Tuesday, 31 August 2021

GOING DOWN TO JOPPA AND FLEEING UNTO TARSHISH - ARE YOU WEDDED TO THE WORD... OR WELDED TO THE WORLD?

 "Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,

Arise, go to Ninevah, that great city, and cry against it;

for their wickedness is come up before me.

But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD,

and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish:

so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it,

to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.

But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, 

and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.

Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god,

and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them.

But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship;

and he lay, and was fast asleep."

(Jonah 1:1-5)

Friend, I have a vitally important question to ask and must not shrink from. Have you yourself gone down to Joppa? Are you yourself in the process of fleeing unto Tarshish? Have you yourself paid the fare? And in the midst of the mighty tempest have you yourself gone down into the sides of the ship and have surrendered yourself to slumber?

OK. Without beating about the proverbial bush, let me put it another way. With your eyes fixed in entirely the wrong direction, have you slipped down to the vaccination centre and got your shots? In the midst of the Covid planned-emic "perfect storm" have you settled yourself down in the hold of false hope? Are you fast asleep in the darkness of denial, and oblivious to the raw reality of these truly being the Last Days of human history? Are your eyes shut tight, at the very time that they need to be most open? As it is written,

"And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep:

for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed."

(Romans 13:11)

But, friend, DO you know the time? Do YOU know the time? Are you alert to the fact that the hands of the sure timepiece of God are all but ready to meet at the midnight hour? Do you really not perceive the immensity and the intensity of the encircling shadows? Do you really not see the gigantic writing on the wall? Have you no awareness of the relentless convergence of global events that heralds the imminent fulfillment of End-Times prophecy? Do you not sense an urgent stirring in your spirit as the tidal wave races in, inundating and smashing all before it? For if you do not, a most uncomfortable question poses itself: 

ARE YOU WEDDED TO THE WORD... OR WELDED TO THE WORLD?

This is a far from easy post for me to write, but write it I must, being urged not just by the fire within that won't be quenched, but by good friends whose judgment I trust to press on and continue to sound the shofar, perchance that someone might yet heed and I'm not just constantly and painfully banging my head against a brick wall of resistance and indifference. It's getting ever harder to give due warning, when most ears are now so acutely waxed up, or heavily self-plugged as the case may be. Frankly, as I survey the grim panorama of where we are at right now, a mixture of very negative feelings rises like gall in my spirit, perhaps chief among them being frustration and anger. 

Why such sentiments? Because people everywhere are sleepwalking - no, sleeprunning as fast as their little lemming-legs can carry them - into the arms of Antichrist, and this includes most of the professing Church of Jesus Christ, which I've personally never felt more estranged from and frankly disgusted with for being the almost complete waste of space that it has become, certainly here in the UK. Apart from a small and scattered and beleaguered wakeful Remnant, all there is to be found as I look around is a ready agreement and alliance with the world, a spineless refusal to stand apart from it and a most wretched and indeed heinous failure to warn it of what is to come. On all fronts there is found a sorry setting sail for Tarshish, rather than a faithful rush to Ninevah! There is such a shocking almost universal lack of recognition that Judgment is coming, and even now can be seen to have begun. For countless compromised Christians, the vaccine - this witch's brew of "science falsely so called" (1 Timothy 6:20) - has effectively ousted the Son as their saviour. I confess to feeling so terribly ashamed of the faithlessness of the Bride, who the nearer she gets to her wedding day the further she conclusively demonstrates that the engagement ring she flashes on her finger is just for show and not for fidelity.

With the whole world falling apart in every which way, just where are the John the Baptists urgently crying, "Repent, for the kingdom is at hand?" You'll be hard put to find such a one in Ninevah; the fast ferries to Tarshish are full to overflowing though with silent sleepers! And how has it been so forgotten by so many how vital it is to test the spirits? (And that, friends, most critically includes the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age!) How has it been so utterly lost to most people's understanding that our adversary the Devil still has power (that he makes huge use of!) to appear as an angel of light, an ability which allows him to deeply deceive the inhabitants of the earth with all manner of lies, from NAR and Word-Faith theology through to Covid-19 and global warming? It is of course the dire consequence of the wholesale abandonment of sound Biblical exegesis and eschatology, with the starry-eyed worship of teachers who'll endlessly tickle soulish itching ears with anything and everything that they WANT to hear, with the careful exclusion of what they absolutely NEED to hear. Comfortably cushioned Christian pew-polishers have been feeding on junk food for years, and spiritual sickliness is the inevitable outcome. The great apostasia is not future, it is right now... and the revealing of Antichrist comes hard on its heels! (2 Thess. 2:3).

Friends, make no mistake about it: God is testing His people for their faithfulness, and to a degree hitherto completely outside our experience here in the West. And it sure looks like the failure rate is going to be colossally high! If the Teacher is not going to be listened to, how can it be otherwise when we are examined? When weighed we will be found wanting. Period. Class is dismissed, nothing has been learned, and mark my words the consequences of this self-inflicted knowledge vacuum will be absolutely catastrophic! Have you not read of the "wicked and slothful servant" in Matthew 25 and the outcome of his unprofitability? I more forcibly pose the question again:

ARE YOU WEDDED TO THE WORD... OR WELDED TO THE WORLD?

Even while finalizing this piece, I just happened upon a current news headline straight out of the Book of Revelation. Just as the vaccine and its attendant passport is even now preparing the way for the mark of the beast, even now is the Euphrates drying up and so preparing the way for the kings of the east en route to Armageddon. (See: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/desert-drying-euphrates-threatens-disaster-020729056.html and Rev. 16:12). The clock is inexorably ticking... 

Please guys, get it together while you still can! As the Lord Himself urged:

"Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh,

at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning:

Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.

And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch."

(Mark 13:35-37)

WAKE UP AND WATCH!

"See that ye refuse not him that speaketh.

For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth,

much more shall not we escape,

if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven."

(Hebrews 12:25)