not equal to people. I love animals. But they weren’t made to know God like we were.

They don’t have souls in the same sense that we do. God has placed human beings in a unique position of not only knowing him, but also of becoming like him. But sin has marred us.

Still, we have the ability to choose. We have the ability to know God and to have fellowship with him. He has created us with a void and an emptiness that only he can fill. Any attempt to fill it with something else will lead to futility.

Augustine said of God, “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

The Bible records a time in Jesus’ ministry when he met a woman by a well in Samaria. She had a void in her life that she had tried to fill with men. She had been married five times and was living with a man at the time she encountered Jesus.

She probably was a very beautiful woman. And she probably had lived a hard life because she had been used and abused by men.

When she met Jesus, she was surprised that he, being a Jew, would even speak to a Samaritan woman. But Jesus began talking with her, and he said, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst” (John 4:13-14, NIV).

She had no idea what Jesus was talking about. She thought he was referring to the well they were standing next to. But Jesus was talking about the deepest thirst in life.

We could write Jesus’ words that day over other wells in life, so to speak. We could write them over the well of success. We could write them over the well of possessions. We could write them over the well of pleasure.

It could be said of each one, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.” We never will get enough. We always will come up wanting more.

Yet if we can know the God who made us and come into a relationship with him, we will find the meaning of life – not by seeking happiness or trying to find fulfillment in and of itself, but by coming to know God and his plan and purpose for us.

The wonderful byproduct is that we become happy and fulfilled. Jesus said, “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need” (Matthew 6:33, NLT).

When you get a new set of priorities, put God at the forefront of your life, and seek to live a life that is pleasing to God, you will find everything you are looking for. You will find fulfillment. You will find joy. And you will find peace.

Article originally posted here.

Delila cutting Samson’s Hair

 ‘There is no such thing as a quick fling’

In October 1993, a wildfire swept through Laguna Beach, California, and devastated entire neighborhoods. I remember seeing a photograph of one neighborhood where all that was left of the homes were the foundations. In the midst of all of the burned, charred rubble stood one house, untouched. Not only was it untouched, but it wasn’t even scorched by smoke. It was a gleaming house that stood in striking contrast to all the ruin around it.

The owner of the house was asked why his home stood when all the others fell. The man said that he had gone to extra effort to make his house flame retardant. It had double-paned windows, thick stucco walls, sealed eaves, concrete tile and abundant insulation. He went the extra mile, and the result was that when the fires hit, his house survived.

The Bible asks the question, “Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned?” (Proverbs 6:27 NIV). The answer, of course, is no.

Our nation is being devastated by the wildfires of immorality today. Not just houses are being devastated, but homes are being devastated. Families are being devastated. And unless we take precautions, we could be the next victims of the fires of lust, passion and immorality.

Some people think, I can contain this. I can handle this. This is no problem. But suddenly the burning embers of lust are blowing over their lives, they’ve lost all control, and they wonder what happened. What happened was they took fire into their laps – or hearts or lives – and were among the many who thought they could handle it.

That’s what Samson thought. In the Old Testament, we read that he killed a thousand of Israel’s enemies, the Philistines, with the jawbone of a donkey. In Samson’s mind, what was one woman going to do to him? But Delilah (whose name, by the way, means “delicate”) began to break down Samson’s resolve and resistance until finally he confessed to her what the secret of his supernatural strength was. If only he could have come to his senses and realized that he was falling into a trap.

Just as lust devastated Samson, it is ruining lives today – and even ending lives through the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. And it is destroying thousands of marriages.

In our increasingly value-free society that will not allow the Ten Commandments to be posted in the classroom but will freely hand out condoms, the only way we will infuse values back into society is through the home.

Some people reading this might say, “Wait a second, Greg. I don’t need to hear this. My spouse and I have an ideal marriage. I can’t imagine any circumstances in which I would ever be unfaithful to my spouse.”

I remember hearing an interview in which a man who had written some Christian books about the family confessed that he would boast to his friends, “If I ever fall into sin, I guarantee that it will not be adultery. Anything but. I love my wife so much that it would never happen to me.”

Guess what? He fell into the sin of adultery. The very thing he said he would never do is what he did. Then he concluded with this statement: “An unguarded strength is a double weakness.” That is so true.

What is devastating families today? What is breaking up more marriages today? Adultery and immorality. It’s something we need to be aware of and guard our homes. Like that man who went the extra mile to take precautions to secure his home so it didn’t burn when others did, we need to do the same in our own homes.

Certainly, sexual temptation has been with us for a very long time. But I think we would all have to agree that our times of sexual looseness and permissiveness are unprecedented in human history. Historians would have to look back at this civilization and culture as one that was absolutely obsessed with sex.

When the apostle Paul wrote his first epistle to the church at Corinth, he warned, “We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did – and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died” (1 Corinthian 10:8).

Paul was referring to a story in the book of Numbers about a greedy prophet named Balaam. He instructed the enemies of Israel, the Moabites, to enlist the help of their young women and have them seduce Israel’s men. As a result, the men joined them in worshiping Baal, which angered God, and thousands of Israelites died. They were not the first people who had been destroyed by immorality, and they wouldn’t be the last.

Paul framed his words to the Corinthian believers in the way that he did because they were a bit smug. They somehow thought they would never fall to sexual sin, idolatry, or other errors.

Ironically, in their day, immorality also was rampant. The temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of fertility, was located in Corinth. As many as a thousand prostitutes who worked for the temple would carry on their immoral activities in the worship of that pagan deity. It is said that the prostitutes from this temple would go through the city of Corinth wearing specially designed sandals that left these words imprinted on the sand: “Follow me.” Many citizens of Corinth did just that and followed the prostitutes to the temple, committing immorality and also idolatry.

I think that same message is being given out today: Follow me. Certainly, Hollywood is contributing to the problem with a constant bombardment of sex.

God has warned us in the Scriptures for our own good. And please know this: There is no such thing as a quick fling. When you cross the line of protection God has placed around you, you do so at your own peril. And the repercussions of it can go on for months, years and even a lifetime.

Original Source: WND