As 'n reel plaas ek nie graag 'n hele gedeelte in Engels nie maar die stuk was vir my baie treffend en daarom het ek besluit om die stuk in sy geheel net so te plaas.
TOP TEN SIGNS THAT WE ARE IN THE END TIMES
By
Alan Mansager, Yahweh's New Covenant Assembly, USA
CALL it spiritual warfare. The moral and ethical battles raging TODAY are a conflict of stratospheric implications. What is happening in our government, our courts, our schools, in business, in entertainment, and even IN CHURCHES is nothing less than a complete spiritual overhaul. Right before our eyes is a well-planned and brilliantly executed ATTACK on traditional values and beliefs that have served society well since man was put on earth.
We are witnesses to an astounding redefinition of the moral standards by which society has been able to survive and function for the past 6,000 years. Simultaneously, a new set of values based on popular psychology is being transfused into common thinking.
The underlying object is to prepare minds of people to receive the prophesied end-time 'Beast' system that will subjugate all of the world's governments. It will be a political-religious alliance such as the world has never seen.
Scripture foretells that ALL who dwell on the earth, with the exception of the saints, WILL worship the Beast (Anti-messiah), Rev. 13:8. So powerfully will the man of sin's deceptions influence and permeate our culture that Yahweh's very elect will themselves come close to being deceived by the wiles of the one to come (Matthew 24:24).
Before this iconoclastic, truth-supplanting regime can achieve world domination, however, resistance must be neutralised. Minds must be made receptive. For wholesale acceptance to be possible, right and wrong as defined in the Bible must be redefined.
Method in the Madness
A Bible-based way of life represents the only REAL obstacle to the implementation of this Satan-backed regime .Therefore, ANY Biblical way of thinking needs
first to be purged from the minds of the masses. Society's standards, laws, and morality, which are based on Biblical absolutes, must be broken down. Hearts must accept a new way of looking at good and bad.
The resulting chaos will open the door to the New World Government. The system will be able to fashion morality in its own image, just as the Nazis did in Germany and the Communists have done in Russia and China.
To re-educate the masses, the Adversary is taking a most ingenious tack. Through pop psychology, positive thinkers, and the self-esteem cult, he is busily convincing human beings that WE OURSELVES are the sole determinant of what is right and wrong. And since man is fallible and truth is relative, no one really can say that sin is sin and wrong is wrong. Further, even to THINK that someone could do wrong is destructive to one's all-important SELF-ESTEEM.
Our example of HOW the traditional concept of wrong is being EXPUNGED from the mass conscience is found in TODAY'S COURTS. To distance the criminal
from the crime, the defence argues that the perpetrator is himself, just a victim of some past abuse, drug influence, or other circumstance. Therefore, he is not to be blamed for bludgeoning another human being to death.
And juries across our land are buying it-especially when the media are keeping ubiquitous eyes on the case and more eager to hype what they see as ANY discriminatory verdicts.
We are living in a no-fault age where people are DUCKING RESPONSIBILITY. Everywhere Churches have for centuries been watering the roots of the
emerging philosophy of denial through teachings that HIDE what sin is ("transgression of the law," I John 3:4). If we take away the law we don't have any sin
and therefore can't be guilty of sinning (Romans 4:15).
This MODERN MESSAGE is bolstered by the New Age phenomenon: man is the centre of his universe. New Age trumpets that no particular values are essential to the human condition. Therefore outside, higher truth with its moral and ethical absolutes is useless to the new thinker. As a result, NOTHING is seen as good or bad, right or wrong, black or white. We exist in zones of grey where what is bad for you may not be bad for me.
THIS Satanic stratagem plays right into man's ageless desire to be his own authority and stand on the pinnacle of his own absolute. Since Adam's rebellion man has wanted to EXALT HIMSELF above all. Especially does he despise anyone interfering in his life to tell him that he must REPENT of his sin and change his behaviour.
In this mother of all spiritual wars, the strategy of the Evil One is exceedingly effective. At no time in human history has Bible-based morality been snubbed on such a grand scale as it is TODAY. We live in a post-Biblical age where opinions have replaced self-evident right and wrong. TODAY, the psychologist is almighty and the Humanist Manifesto is the Bible people follow - whether they realise it or not.
Root of the Problem
What are, and will be, the results of this grand scheme to ERADICATE BIBLE STANDARDS? Many of the conditions prophesied - and appearing in TODAY'S headlines are a direct result of TODAY'S MORAL MELTDOWN.
In His Olivet prophecy, Yahshua the Messiah foretold a number of circumstances that MUST PRECEDE His Second Coming. These requisites dramatically reflect a relentless attack aiming at ELIMINATING Scriptural truths from the social conscience. These and other prophecies also portend the state our world will be just before our Saviour returns to earth to wrest control from the Adversary and his minions. He will, along with His ruling saints, restore this planet to a harmonious, peaceful existence under Yahweh's righteous laws.
First, however, man's rebellion will need to run its full course
The End-time Validations
Following are ten Scriptural reasons for believing that we ARE living in the time Yahshua called the end. These are social conditions directly attributed to man's rebellion against Yahweh and His laws. (Prophesied natural plagues related to it are not dealt with here.)
One: A loss of the sense of right and wrong
This is the most destructive of the changes to the social and religious fabric. Because evil is only measured against the truth it defiles, suppression and dilution of the truth always precedes the advancing of the lie. We see this everywhere. Modern psychology teaches people that absolutes no longer exist. Further, no one is responsible for his or her harmful or destructive acts, because we are all just victims of one kind or another ourselves.
Opinions have taken place of self-evident right and wrong. Ethical and moral issues are assigned to the province of mere opinion, where they swim in a sea of grey, unable to cling to anything solid.
Journalism that presents moral or ethical issues by neutrally reporting both sides gives the illusion that truth is somewhere between the extremes. Those, then, who make a stand for morality are seen as extremists. Totally disregarded is the fact that in a moral or ethical debate, one of the sides must be the truth! And a society that glories in perversions makes the normal look odd.
Two: Lawbreaking that goes unpunished
In the justice system, the tried-and-true principle of swift, sure punishment suitable to the crime (Eccl .8:11) is replaced by bargaining for punishment (plea- bargaining). This gives the guilty person a say in HOW he is going to be punished and further warps the idea of justice. The result of all this is a frightful misconstruing of what is right and wrong. The Prophet Isaiah WARNED against this very thing, revealing OUR day:
"Woes unto them that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!" (Isaiah 5:20-21).
Sin even in the highest office of our land is evident, but of only mild public concern. Proverbs WARNS
"It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness: for the throne is established by righteousness, " 16:12.
Three: The traditional family turned on its head
The family is being redefined as any union of people - heterosexual or homosexual - and marriage is no longer the only criterion legitimising a family, as living together outside of matrimony is the latest social quirk. Nothing could play into the hands of the Evil One better, because even if this generation is not entirely won over to the new morality, the next is sure to be. Having thrown out the Bible, our society has no standard by which to declare these abominations immoral. The family is decomposing. What's left will not work.
Four: Overthrow of patriarchal order
For the first time in history women have been given equal standing with men in virtually ALL facets of life - business, government, the military, and religion.
But the activists are not stopping there. The feminist movement seeks to turn a patriarchal society into a matriarchal one. This is also prophesied:
"As for My people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O, My people, they which lead you cause you to err, and destroy the way of your paths." (Isaiah 3:12).
The feminists have gone all the way to the top, to maintain that the Heavenly Father is female.
Five: Sexual deviancy
This plague has always been prominent in declining civilisations. Homosexuality and other sexual abnormalities are particularly detestable to Almighty Yahweh. Yet 58 percent in a recent CNN/Time poll approve of homosexual unions.
Is the homosexual aberration something some are just born with? If it is, then Almighty Yahweh was grossly unfair when He burned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to cinders for an innate behaviour that the ancient gays just couldn't help.
Up until the 70s, the sodomites had hid their sexual perversion. But now they openly flaunt it in Gay Pride rallies and marches - and TODAY sit in powerful
position's in government, entertainment, and the media. This is yet more testimony to the CLOSING DAYS of man's rule on earth:
"The look on their faces testifies against them; they parade their sin like Sodom ; they hide it not. " Isaiah 3:9.
Sin comes naturally for all of us, Romans 3:23, yet Yahweh doesn't excuse anyone because of that fact. The message of the Bible is one of overcoming sin with the help of the Holy Spirit through faith in the blood of Yahshua. Sin IS sin. The homosexual must defeat his sin as well. Paul WARNS,
"Do you not know that the wicked WILL NOT inherit the kingdom of Elohim? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of Elohim". 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. NIV.
Six: Escalating crime
This curse also has a spiritual root. Because crime is a mirror of society's moral state as the moral climate worsens, crime increases. The prophet Hosea explains why in 4:1-2:
"Hear the word of Yahweh, you children of Israel: for Yahweh has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth nor mercy, nor knowledge of Elohim in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out (break all bounds, NIV), and blood touches blood" (blood shed follows bloodshed). NIV.
What IS particularly frightening about modern crime is that seven of every ten offences are committed by those eighteen and younger. What does this say about our hope for the future generation? Again, the root CAUSE is the same:
"...because you have ignored the law of your Elohim, I will also ignore your children." Hosea 4:6 (NIV).
Ironically, the cure rests with this one solution man REFUSES even to consider. Instead, he prefers to seek desperately his own answers even when the panacea is staring him in the face. As men insist on scorning Yahweh and His laws, they will continue to suffer the consequences.
"Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence." Ezekiel 7:23.
A lack of prisons is not the cause and cure for the exploding crime problem. Drugs are not the major factor either. The breakdown of the family and a failure to teach our children spiritual values is the primary reason - our children are now OUR OPPRESSORS.
Seven: Wars and commotions
Presently no fewer than thirty-five conflicts are under way around the world. The biggest problem is in civil unrest within individual countries. Ethnic and racial hatred is the new battle-ground of our day. This our Saviour prophesied:
"But when you shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass: but the end is not by and by. Then said He unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom," (Luke 21:9-10).
This prophecy was a takeoff of Isaiah 19:2, where the prophet foretold:
"...and they shall fight everyone against his brother, and everyone against his neighbour; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom. "
These are conflicts WITH IN nations. The word nation in Luke 21:10 is the Greek ethnos and means race. Again, the reason for these hostilities is clear:
"And the way of peace have they NOT known. There is NO FEAR of Elohim before their eyes." (Romans 3:17-18).
Eight: Caring and concern for one another vanishing
The increase in wickedness is causing people to be suspicious of one another. As a society we have lost the trust and natural regard we once had for the stranger. The Messiah said this would be the case in the FINAL DAYS:
"And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many will wax cold." (Matthew 24:12)
How often one hears of the good old days when people helped strangers for the mere sake of helping them and because they had an innate desire to lend a hand.
Close-knit neighbourhoods were the extended families
The burgeoning crime wave has changed all of that. People live in fear of the stranger and suspicion of their neighbour today.
Nine: Important religious institutions
The modern church has essentially left the teaching of Scripture. Whereas religion is supposed to impact society, our culture's newfound fascination with New Age philosophy, pop psychology and humanistic thinking is itself changing the character of institutional religion.
Messages that once focused on the destructive nature of personal sin and the need for repentance have given way to concerns of the environment, positive thinking, and the necessity for a healthy self-esteem; with no guilt.
Religious leaders are teaching people not to be concerned with sin, everybody is right and nobody is wrong - everyone will be saved anyway. BUT has Yahweh changed?
The focus is off the Creator and on the created. Man is now the centre of his own worship. Health and wealth are the goals, not the Kingdom. A healthy self-esteem is the objective, not righteousness. The aim of today's typical sermon is to create a happy person with high self-esteem, not to reveal a wretched sinner who is in dire need of repentance, a changed life, and deliverance. Never mind that Yahshua upheld the publican who lamented his own unworthiness as an example of true repentance and exaltation. TODAY'S message is, forget feeling rotten for your sins. Sin is just a negative self-image. N wonder our society is so messed up! The very ones who should be leading people out of the morass of evil are instrumental in creating and sustaining it. Paul castigated such preachers:
"For they that are such serve not our Saviour Yahshua but their own belly: and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple." (Romans 16:18).
He was echoing Jeremiah:
"The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and My people love it this way. But what will YOU do in the end?" Jeremiah 5:31, NIV.
Indeed.
Ten: Prejudice against true Biblical religion
This last in our list is the clearest, most revealing proof that we ARE in the close of the age. Not since the ancient world tried to wipe out Old Testament Israel has there been such widespread animosity for those who hold a faith in the Scriptures.
From instant estrangement when the subject of religion is brought up in general conversation, to lawsuits against prayer, Bibles, and religion in public life - the fact that we are in a post-Biblical period is undeniable. Hatred of the Bible represents the final nail in the coffin of civilisation as we know it. And those who uphold and teach are especially despised.
In a prophetic announcement, Yahshua said of the True Worshipper,
"And YOU shall be hated of ALL men for My Name's sake: but he that endures to the end shall be saved" (Matthew 10:22).
Just why such animosity toward those who follow the Truth? Our Saviour explains in John 15:19,
"IF you were OF the world, the world would love his own: but because YOU are NOT OF the world but I have chosen you OUT OF the world, therefore the world HATES YOU."
The person who stands up for the True Word of Yahweh becomes an irritating and unwelcome conscience for those who wish to live unbridled lives.
Prophetic picture is clear
For 2,000 years the teachings of the Bible have helped raise the standard of cultures and nations. We are witnessing the demise of the same in direct proportion to the disintegration of BELIEF and TRUST in the Holy Word.
In a dual prophecy, Jeremiah speaks to us as he did to a declining kingdom of Judah,
"The anger of Yahweh shall not return, until He have executed, and till He have performed the thoughts of His heart: in the latter days YOU shall consider it perfectly." (Jeremiah 23::20)
Man is being ALLOWED to do his thing - gradual self-destruction.
It may be too late to save the world, but YOU CAN "save yourself from this untoward generation," Acts 2:40. The prophet Malachi implores,
"Even from the days of your fathers you have done away from Mine ordinances, and have not KEPT them. Return unto Me, and I will return unto you, says Yahweh of hosts" (Malachi 3:7).
Return to Yahweh and His laws and discover the blessings of obedience promised to the faithful, 2 Chronicles 7:14.
Clearly, man's way does not work. It's a lesson that becomes more obvious each day we near the return of Yahshua. But there IS a solution. Yahshua the Messiah will at last setup a righteous and just government on this earth. Then ALL will see the astounding difference when His perfect laws ARE OBEYED WORLDWIDE - and PEACE and UNIVERSAL JOY, at last, COVER THE WORLD.
"Therefore are they before the throne of Elohim, and serve Him day and night in His temple: and He that sits on the throne shall dwell among them... and Elohim shall wipe away all tears from their eyes" Revelation 7:15,17.
THIS is my hope and sustenance. I pray that it is YOURS, too!
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