Woe to those who call evil good and good evil

Welcome to episode 189, In the Beginning Was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Welcome to episode 189. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, it is Saturday for me, and this is the day that I take on the things going on in the world and put it to the biblical worldview. And I don't know if you like this or don't like this, and at this point in our journey, I'm not asking. I am going to do this because I think it's important for us to look at what's going on in our world through a biblical worldview. And that is simply just taking what's going on— everybody can see the news, everybody can see the things that are happening all around us— and instead of stuffing our head in the sand, we need to stuff our head in the Bible. And we need to see what God's word says about what's going on. And the only way to do this, I believe, and to give it justice, is to point it toward the rapture or the Great Tribulation. And I don't even really want to get into a rapture discussion because then we start getting into splitting hairs. Is it pre-trib? Is it mid-trib? Is it end-trib? And all of those terminologies that go with the fact that this is all coming to an end. I think we can all agree, if you're a follower of Jesus, that this world is not getting better, it is getting worse. Jesus said in Luke, and in Matthew, and we're gonna read some of those things. And these teachings are found in Luke 21 and Matthew 24. And I wanna stay in Matthew, but I wanna encourage you to read Matthew 24, the whole chapter, and Luke 21, and just get an idea of what's going on. And then Matthew 24:7 says, for nations will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these things are the beginning of sorrows. And I think, if you're asking me, I think we're in the beginning of sorrows. I think we're in that period that Jesus talked about, that I don't believe we're in the Great Tribulation or the tribulation period, the 7-year period that's talked about in Daniel. I just want to give you a biblical context of what's going on. In my opinion, from a biblical worldview, we are in, in my opinion, what Jesus describes as the beginning of sorrows in Matthew 24:8. That the end times, things are going to get a little bit sticky and things are going to get a little bit hairy. And I think we're seeing all of that right now playing out on the world stage, and specifically in Afghanistan. And I'm looking at all of the stuff that's going on and all of the missteps by our— in, in my opinion, the missteps by our country and our leadership. It is It's an atrocity. And you never ever— I mean, you don't ever pull your strength out before you get your weaknesses out. And I just believe we are living through the end times. And you may disagree, you may agree wholeheartedly, but we need to point it towards scripture. And I, I go to Isaiah because this is that scripture, Isaiah, in Isaiah 5, where it says good will be called evil and evil good. If you honestly don't feel like You're walking in an upside-down world. I honestly don't know what to tell you. We are called to be light in this dark world. It is a dark, upside-down world. But the kingdom of God— and we talk about the kingdom of God suffers violence and the violent take it by force, and that is in Matthew 11:12. This is not we go out and get violent on the world. This is the kingdom of God, God's way of doing things. And again, all of this Bible You have to have kind of a semi-understanding of the word of God, and it's the kingdom of God, God's way of doing things. And it's Matthew 6:33, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. We have got to see how God does things, and we've talked about this multiple times before, but God's ways are not our ways, and God's kingdom comes at people from a totally opposite way that the world comes at people. In, in order to be great in the kingdom of God, in God's way of doing things, you must be a servant of all. You want to be the greatest? Be the lowest. That has absolutely no traction in the world system. If you want to be great in the world system, look at people like Bill Gates and Bezos and all these multi-millionaires who sit in their big old penthouses and these big old things, and they point and they have all these people working And then they talk to cameras and they tell all these multitudes of people what they— these people should be doing. And they dictate to people how they are going to run their lives. If you're at the top rung, and I think that's what's going on in America too, is we've got a bunch of elitists running our country and they honestly— I don't think they care. I just— looking at how they handled the Afghan situation I do not think they care one iota about Americans. I just can't see it. If they cared about Americans, they would send troops into Afghanistan right now. They would send— I don't care how many companies or how many— I don't know, and I don't know military terminology. You send in regiments, you send in all these different people, and you go with such force that it takes the Taliban's breath away. And you go in there and you set up a perimeter and you call out the Christians, you call out the people of God, you call out the Americans, and you tell them, if you harm one American, if you harm one person that's trying to get to us, we're going to destroy you. You got to stand up like you've got some intestinal fortitude. I mean, you've got to stand up and you've got to take your right place in this world And we are more than conquerors, and we are not supposed to cower to terrorism. Let's read Isaiah. Isaiah 5:18: Woe to you who draw iniquity with cords of vanity and sin as if with a cart rope, that say, let him make speed and haste his work that we may see it, and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come that we may know it. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil. Who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight. I just want to stop there. This whole chapter is talking about all these deep thinkers and all these people that don't believe in God. That's fine, you can believe how you want, but when you start taunting God and say, hey, let's, let's do this to see if he'll answer That is the wrong idea. I just believe that you are going to get in a world of hurt, and the hurt is coming. And I just pray in Jesus' name that we start drawing people in to God's kingdom, God's way of doing things. And that's where this biblical worldview is. And I'll link to the Kingdom of God teaching, but we've got to see how God does things. We've got to look at the world and how it's going to hell in a handcart and how all this terror— and terrorists terrorize. Terrorists go, and now it's my understanding that they're looking and they're knocking door to door. I read an article, if you've got a 12-year-old girl or older in your house, that you have to put an X on your door. And if you don't put an X on your door and they go and they find that you had a young girl in your house, then they kill the whole family. And if that is not satanic, if that is not evil, I got no idea what is. And I've heard by credible sources, if there's a married couple and the lady is 25 years old, they go in and they kill the husband, they do whatever they want to the wife, and then they sell her for a sex slave. Let's just say that half of this garbage is true. We've got to do something. And I'm not talking about going and taking back Afghanistan. I'm talking about the way that we went about leaving is totally wrong. It was never going to be a clean getaway. It was never going to be a clean exit. And I understand that we had to go, and I'm not against leaving, but there's a proper way. When you are strong and you are mighty, you protect the weak. You protect the people that can't protect themselves. And as Americans, as the leader of the free America, it fires me up to even talk about this. And I just want you to just to hear, we are in this last days and it is just upside down. If you feel like you're walking on the ceiling and you feel like you're just anxious and nervous and you just got to calm yourself, Christians And Americans, we're not doormats. We need to rise up and we need to do something. The deceit that happened when we left Afghanistan, it's just wrong on so many different levels. And what the signal that it sends to the world is that we are weak and that we don't know what we're doing and that we're cowards and that we just want to get out. And it's just a horrible signal to be transmitting to the world. That we are weak and that we are scared and that we just want to get out and that we don't care. Look, we probably shouldn't have been in Afghanistan. Should we have been? I don't know. I, you know, I don't get into all the intricacies of foreign affairs and all that, but I can look at with my eyes and see this was not handled well. This was not done properly. If the Taliban has a list of Americans and the Taliban has a list of Christians And the Taliban has a list of people that helped. We've got to have that same list. They had to get that list from somewhere because we're bigger than they are. And we are to pray for those that despitefully use us. I mean, we can pray for the Taliban. We can pray for these people who are evil and are doing these evil things, and maybe, maybe somewhere God will turn one of their hearts and it will help them. We do not have to just sit here and take it and wring our hands. It is sad, the response we're getting from Washington. And it's sad that we cannot even get an answer. We get a little snippet from the president and then he goes and disappears. And then he's going to go back to his house in Delaware and is going to be gone for the weekend. I mean, who does that? I mean, when things are going bad, you got to dig in and you got to start getting after it. You don't go on vacation. I mean, this is crazy. I have to vent a little bit, and if you don't want to listen to this, that's fine. We are one day closer to Jesus' return today than we were yesterday, and we are in the last days. I'm not going to tell you when. I will tell you in the next Saturday episode when I believe the rapture is going to take place, and it's not going to be a day and it's not going to be a year, but I think there's a specific time when we can start looking for, and it's coming up, and that's why I want to talk about it on our next Saturdays. Episode is that this season is coming up. We need to be prepared and we need to be aware of what's going on in the spirit realm. It says God's going to come back like a thief. It's not supposed to surprise his kids. His kids are supposed to be looking for Jesus' return. So we are to be looking right now. Every day we're to be looking for his return. It's going to surprise the world. And the people in Isaiah 5 19, that say, let him make speed and hasten his work that we may see it, and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come that we may know it. They're taunting God, and if you can't see that, then you don't have spiritual eyes. This is— say, there's two kingdoms going on here. There's the kingdom of good and there is a kingdom of evil, and evil and good are colliding., and it is going to come to a head at the Great Tribulation. It's going to happen just exactly like the Bible says it's going to happen. We are getting closer and closer to this tribulation period. I believe we are in the beginning of sorrows, as Jesus said in Matthew 24, for nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines, pestilence, and earthquakes in various places. And they just had a huge earthquake in Haiti. So, I mean, we are in this time. If you can't see it, then I am asking you in Jesus' name to open your eyes. Holy Spirit, we thank you for everything you are doing in this world, and we pray that you would continue to lead and guide and direct us. I pray for the people in Afghanistan. I pray in Jesus' name you would help those people, and God, if there is anything that we can do as Americans, I pray in Jesus' name that you would allow us to do it. Help us to continue to build your kingdom and to point people to the way, the truth, and the life. Lord, we love you. We thank you. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode.

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