For those who do not think we are close to the end....

Gideons300

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In the news this morning, it was reported that a law in Fort Collins, Colorado, banning topless women in public, was unconstitutional, based upon the fact that men could do so. The argument was that this was sexual discrimination.

Pandora's box has been opened, and there is no closing it. The sexualizarion of our society just went from bad to worse.... far worse.

As we see the signs of the times unfoling right before our eyes, with good being called evil and evil proclaimed as good, should we continue our Sunday-go-to-meeting Christianity that empowers no one to walk in victroy over the world, the flesh and the devil, or begin to seek God as to how to actually find the secret of walking as real overcomers.

We have become bushel basket Christians, touting our bushel basket as THE way, competing for malnourished and hungey sheep We feed them programs, luxury church buildings and the latest laser-lighted worship techniques to induce shallow, emotional responses to tickle their ears, their eyes and their desire to be entertained.

Guys, a shaking is coming and when it is all over, our church model will fail, utterly and completely. Why? It feeds our carnal fleshly nature rather than teaches the saints of God how to put it in the grave and to put on who they truly are, new creatures in Christ.

And if you see this happening and are longing for change, for the abilty to walk in the Free Indeed that Jesus promised us. but you do not know how, seek Hid face as to the answer. He has one and once you see it, and receive it, you will never be the same.

Onward and upwards!

blessings,

Gids
 

Neostarwcc

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I'm moving to Colorado then.

Joking aside we could be in the end times but honestly? There have been signs of the end times ever since Christ rose from the dead. Is violence escalating now? Sure. But that's also because we added guns to society with no form of gun control.
 
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Gideons300

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I'm moving to Colorado then.

Joking aside we could be in the end times but honestly? There have been signs of the end times ever since Christ rose from the dead. Is violence escalating now? Sure. But that's also because we added guns to society with no form of gun control.
We are truly blind if we think everything is just as it has always been. According to Barna's polling, over 1/3 of evangelicals have serious inappropriate contentography issues. The divorce rate among Christians is basically the same as those in the world. And we do not think having topless women coming into our churches on Sunday mornings..... and trust me, they will, will not affect our worship services? Really? We will have no authority to see them removed, for we will be breaking the law. Far fetched? Probably about as far fetched as having unisex bathrooms.

We as His church are salt that has lost its savor, the blind leading the blind. We pride ourselves on drawing near the alord with our lips, but our hearts, if we are truyl honest, are not His, but ours. We have a form of godliness, but our very lives testify to the lack of power we have in freeing ourselves from our sins.

We are facing issues in the world.... overpopulation, lack of clean water, pollution, global warming, mass migrations, hatred, variance, threats of social breakdown, wars and rumors of war, sectarianism, sexual debauchery, televisions feeding us things we watch with no conviction whatsoever, and the prospectcin 30 years of the world's population DOUBLING while our resources dwindle. In 60 years, we have gone from I Love Lucy to Californication.

Crime soars, stress levels just for daily living is off the chart, drugs are eating us up as a society from the inside out, and Christians see all these things and turn a blind eye to it, wanting more than anything to not have their comfortable lives inconvenienced in any way.

Brother, far more than inconveneience is on the horizon. If we see these things and prepare not by seeking to walk in the Spirt as our priority, may God have mercy on out souls. He has an answer for us, a place of safetly in Him, hidden and safe, but until we hunger after it, weep for it, and finally hate the US that is content with this world, while we wait for the bus from Heaven to whisk us all out of here, we will find our hearts getting harder, and the danger to our souls growing at an ever increasing rate.

Blessings,

Gideon
 
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SeventyOne

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In the news this morning, it was reported that a law in Fort Collins, Colorado, banning topless women in public, was unconstitutional, based upon the fact that men could do so. The argument was that this was sexual discrimination.

Pandora's box has been opened, and there is no closing it. The sexualizarion of our society just went from bad to worse.... far worse.

As we see the signs of the times unfoling right before our eyes, with good being called evil and evil proclaimed as good, should we continue our Sunday-go-to-meeting Christianity that empowers no one to walk in victroy over the world, the flesh and the devil, or begin to seek God as to how to actually find the secret of walking as real overcomers.

We have become bushel basket Christians, touting our bushel basket as THE way, competing for malnourished and hungey sheep We feed them programs, luxury church buildings and the latest laser-lighted worship techniques to induce shallow, emotional responses to tickle their ears, their eyes and their desire to be entertained.

Guys, a shaking is coming and when it is all over, our church model will fail, utterly and completely. Why? It feeds our carnal fleshly nature rather than teaches the saints of God how to put it in the grave and to put on who they truly are, new creatures in Christ.

And if you see this happening and are longing for change, for the abilty to walk in the Free Indeed that Jesus promised us. but you do not know how, seek Hid face as to the answer. He has one and once you see it, and receive it, you will never be the same.

Onward and upwards!

blessings,

Gids

They should have went the other way and made men put a shirt on instead. Seriously, no one wants to see that gut or back hair nest.
 
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Neostarwcc

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We are truly blind if we think everything is just as it has always been. According to Barna's polling, over 1/3 of evangelicals have serious inappropriate contentography issues. The divorce rate among Christians is basically the same as those in the world. And we do not think having topless women coming into our churches on Sunday mornings..... and trust me, they will, will not affect our worship services? Really? We will have no authority to see them removed, for we will be breaking the law. Far fetched? Probably about as far fetched as having unisex bathrooms.

We as His church are salt that has lost its savor, the blind leading the blind. We pride ourselves on drawing near the alord with our lips, but our hearts, if we are truyl honest, are not His, but ours. We have a form of godliness, but our very lives testify to the lack of power we have in freeing ourselves from our sins.

We are facing issues in the world.... overpopulation, lack of clean water, pollution, global warming, mass migrations, hatred, variance, threats of social breakdown, wars and rumors of war, sectarianism, sexual debauchery, televisions feeding us things we watch with no conviction whatsoever, and the prospectcin 30 years of the world's population DOUBLING while our resources dwindle. In 60 years, we have gone from I Love Lucy to Californication.

Crime soars, stress levels just for daily living is off the chart, drugs are eating us up as a society from the inside out, and Christians see all these things and turn a blind eye to it, wanting more than anything to not have their comfortable lives inconvenienced in any way.

Brother, far more than inconveneience is on the horizon. If we see these things and prepare not by seeking to walk in the Spirt as our priority, may God have mercy on out souls. He has an answer for us, a place of safetly in Him, hidden and safe, but until we hunger after it, weep for it, and finally hate the US that is content with this world, while we wait for the bus from Heaven to whisk us all out of here, we will find our hearts getting harder, and the danger to our souls growing at an ever increasing rate.

Blessings,

Gideon

Half of what you said though was happening in the first century too. There was a lot of war and violence in the first century and before that too. Personally? I think it will be another century or two before Christ does return. As a lot of the things listed in the book of revelation haven't happened yet. We don't know who the anti Christ or the beast are yet and there haven't been any plagues yet.

Is violence escalating? Yes. But its been escalating post and pre flood too. Pre flood it got apparently so bad that God had to wipe out the world and start over.
 
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Gideons300

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They should have went the other way and made men put a shirt on instead. Seriously, no one wants to see that gut or back hair nest.
I do not want to come across as a man wirhout a sense of humor, and there is definitely a time for it.
This is not the time,

7+billion people facing eternity..... unprepared, and with the clock of eternity ticking. And the gospel they have seen, what our lives have displayed to them, testifies that the world does satisfy, that God has the power to forgive, but not to actually change us from sinners to saints, overflowing with fruits of the Spirit. That guilt lies on OUR shoulders, and yet, just like the Laodecians, we think all is well with our souls, and that we are just fine, thank you very much.

We are not, and that is no joking matter.

blessings,

Gideon
 
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bèlla

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We are truly blind if we think everything is just as it has always been. According to Barna's polling, over 1/3 of evangelicals have serious inappropriate contentography issues.

Sin doesn't fall out of the sky. Nor does someone turn to inappropriate contentography out of the blue. I'd be interested to know how many were reading books, magazines, or visiting adult stores and websites beforehand. The information was always there. All you're seeing is an open acknowledgement of preexisting situations that were previously hidden.

The divorce rate among Christians is basically the same as those in the world.

And many of those marriages were made in flesh, not spirit. We need to be honest about that statistic when quoting.

We as His church are salt that has lost its savor, the blind leading the blind. We pride ourselves on drawing near the alord with our lips, but our hearts, if we are truyl honest, are not His, but ours. We have a form of godliness, but our very lives testify to the lack of power we have in freeing ourselves from our sins.

When love is absent the rest is meaningless. That's what's missing.

We are facing issues in the world.... overpopulation, lack of clean water, pollution, global warming, mass migrations, hatred, variance, threats of social breakdown, wars and rumors of war, sectarianism, sexual debauchery, televisions feeding us things we watch with no conviction whatsoever, and the prospectcin 30 years of the world's population DOUBLING while our resources dwindle. In 60 years, we have gone from I Love Lucy to Californication.

There's nothing new under the sun. All that you mention hinges on the same thing it always did. Free will. If you want to eat of those fruits you will. If you don't you won't.
 
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dzheremi

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To be more serious about it: We have been facing the end and eternity for 2,000 years now, ever since eternity came to us in the God-man Jesus Christ. It is better to focus on Him than on developments in the political and social world, as His kingdom is not of this world to begin with.
 
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Gideons300

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Sadly, and I mean no disresepct, these answers typify the opinions of the vast majority of Christians.

The dark black coulds are gwthering on the horizon, willful sin still resides in the hearts of most of His children, self atill rules the roost, and yet all is well with our souls.

May God awawken us before it is too late.

blessings,

Gideon
 
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SeventyOne

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I do not want to come across as a man wirhout a sense of humor, and there is definitely a time for it.
This is not the time,

7+billion people facing eternity..... unprepared, and with the clock of eternity ticking. And the gospel they have seen, what our lives have displayed to them, testifies that the world does satisfy, that God has the power to forgive, but not to actually change us from sinners to saints, overflowing with fruits of the Spirit. That guilt lies on OUR shoulders, and yet, just like the Laodecians, we think all is well with our souls, and that we are just fine, thank you very much.

We are not, and that is no joking matter.

blessings,

Gideon

Well, you do come across that way, and I was actually quite serious. It is a double standard.

You want to do something different? Do it. But don't come here preaching about your perceived inadequacies of others as if you are the only game in town. All you appear to be doing is assigning blame to exonerate yourself of some personal guilt.
 
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dzheremi

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I mean this completely seriously, OP: It is not an occasion for sadness that the majority of Christians seem to remember that Jesus Christ told us that the end would come as a thief in the night, not as a pair of breasts exposed in Colorado, and hence do not spend time searching for signs high and low of that which Christ also told us is not for us to know.

Focusing on important things and laughing off doomsayers (while knowing that the end is liable to come at any point, including when we may not expect it, as the scriptures tell us; read: it is coming, just not as the self-proclaimed prophets have told us it is time and time again, but as Christ warns us it is) is a sign of healthy spirituality.
 
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Gideons300

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To be more serious about it: We have been facing the end and eternity for 2,000 years now, ever since eternity came to us in the God-man Jesus Christ. It is better to focus on Him than on developments in the political and social world, as His kingdom is not of this world to begin with.
Indeed it is. The only problem is, we don't. our hearts are rooted here, in this life. Heaven is an afterthought. And how few there are who will be honest enough to admit rhat this is the truth.

We are content with our weekly services, our pet doctrines, our fruitlessness (because after all, no one is perfect, right?) where no one in rhe world says "Behold how they love one another!" Thank God He is going to awaken His people in these last days. But each one of us is going to have to search his heart as to if he is truly a part of the elect, and whether he really wants to becset free from sin and self rule.

blessings,

Gideon
 
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dzheremi

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I'm willing to bet from your reply that my definition of "we" is larger and deeper than yours, Gideon, so we're probably not going to see eye to eye on this one. I wouldn't protest about "we" including you and me and probably everyone on this website. I'm less fine with it including the 21 neo-martyrs of Libya, the two groups of martyrs of the monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor in Egypt, the martyrs of Siadat al-Najat Church in Iraq, or the martyrs of El Botrosiya and Tanta, to choose only a few of the more headline-grabbing examples of Christians across the world dying for their faith right now (not even in the future). We take for granted what others would be blessed to be able to take for granted because in the West we have not faced significant challenges from an active non-Christian power before the modern era. We shall see what the future really brings before Christ returns. I imagine it will not so spectacularly clear as to be prophesied about on the internet.
 
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bèlla

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I would hope you weren't seeking woeful commiseration for your OP. I give no place to doom or gloom nor will I spend my days bemoaning a fate that hasn't come. I have been given a task and that's where my focus remains. And I intend to pursue it (and my time on earth) with joy, peace, and love. If others opt to live otherwise that's their choice.
 
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dzheremi

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Wasn't it in To Kill A Mockingbird that some wise old lady tells the main character that the problem with some religious people is that they get so busy preparing for life in the next world that they never learn how to live in this one? That's basically how I look at it. My mother died at 49. I don't know how much longer I have left (I'm still a few years away from that, but not as many as I'd like to be), and neither does anyone else. The desert fathers and mothers told us that this life was given for repentance, but not to keep us scared and looking for the four horsemen or whatever, but so that we don't squander it on useless worldly pursuits when we ought to be supplicating and praising God. In the words of the Russian saint St. Xenia of Petersburg, it is later than we think! And so we should hasten to do the work of God.

This is how, to reference a subsequent post by the OP, we can be comfortable with (really I'd prefer nurtured by) our services and practices and doctrines and such. For the more traditional Christians among us, knowing that we will go to liturgy (if we are blessed to be able to go because we live in a western country where the church is probably not going to be blown up or shot up by gunmen on any given week) and directly participate in the life, death, and resurrection of our God Jesus Christ is what makes it so that when we say in the Creed "We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come", the accompanying "Amen" can be said with gladness, hope, and joy.
 
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Gideons300

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I would hope you weren't seeking woeful commiseration for your OP. I give no place to doom or gloom nor will I spend my days bemoaning a fate that hasn't come. I have been given a task and that's where my focus remains. And I intend to pursue it (and my time on earth) with joy, peace, and love. If others opt to live otherwise that's their choice.
Labella, I am not seeking woeful commiseration at all. I am simply pointing to the truth as to our state, and that we as a whole are woefully unprepared spiritually to endure it.

Just as the Lord spoke, we are found asleep as the end approaches. I thank God for those seeking to 'come up higher', to walk as overcomers as opposed to being overcome by the world and its baubles, the flesh and its insistence on remaining in the drivers seat and the devil who tempts us successfully with regularity.

Right now, the wheat and the tares grow together, and can hardly be seen as different. That is to our shame. Few are truly setting their affections on things above, and fewer still are crying out for deliverance from their life mired in the failures of Romans 7. We are as a whole content to be forgiven, yet remain barren for the most part of fruits of the Spirit.

If am man or woman is genuinely seeking to walk in victory over the world, the flesh and the devil, praise God! I am convinced the struggles of such a one will be richly rewarded with the power to live holy and righteously as he or she presents their bodies a living sacrifice.

But for most, this is not the case at all, is it? They are content that their sins are smaller, lesser ones than those in the world, and because of a one time prayer, all is well with their soul. They have been healed, but only slightly, and the world, instead of being drawn to us by the love we have for the Lord and for one another, see us as religious hypocrites. But how hard it is for us to admit such a thing.

Praise God, the day approaches that the wheat and the tares are going to be seperated, as the wheat lights their lamps as to who they truly are, children of eternity, and again finally walk in the joy of their salvation.

We are approaching the valley of decision, every single one of us. Each one of us are going to have to choose whom we will serve, us or Him in us. We so want to sleep on, oblivious to the obvious, and to the lateness of the hour, but for better or for worse, we will be awakened and asked that question. We may try to avoid giving an answer, but in doing so, we are indeed continuing to make the choice for US to remain on the throne of our lives.

if we continue to sow to our flesh, living our lives as if WE own them, there will most certainly come a day that we rue that decision. But blessed are the ones who cry out for more of Jesus, so that they might be delivered from the wretchedness of their old nature, and walk in 'the glorious liberty of the children of God'. Our God will not turn away from any who seek Him with their whole heart.

Our birthright is to walk as overcomers, not as the forgiven overcome. May we finally come to realize that we have limited the Holy One of Israel by our unbelief and finally believe that His promises to us are our stepping stones to being changed into His image.

blessings,

Gideon
 
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Gideons300

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Wasn't it in To Kill A Mockingbird that some wise old lady tells the main character that the problem with some religious people is that they get so busy preparing for life in the next world that they never learn how to live in this one? That's basically how I look at it. My mother died at 49. I don't know how much longer I have left (I'm still a few years away from that, but not as many as I'd like to be), and neither does anyone else. The desert fathers and mothers told us that this life was given for repentance, but not to keep us scared and looking for the four horsemen or whatever, but so that we don't squander it on useless worldly pursuits when we ought to be supplicating and praising God. In the words of the Russian saint St. Xenia of Petersburg, it is later than we think! And so we should hasten to do the work of God.

This is how, to reference a subsequent post by the OP, we can be comfortable with (really I'd prefer nurtured by) our services and practices and doctrines and such. For the more traditional Christians among us, knowing that we will go to liturgy (if we are blessed to be able to go because we live in a western country where the church is probably not going to be blown up or shot up by gunmen on any given week) and directly participate in the life, death, and resurrection of our God Jesus Christ is what makes it so that when we say in the Creed "We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come", the accompanying "Amen" can be said with gladness, hope, and joy.
I have heard that saying as well, and I suspect for a few, it is very applicable. However, I think it is far more common among the saints at present, especially here in the west, to be so earthly minded, they are no heavenly good.

If, as children of God, our prime concern on rhe earth is to serve our King, to live for Him, to have Him change us into His image ao that our lives bring glory to Him , I would most definitely agree with you. However, I pray you can see that this is not the case at all.

blessings,

Gideon
 
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