April 13, 2020
FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
WHICH COMES FIRST: NATIONAL RUIN OR NATIONAL APOSTASY?
“It is time for Thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void Thy law.” Ps. 119: 126, KJV.
Who is “they” and when, how and why will they “make void God’s law? These should be the questions foremost in the minds of the people of the sanctuary and prophecy at this very time of earth’s history.
The COVID-19 crisis that our beloved nation (and the whole world) is currently struggling with, is packed with more profound prophetic ramifications than most realize, the ignorance, which in itself, is the greater crisis and calamity, as it nears eternal consequences.
Note: “The greatest and most favored nation upon the earth is the Unites States. A gracious Providence has shielded this country, and poured upon her the choicest of Heaven’s blessings. Here the persecuted and oppressed have found refuge. Here the Christian faith in its purity has been taught. This people have been the recipients of great light and unrivaled mercies. But these gifts have been repaid with ingratitude and forgetfulness. The Infinite One keeps a reckoning with the nations [see Job 12:23], and their guilt is proportioned to the light rejected. A fearful record now stands in the register of Heaven against our land; but the crime which shall fill up the measure of her iniquity is that of making void [by official legislation and enforcement] the law of God.
“Between the laws of men and the precepts of Jehovah will come the last great conflict of the controversy between truth and error. UPON THIS BATTLE WE ARE NOW ENTERING, a battle not between rival churches contending for the supremacy, but between the religion of the Bible and the religion of fable and tradition [such as the celebration of pagan Easter Sunday]. The agencies which will unite against truth and righteousness in this contest are NOW at work.” Great Controversy. 1884 ed., p. 398.
As the leaders of our nation are understandably worrying that unless a cure can be quickly found to effectively contain this COVID-19 contagion, the nation is facing the grim specter of “national ruin” in the collapse of the economy with all its devastating ramifications caused by the current pandemic.
Now, what does “the more sure Word of prophecy” tell us to anticipate? As the scientists and all relevant experts are madly scrambling to know what, where and how this really started, in order to contain it, tracing from cause to effect, harnessing the very cutting edges of science and technology, they are not asking the more pressing questions: WHO is causing it and for what purpose?
We will ask the Bible and Spirit of prophecy, the It is Written, to give us more light and insights in tomorrow’s text message.
Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might today! NMF