"A Word to the Wise"

In August of 1995, I included this as a part of a newsletter I was sending out. I came across it in an old file of papers while moving into my new office in the basement of my home. Now, in 2008, the relevancy of this word and call to wisdom seems magnified.

“He that has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches…knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed” (Rom 13:11-14).

All throughout this land of ours, the trump of God is sounding an alarming ring…it’s a wake-up call. As the late Leonard Ravenhill, I am convinced that the Church has never faced a greater challenge than she does today. “We need a baptism of honesty in the courts of the Lord. Honesty means truth, and truth can be painful. We must face the fact that (with all our mass evangelism; with all our compromised presentation of the Gospel; the billions spent on radio and TV preaching) we have not made a dent in the moral corruption of the nations.”

In this season of harvest preparations (the Feast of Trumpets): 1) We must REALIZE our present corporate condition (We are still a valley of dry bones-Ez.37:1-3). 2) We must RESPOND to God’s clarion call…“AWAKE, AWAKE”…(Is. 52:1-2, Eph. 5:13, 1 Cor. 15:32-34). 3) We must REVERENCE “the Word of the Lord”, for it alone is our light and salvation, needed more than our necessary food. Oh God speak…we need to hear from you (Mt. 4:4, Is. 51:4, Ps. 119 – please read this). WE must REACT in swift obedience to His Word (Heb. 10:7, 1 Sam. 15:22, Zech. 6:15, Is 50:10).

As we awake from our sleep, and rise to trust and obey “HIM with whom we have to do”…we will find ourselves as jurors in what may be the worlds’ most publicized, disdained and influential cultural crimes trials. As syndicated columnist Cal Thomas aptly said, “when the evidence is weighed, the verdict is irrefutable…like the war crimes trials of the past, the testimony of victims will be damning.” May we stand and proclaim God’s generational judgments and eternal truths…redeeming the past, prophesying the present and restoring a future to a generation lost in the wilderness. Know this, “God is seeking for true worshipers… those with a desire to be faithful, to honor and please HIM in everything and in every way. The whole hearted love for HIM, singleness of eye, purity of heart…ones that do respond (continually) to apprehend HIM, believe and trust HIM, judge HIM faithful who has promise. May we HIS people serve HIM without fear, in holiness and righteousness all our days, that in the ages to come HE might show the exceeding riches of HIS grace for HIS Holy Name’s sake. Oh, how unsearchable are HIS judgments, and HIS ways past finding out…