ON THE BRINK OF JUDGMENT

Judgment — I am not accustomed to writing messages on this subject, and you may be surprised by this one. I prepared it with great reservations; in fact, it took me far beyond my comfort zone, even though I am dedicated to preaching the whole counsel of God.

Right now I am compelled to speak because of something I see happening in our culture. I have grown convinced that America now stands on the brink of one of the most extreme judgments it has ever faced. And in this bleak hour God has something to say to His Church that may begin to turn the tide.

When I grew up, it wasn’t unusual to hear this kind of difficult message in the denomination my family was part of. Occasionally I heard my father preach on the subject of judgment. What I’m talking about is a prophetic message (although my dad was adamant about not being called a prophet). He said he was a “watchman.”

LOVE TO HEAR HIS VOICE

These days I better appreciate the messages my dad preached and the anguish they caused him. I know he spent hours wrestling with God over the difficult sermons he delivered. As a pastor, I appreciate A. W. Tozer’s lesson that God loves to speak to the man or woman who loves to listen. Yet I fear the church has lost that practice. God wants to speak to us about our family, our marriage, our life’s direction, but our ear is inclined less and less to His voice and more to the world’s.

The Bible calls this condition a famine of the Word of God (see Amos 8:11) — a lack of knowledge of God and His ways. In times of chaos He will use the famine to get our attention and He has my full attention right now! And if He is speaking hard messages about society to grace-oriented pastors such as I am, it tells me He is up to something.