I ASK THAT YOU PLEASE READ THIS CAREFULLY PRAYING AS YOU READ FOR SCRIPTURAL AND SPIRITUAL INSIGHT INTO WHAT IS GIVEN HERE.
Famine: Is There Really Truth in That?
I have lived here in the States all my life and considered that alone something to be thankful for. Over the last few weeks things have begun to occur here in the States that make you wonder about that being thankful routine. America is going to go into one of the worst periods of lack since the depression of the last century. Despite all the criticisms that the believers of that period sustained, I wonder who was or is the most fortunate?
In the past few weeks the heart of this country has faced flooding and loss worse than any of the recent past. That flooding in some cases has made it impossible to go from one side of town to the other. Thousands of dollars worth of food on the way to market sits in railroad cars on tracks that now go nowhere because the tracks and bridges have washed out by the flood.
It still hard to think of the railroad cars that have washed away because they sat on tracks in harm’s way as floodwaters came through an area with incredible force and took the cars off the tracks downstream in the flow of the water.
Huge transport trucks sit on dead-end roads washed away by the same waters that stopped the trains. I remember seeing news films of trucks sitting on roadways in flooded towns with roads that have washed away on either side of them. I looked at several airports lost maybe for years because of the damage the floods have done to them.
You look at these scenes and wonder how they will affect you and the stores you shop at. How much of the loads sitting in the railroad cars from the news scenes were destined for the stores you shop in? Think of it this way: all of the goods that sit in those transport represent material that must be brought from a foreign market to you if you are going to get them. This whole scene may represent a gallon of milk priced at $7.00 or more because of necessity. Grain crops that lay wasted in the flooded fields now mean that those crops will not be available from American farms until late in 2009. It is within months of harvest time for the corn, soybeans, and grains that would have soon been going to market. By the time the fields dry out and can be plowed under, it will at least the years end. They can’t be replanted until spring, and there will not grains available, for instance, for bread until late 2009. With a large portion of the corn crop going for the new grades of fuel, whenever some is available it won’t be affordable.
What is famine? Simply it is a lack of basically desired or needed goods. For two or three years I preached or proclaimed a coming famine until I began to sound like a carnival barker. I look at all this and wonder, are these the conditions that the Spirit of God had me speaking of?
You know what? We as a people have come to a point that we need the faith for miracles. I just recently had this discussion of the fear in living paycheck to paycheck in this normal routine while here on earth; now what would it take to live without that fear of lack, trusting in the God who cares for us as His children? Can you realize that the supernatural here is only the normal in the realms of heaven and with the Lord? Can you accept what is occurring here in this country? Can you possibly see a stage setting that will mean the only ones to have their needs supplied are the ones who can stand on their faith? In one Iowa town the administration center sat on an island-like appearance in the center of town, and when the rains and flooding came, that building became an island in the center of town surrounded by about four feet of water.
What about the farm animals, the sheep and the cattle that make up great portions of our diet? Well, now not only is there nothing to feed them, but their feed grain—if they are fed—will have to come from the storage granaries that the people will be fed from. Did somebody say Burger King? Vegetable burgers are really good, but there is a problem now; there’s not enough vegetables for the burger. Did the King think about chicken burgers? It may be too late; Chik-fil-A maybe has all the chicken.
Where does this lack or famine begin? That question maybe too late because there must be answers now. There is a need for a reality in the churches today so that some believers can be produced who know how to believe God for the miraculous that we are going to need to survive. Folks, this is not a soap opera that will go away like your television does when you turn it off. Not only is the famine for food now in the land, but where are the realities in God that can take hold of the situation you are in and change it into the likeness of God’s Word? I participate in a couple of “Christian” forums, and the main problem on there is if the participants for the most part can’t see it or touch it, they don’t believe no matter what God’s Word says. Some of them are still hung up on whether the Virgin Birth is a fairy tale and if Jesus married Mary Magdalene.
I read the highlights of a wedding for the one of the leadership in the Episcopal Church this week, and he married his boyfriend of twenty years, No wonder that church is dying. We have so much dogma and tradition that is being treated as reality Word that we don’t know what the real truth in the Word is. We now have so many people in the pulpit who have never been through the fire and don’t really have a working concept of the Word that they can bring answers to the table for the needs of the people and these people go away worse than when they came. There is a death in our churches because people are starving for a complete truth in God’s Word. The Bible tells us that the people called to the Lord’s table went away fed and well, and in many cases the people now are going away sicker than when they came. We are not preaching a complete doctrine that will be sufficient enough for believers to stand on in the face of this current time.
People are going to have to be familiar with the Word of authority, a knowledge of who and what they are so that they can stand face to face with a spiritual enemy that has their total destruction in mind. I believe pastors and spiritual leaders who aren’t standing in this Word today will face the Lord for feeding His sheep on half-baked Word.
Believers today are going all over the country to meetings where there are great shows put on with loud music to drive them to a psychological state of frenzy, and in this state they agree with anything.
The Bible specifically says that in the last time men would say here is Christ or there is Christ, and it implies that a lot of what would happen would be a farce. There are meetings here in Florida. that have to be examined closely because they now are a movement to themselves and are no longer meeting under supervision and under authority to a scripturally appointed local leader. They are becoming a kingdom to themselves drawing a following from all over the country. Beloved, a shepherd is scripturally established caretaker not just for a flock, but he is also established as a guardian to an area. He is there to keep the predators from consuming the flock as they fall into submission to the local fold.
In some cases these “EVANGELISTS” become predators, and when the pastor is not spiritually and scripturally alert enough, something resembling scripture can go on but it only imitates the truth of God. I can eat jelly rolls for an eternity and die of starvation because my system has been subjected to famine of the food it requires. Without good nourishment, I fall prey to whatever comes.
Yes, there is both a physical and spiritual famine in the earth right now, and you had better get a scriptural and spiritual sight acclimated by standing in the presence of the Lord so that you see and discern what real truth is.
Pastor Jim
NEW BEGINNINGS MINISTRY
