Grace Lifted Away

Grace Lifted Away

4/5/20

For all of our lives, we have been taught that God’s grace is upon us and that His arms of protection are ever-present.  This is a true statement but one that will not always be with us unless we ensure that God’s Laws are willingly and lovingly obeyed at all times.  This nation is not exempt from trials and tribulations but up until now, we have had the knowledge to look to the correct Source for guidance and help.  But over time this trust of ours has turned from God to ourselves and through this choice, we have witnessed many dangerous hazards approach our land.  Some have been human-made while others have been provided by natural causes, whatever the case may be these instances have increased in numbers and in damages.  This is not God’s plan for our nation and His Children yet they occur.  Do we want these instances to stop or for them to continue?  It is still our choice and it is strictly up to us to make the correct choice, God loves His prized Creations and He wants to bless us but He cannot continue to do so if we do not Trust in Him first.

As an avid history enthusiast, I have spent a number of hours reading about the Egyptian dynasties and everything that they stood for.  It is remarkable about how these rulers came to power and how they conquered many foreign lands and stood as the mightiest power in the world for a very long time.  This leadership and powerful empire did not stop when one ruling family or group of leaders passed away but lasted for thousands of years and through this presence has provided us with fabulous amounts of information about human history.  Just like every other superpower nation or empire that lived, it started with a small territory and was blessed over a period of time with growth and prosperity enough to proclaim itself as the leader and best place to live in the world.  Today, we could take many lessons from the Egyptians in how not to mess a good thing up for there is no question that some point in time their empire collapsed and after this collapse they never regained the status that they once held, it is this part of history that we really need to understand yet time after time we do not figure things out before something tragic occurs to alter the course of living.

Exodus 1 – 14

I know we just covered a huge amount of time in one short paragraph, but there is a bunch more territory we need to cover before this article ends and it starts with what happened with Egypt and why she fell hard.  In the Book of Exodus, we have the story of Egypt and just how great she had become along with the reason she was blessed with such a status.  Her belief in God and the allowance of God to be present in her borders granted this status to them but almost as soon as Exodus opens we find that there was in place a new ruler who did not know Joseph thus did not know or care to know God either.  Yes, the children of Israel was still within their borders but their presence had become a hindrance and a sore spot in the heart of Egyptian leaders, thus plan after plan was implemented against God’s people and brutally carried out over a given amount of time.  God continued to bless His children even though times became hard for them.  This growth, prosperity, and happiness of the Israelites frustrated the Egyptians to the point where meetings had to be set up with both sides in order to resolve the issues at hand.

God wanted His people to be free from the slavery that had been thrust upon and over them so Moses took up the leadership role and began speaking for God to Pharaoh.  These were not simple and quiet dinner-like meetings, for the Egyptians did not want to give up control of their enslaved nation but at the same time feared their population numbers, a conundrum that would prove deadly in the future.  After a few rounds of cat and mouse between God and Pharaoh, God began a series of plagues that one-by-one took the resources and livelihood away from Egypt.  These plagues were not just small and pointless interactions between the earth and a few people, the entire nation of Egypt was involved with no house or building spared.  After each plague occurred, God would repeat His message to the leadership of Egypt which was sarcastically and narcissistically rejected.  Even as Egypt continued to endure the bleeding state of their lands occur, they fought with hardened hearts against what God wanted them to allow claiming human sovereignty and false idolatry over their ways instead of looking at what they were enduring and understanding that this process could stop if they just listened.  Egypt continued to suffer greatly from these acts of God with each plague striking another portion of their lives that took more and more away from their livelihood.

God did not intend for Egypt to be totally wiped out and made defenselessly but Egypt did it to themselves through their acts of rebellion and voluntary sinful choices.  It was not until God had to take the first born of every Egyptian household before they would release the children of Israel, but even after they allowed them to leave their hearts were still hard and the best army in the world perished under water in pursuit of what God had ordained.  On every occasion and after every plague, Pharaoh demonstrated exactly what was present in his heart and in the heart of his people.  Egypt was so buried in their wealth and status that they continued to believe that they could sustain the hand of God with what they had been divinely given in the first place.  It is this part of human thinking and reasoning that makes me scratch my heart and hurt my heart when I read it because with all of the warnings and signs before the plagues began, all while the plagues were ongoing, and even after they were over, selfish humanity demonstrated the incorrect choice.

Pharaoh could have stopped the game with God at any time before he took his last breath, but his pride and selfish spirit refused to allow him to quit.  We can sit back and ask ourselves the infamous “what if” questions concerning the path and course of Egypt especially if she would have allowed God to continue His Work in their stability.  But we see here a great example of what occurs to not only our individual lives when we do not listen to God and to obey His Ways but also on a national level as well.  Through this pride and selfishness, Egypt failed to recognize that as each plague and resulted condition came to be, the covering and grace of God were being lifted away from their land.  Additionally, their eyes were so blinded that they failed to understand exactly what was going on over their land since it was their land and people that were only being affected by these issues.  There was no question that God had blessed Egypt with riches that had never been witnessed before, and further down in God’s Word we see that Israel herself fell into this same trap and God once again had to grab the attention of their hearts as well, another great loss and captivity without an identifiable nation.  Why do we have to emerge in human history as failures?  Why can’t we figure out that when our hearts belong to God and we put Him first in our lives things shall go so much easier?  Satan loves history, he loves to hide the truth about our history from us so that we cannot figure out the correct path to take FIRST.

The frightening part about God and His wrath is that He allows the sowing of our sinful ways to come to fruition which means that when these events of disobedience arise in our hearts it fruit of death reign.  In every instance in the Bible where mankind chooses sin over obedience, death soon follows.  The true definition of disobedience is death, for sin is death displayed exponentially to the infinite degree and every single time we find that the people who choose sin over God always lose something or someone dear and meaningful to their existence.  It does not have to be this way, there is a better option.  This nation was established by God for a specific reason and while we have struggled with maintaining our consistency with God we have come to the conclusion that we do not need God any longer that we have everything we need and under our control.  This example of Egypt in the Bible paints a solemn picture of how our hearts live and function today where idols and self-rule solely in power.  Just as Egypt feared God at one time and lived under His blessings and protection due to the inhabitants of God, so did we live under His countenance according to the respect and reverence of God and His inhabitants that live here.

Ever since September 11, 2001, have we been witness to such unusual items that cross our newsroom screens.  But, this date only begins with the truly visible aspects of what our hearts have allowed into our lives for our borders were breached many years before with the opportunities for striking different levels of our presence.  On the surface, it would seem like a foolish move to attack the most powerful nation that has ever been created but on the other hand what better promotion than to wreak a harrowing blow to something that believes they are invincible.  By no means, I am suggesting that any strike on our land on any level is a good thing but because of our location and position this single event and others that have followed should have never occurred but we know they did.  God allowed such an opportunity for us to repent and to turn our ways back to Him and to live for Him again so that we can fulfill the destiny that God established this nation to complete.  But no, the atheists had it correct in that after a short while our cries of anguish and pain would go away and our true natured heart would return to our forefront.  It is a devastating truth when atheists recognize our inner conditions before we do.

Today, the world is facing another interesting and traumatic event but it is due to a virus, not a physical building or ground destructive error.  There are many clues concerning this event that should make people wonder about their own sanity and eternal placement, yet we ignore such vital institutions and carry on with our demands of personal selfish guidelines, all the way down to meaningless supplies of life.  Is this a modern day plague or is it something that mankind has created in order to put their plan into action; I do find it very interesting that this occurrence is with us at the three and one-half year mark of our current presidency.  Whatever the answer may be, we are currently witnessing our nation bleed out on every level of existence and when complimented with the other previous bleeding instances we are almost at the point of being at anemic status, physically.  More problematic and less recognized is that our physical bleeding is now on a drainage scale to where we are at on a spiritual level and if the levels of spirit and physical are rising together there is no greater course for humanity but the opposite is true when heading in the opposite direction.  God has always called to His children to listen for His voice during times of intrigue and in trouble, we should heed this Word of Wisdom and hear.

I have no idea how many more issues this nation and the world shall face, Egypt faced ten before their ruin came and all of us can agree that our nation is far greater and bigger than any other past empire or land has known.  Selfishly, we sit back and try to patch up the holes that have been created by our own hands, doesn’t that seem kind of ridiculous to hear?  We cannot get very far down the road when we are fixing holes in our own lives that we made ourselves; deliberate sabotage on a scale of eternal suicide when compared to the standards of the Bible.  I also have no idea how long these items shall continue and I do not know if our nation is over as it has existed either.  But what I do know is that our individual hearts are as black as the starless and moonless night and our national heart has followed suit.  So when you stop and look at things in this manner, one cannot help but fall on our knees and ask God for mercy because it is not too difficult to recognize that His Grace has been lifted away from this land.  If this first sign is any indication of what is to come, look out folks we are in for a terrible ride that we have never known before.  Are we becoming another Egypt and having our authority and position taken away?  I am afraid that the process may have begun I do not know for sure.  But look around you and see what is being taken away and it is hard not to notice that this single event is taking a dreadful toll on this land.

I wish I had more comforting words to give you, but these are the words that God has given me to write to you today.  Church, it is time we gather our people into our hearts and tell them the Truth about God and His Ways.  It is obvious that we do not even know we are doing things in a sinful manner for we have fallen away so far from the Bible.  But there is a small window of opportunity to hear God’s voice again and to change our hearts so that we may have redemption and to tell as many people as possible before times really become difficult.  The first is usually a taste of what is to come and since God is a complete God, He shall follow through as He has done so many times in the past.  The auricles of God continue to be made known and we can learn them each day of our lives but we need to take the initiative and study them and hide them in our hearts.  God loves you, stay strong and be spiritually healthy at all times.  Preach the Gospel to the dying world, and right at the moment there is a bunch of dying going on.

DLB