TIME OF SHAKING THE NATIONS
“What is God Doing Today?”...It is very important to get the right knowledge of what we should pray for and what we should do in our current confused world. A proper acknowledgment of the truth that ‘nothing happens in the world that is not either the direct will of God or his allowable will’ is very important.
‘Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the LORD: look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn; look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave you birth. When I called him he was only one man, and I blessed him and made him many. The LORD will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; he will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the LORD. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing. ‘Listen to me, my people; hear me, my nation: instruction will go out from me; my justice will become a light to the nations. My righteousness draws near speedily, my salvation is on the way, and my arm will bring justice to the nations. The islands will look to me and wait in hope for my arm. Lift up your eyes to the heavens, look at the earth beneath; the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants die like flies. But my salvation will last for ever, my righteousness will never fail. ‘Hear me, you who know what is right, you people who have taken my instruction to heart: do not fear the reproach of mere mortals or be terrified by their insults. For the moth will eat them up like a garment; the worm will devour them like wool. But my righteousness will last for ever, my salvation through all generations.’ Awake, awake, arm of the LORD, clothe yourself with strength! Awake, as in days gone by, as in generations of old. Was it not you who cut Rahab to pieces, who pierced that monster through? Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made a road in the depths of the sea so that the redeemed might cross over? Those the LORD has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.
ISAIAH 51: 1- 11.
Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, for the LORD has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. The LORD will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God. Depart, depart, go out from there! Touch no unclean thing! Come out from it and be pure, you who carry the articles of the LORD’s house. But you will not leave in haste or go in flight; for the LORD will go before you, the God of Israel will be your rear guard.In last month’s letter we surveyed an exciting outlook on Iran’s spiritual awakening. It is important for us to focus upon what is happening today in the Middle East and Europe in order to understand what God is doing and what His messages are to us. The following article, entitled “Ben-Gurion’s Prophetic Letters” by a Jewish writer, Avi Lipkin is a testimony of the one who has been led to be used by God because of his heart’s desire to seek after Him from a young age. He argues two Holocausts; the first by Nazi Germany and the Second Holocaust of assimilation, caused by intermarriage, pointing out the fact that most Diaspora Jews live very comfortably in America, Britain, Australia and elsewhere, and that the result is the gradual disappearance of the Jews in the Diaspora. However he prophetically believes that a day will come of a mass Jewish immigration to Israel, expressing ‘Islamic terrorism could be the giant spatula of God to scrape up the Jews and bring them home to Zion’.
ISAIAH 52: 9- 12.
In 1964, as a 15-year-old Jewish American living in New York, I had the honor of receiving two personal letters from Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. His handwritten notes were in response to two letters I wrote him in Hebrew to inquire about his controversial statement that all Jews must move to Israel and there was no future for the Jewish Diaspora.Avi Lipkin’s testimony reveals the fact that God is surely always near those who seek after His guidance with sincere zeal for Him as shown in the Scripture quoted from Isaiah 51 and 52 in the beginning of this letter. It also clearly tells us that God will completely restore His chosen people Israel in the end. There would be a time of tribulation before the messianic age when ultimately the knowledge of the Lord will spread and the good tidings of peace and salvation will prevail worldwide. Then the ruins of Jerusalem will be called upon to rejoice, both because of the restoration of the Jews, and the conversion of the Gentiles.
After 50 years, my sister found these letters in my father’s house, letters which I thought had been lost. Because of these two letters the seed was planted in my heart and soul to leave America, leave my parents and family and make Aliyah to Israel, which I did at age 19 in 1968.
In his first letter, Ben-Gurion explained: It is possible for a Jew who lives abroad to be an honest, decent and scholarly person just as it is possible that a Jew who lives in Israel can be a bad, unrighteous and ignorant person. However, if a Jew really wants to be a complete Jew, it is only possible in the Land of Israel… A Jew who wants to be Jewish in everything must come here.
In his second letter, the late prime minister told me: I’m neither a prophet nor a fortuneteller, but I fear Jews in the Diaspora will assimilate as time goes by if they don’t have relatives in Israel. I fear Israel will cease to exist if the number of Jews does not double or triple.
The letters speak for themselves. The American Jewish population numbered about 6 million at the end of World War II. Today in 2015, the Jewish population in the U.S. is between 5.5 and 6 million despite the mass immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union, Israel, Argentina and Brazil, among others.
Between this immigration and natural reproduction, the Jewish population of America today should have been about 15 million, but instead is stagnant or shrinking. How do we explain this?
The Jewish People in the Diaspora have experienced, I believe, two Holocausts: the first by Nazi Germany and the Second Holocaust of assimilation. Intermarriage rates are between 70 and 80 percent in many parts of the U.S. In addition, career-oriented Jews do not have many children. This leads to the dissipation of the minority amongst the majority.
My parents were heartbroken when I “abandoned” them to be a Zionist and move to Israel. I did it to ensure I would one day marry a Jewish woman who would bare me Jewish children. But most Diaspora Jews are very comfortable staying put in America, Britain, Australia and elsewhere. The result is the gradual disappearance of the Jews in the Diaspora.
However, with increasing Islamic emigration from the Middle East to North America and Europe, and their penchant to “kill the Jews on Saturday and the Christians on Sunday.” I believe the Diaspora Jews may not feel so comfortable anymore and an increasing number will make Aliyah to Israel. The deadly terrorist attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris in January 2015 is a case in point.
Ben-Gurion said in his second letter to me Israel could not survive unless it doubled and tripled its population. He was a prophet. In 1964, Israel’s population stood at 3 million Jews; today it is 6.3 million and counting.
Soon we may see mass Jewish immigration to Israel. Islamic terrorism could be the giant spatula of God to scrape up the Jews and bring them home to Zion.
〔from the January 04 2016 eNews issue, Avi Lipkin, alias Victor Mordecai, has spoken to many churches, synagogues and civic groups (including radio and TV appearances). He is the author of several books including, “Islamic Rivalry” and “Is Fanatic Islam a Global Threat?” He offers compelling proof the fanaticism of Islam is the No. 1 threat to world peace today
http://www.khouse.org/enews_article/2015/2467/〕
The following article entitled “What is God Doing Today?” speaks of how important it is for us to understand what God is doing today. It is very important to get the right knowledge of what we should pray for and what we should do in our current confused world. A proper acknowledgment of the truth that ‘nothing happens in the world that is not either the direct will of God or his allowable will’ is very important. Otherwise our prayer will be misdirected towards our own heart desires, rather than be focused on the Lord’s will. What is happening today are the very things the biblical prophets warned of, and the following article reminds us of the major reason why God is now shaking the nations, in which Western Christian civilisation who once humbly accepted the Lord as their Saviour is beginning to crumble.
Whilst the media puts us all on information overload, the church largely stays silent. How can Christians understand the nature and purposes of God - and make them known?
There is no shortage of news today. In fact, most people are on information overload! We are bombarded with messages through the internet, from social media, from the TV news, from newspapers and magazines and all the stuff that comes through the letterbox. The world news becomes more depressing every day. The following are a few headlines from the first week of 2016:
Starving people in besieged towns near Damascus / Islamic State beheads more victims and threatens Britain / 47 dissidents executed in Saudi Arabia / Iran and Saudi Arabia break diplomatic contact / North Korea explodes a hydrogen bomb / Stock Market crash in China threatens economy / More migrants drown in boats from Turkey to Greece / Arab and North African men assault women at New Year celebrations in German cities.
But all these headlines are about what human beings are doing in the world. The great missing factor in our news broadcasts is "What is God doing today?"
Silence from the Church
This question should be in the minds of every Christian and on the lips of every preacher in every church in the land! Why is there such silence from church leaders? Do Christians no longer believe in the sovereignty of God? The Bible teaches us that God is not simply the God of creation, who flung the stars into orbit and created the universe – God is still active, sustaining his creation, and communicating with human beings whom he made in his own image.
The media is highly active in bringing us information about what is happening in every part of the world. But why is the church not similarly active in telling the world what God is doing today? The world does not know that God is active in working out his purposes today because there is no word coming from major church leaders and ordinary Christians are so silent. Why are we so timid about being witnesses to the truth? Do we not know that nothing happens in the world that is not either the direct will of God or his allowable will?
The media is highly active bringing us information on what is happening around the world. Why is the church not similarly active in declaring what God is doing?
The Nature and Purposes of God
The Bible is packed with information about the nature and purposes of God: how he revealed his truth to the prophets of Israel, how he sent Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, to enable us to know him as our Father, and how he both loves us and is a God of justice, requiring us to be his witnesses to the world.
But God never gives a task without also giving the ability to fulfil it. This is why the Holy Spirit was given to believers to enable them to understand what God is doing and to empower them to speak to others in his name.
God told the prophets that there would come a day when the nations would reach such a point of rebellion against the truth that he would start to shake them like gravel in a sieve. This is reported by Isaiah (2:12-21) and Haggai (2:6-7) and repeated in Hebrews (12:26f), where the purposes of God's shaking of the nations is explained.
Those who understand the truth revealed in the Bible and who also study world history will know that a new phase of history was entered in the early 20th century with the First World War, which signalled the collapse of the great modern empires. This process was accelerated by the Second World War which changed the map of the world and began great movements of population that are coming to a climax today, with vast numbers moving from east to west and south to north. The inevitable clash of cultures is only just beginning, which will intensify instability and violence in the nations.
The Holy Spirit was given to believers to empower them to understand what God is doing and to speak to others in his name.
At the same time, the rise of militant secularism in Western nations is undermining truth, deceiving people, blinding them to the significance of what is happening around them and destroying their ability to resist the power of false religions and philosophies that threaten their security. Western civilisation is beginning to crumble and this is a major reason why God is shaking the nations - to alert us to the danger of what lies ahead.
The Searchlight of Truth
Just consider what God has done in recent years. He has been turning on the searchlight of truth to reveal the corruption that is spreading like a cancer through the Western nations. In 2008 the light was turned on greed and corruption in the banking industry. In Britain this was followed by similar revelations among our politicians and revelations of sexual immorality among church leaders, followed by similar revelations among celebrities who are the idols of modern society.
A major reason why God is shaking the nations is to alert us to the danger of what lies ahead.
Now the searchlight of truth is being turned upon Islam and this is partly why there is such turmoil in the Middle East, where Islam began. God has even allowed the establishment of the Islamic State, whose atrocities have shocked many Muslims who know very little about the history of Islam, the activities of Muhammad, and the teaching of the Qu'ran – all of which are reflected in the practices of Islamic State fighters, who claim to be the only true Muslims. Muslim scholars know the teaching and practices of Muhammad, but it has been hidden from the world for centuries. It is now being revealed as the searchlight of truth is turned on.
Truth Brings Freedom
At the same time, many Jews and Muslims across the Middle East - from North Africa to Iraq and Iran - are having dreams and visions of Jesus, as God reveals his truth to them. This is preparing the way of the Kingdom of God, which the writer to the Hebrews says is the purpose of the great shaking of the nations (Heb 12:26f). So instead of being afraid of all the turmoil in the world today, we should actually be glad to see God at work in his world, shaking all the man-made systems and false teachings that have deceived and enslaved multitudes. It is the truth that sets us free! (8th Jan.’16)
(http://prophecytoday.uk/comment/editorial/item/294-what-is-god-doing-today.html)