If You’re Seeing These Signs, God is Warning You

Before God corrects you, he'll send you these warning signs. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. I pray that you're challenged by this message, and I pray that you receive this message with gladness, thanking the Holy Spirit for his correction. I pray that as you hear this, that the Holy Spirit would begin to reveal areas in your life that need correction. I'm gonna be talking about the signs, the warning signs that begin to appear all around your life just before God harshly and sternly corrects something in your life that's wayward. First, I want you to leave this in the comment section. Let it be your prayer. And I want you to type this sincerely. Search me, O God. It is to say, Lord, search my heart. Search my motives, search my mind, purify me. And Lord, if there's anything in me that contradicts your nature, I want you to correct it. Now, all of us make mistakes. All of us here and there have slip-ups. What I'm talking about right now are those seasons of life where we experience waywardness, or I should say rather, where we choose waywardness for an extended period of time. This could be days, weeks, months, and in some cases, even years. Now, I believe that true sincere believers are going to have a desire for holiness, but we also understand that the flesh is weak. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And we understand that even true believers can find themselves caught up in something where they feel trapped, like they can't escape. Well, the Lord can save us from that too. The Lord will not allow us to be lost. The Lord will do something about it. He loves you too much to leave you to your compromise. He loves you too much to leave you in your sin. He loves you too much to leave you in your waywardness. So to bring you back, he'll begin to do certain things. And of course, we know that the Lord does bring these harsh points of correction, but there is mercy, there is compassion, And the Lord will send many things your way. So let's take a look first at this portion of scripture found in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. I'm gonna read verses 13 through 16. But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person's work has any value. If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward. But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. Now, this is talking about born-again believers because Some are of the belief that because you're saved, there are no consequences to sin. That's not true. Yes, you're saved, but that doesn't mean there won't be consequences. The builder will be saved is what the scripture says. I'll read that again. The builder will be saved. So this is describing a born-again believer. But like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames. Don't you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you? So here we see in the Scripture that even as born-again believers, we can experience loss even in eternity. This is a loss of reward. So we understand that Christ saved us, but even though we are saved, there are consequences to sinful seasons. Let me say that again. Even though we are saved, there are consequences to sinful seasons. Write this in the comment section, sin has consequences. Sin has consequences. Consequences. Now, his correction is to sanctify us and protect us. So he does this as a loving father would. Hebrews 12, beginning at verse 5. And have you forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you as his children? He said, my child, don't make light of the Lord's discipline and don't give up when he corrects you. For the Lord disciplines those he loves and he punishes each one he accepts as his child. As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Whoever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father? If God doesn't discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all. Verse 9, since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, should we submit even more to— shouldn't we submit even more to the discipline of the Father of our spirits and live forever? Jumping down to verse 11 now, no discipline is enjoyable while it is happening, It's painful. But afterward, there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way. And so the Lord does bring correction. The Lord does bring discipline. It's, in fact, people look at his correction and they say, well, God must not love me because of all the ways he's trying to correct me. No, it's just the opposite. The proof that you belong to him is that he won't let you go too far into waywardness. And that's why born-again believers are miserable in seasons of compromise. So let's take a look at the signs that he will send your way. These are the warning signs. Keep in mind, these are not necessarily in chronological order. They can come in any order really. And it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to experience all of these things before he brings a judgment or a harsh correction. But again, these things do begin to appear, at least biblically speaking. Number 1 is strong conviction. Now in Proverbs chapter 1, we see wisdom personified. And wisdom is that strong inner pull. And watch as we read these portions of scripture, verses 24 through 33, you'll see that wisdom is pleading, wisdom is calling out. And this of course is a way that the Holy Spirit communicates to us. The Holy Spirit can speak through wisdom. So Proverbs 1:24 through 33, I called you so often, but you wouldn't come. I reached out to you, but you paid no attention. Bizarre. Very sobering words. I'm gonna read that again. I reached out to you, but you paid no attention. You ignored my advice and rejected the correction I offered. So I will laugh when you are in trouble. And again, this is not God, this is wisdom personified, and this is somewhat hyperbolic, but still the principle stands that there was a pleading and then there's a correction. I will mock you when disaster overtakes you, verse 27, when calamity overtakes you like a storm. When disaster engulfs you like a cyclone and anguish and distress overwhelm you. When they cry for help, I will not answer. Though they anxiously search for me, they will not find me. Again, this is wisdom talking. For they hated knowledge and chose not to fear the Lord. They rejected my advice and paid no attention when I corrected them. Therefore, they must eat the bitter fruit of living their own way, choking on their own schemes. For simpletons turn away from me to death. Fools are destroyed by their own complacency. But all who listen to me will live in peace, untroubled by fear of harm. So the point I'm making here is that there's this strong inner knowing when something is wrong. There is that internal pleading. There is that internal pulling. You sense the feeling of it. And this is true of the true believer. Again, let me say, this is true of the true believer. True believers feel truly sorrowful when they sin. True believers are miserable in their disobedience. True believers, when they make a mistake and continue in that mistake, are tormented by the idea that they're in that mistake. They're weighed down knowing that they're missing out on the goodness of God, the fellowship unhindered. And this is why I say, That as true believers, because God loves us, he will correct us. And one of those things that begins to appear is that strong conviction. Ephesians 4:30 says this, and do not bring sorrow to God's Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption. In other translations, it refers to the Holy Spirit here as the seal. You are sealed unto that day. Now, the Holy Spirit does not leave the born-again believer. He grieves within the born-again believer. The Holy Spirit does not leave the born-again believer. He grieves within the born-again believer when we live in disobedience. So you can sense that grieving of the Holy Spirit. When you are persistent in disobedience or compromise, and it may not be a blatant sin, like something we would put on a list as the worst sins one can commit, It may just simply be persisting in a certain attitude, persisting in unforgiveness, persisting in maybe a little bit of compromise in terms of your finances, or in terms of the way you handle your family life, or in terms of how you compromise your time. And it could be some sins like pride, lust, anger, well, fits of rage within anger, anger itself is not necessarily a sin, but we can experience this grieving of the Holy Spirit when we persist in those things. We sense his heartbreaking, we sense that sorrow, we sense that heaviness. So he still seals you, but he grieves within you. And you can feel this grieving, it's a dark, empty feeling, a heavy cloud that feels to be upon you. And it disrupts your prayer life, it disrupts your reading of the Word, it disrupts your ministry. There's this internal struggle that you cannot seem to break away from. Luke 22:54-62 say this, these verses say this, So they arrested Him and led Him to the high priest's home. And Peter followed at a distance. So he's following Jesus while He's on His way to being crucified, while Jesus is on His way to being crucified. The guards lit a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat around it, and Peter joined them there. A servant girl noticed him in the firelight, began staring at him. Finally, she said, this man was one of Jesus' followers, But Peter denied it. There's his first mistake. Woman, he said, I don't even know Him. Verse 58, after a while, someone else looked at him and said, you must be one of them. No, ma'am, I'm not, second mistake, Peter retorted. Verse 59, about an hour later, someone else insisted, this must be one of them because he is a Galilean too. Verse 60, but Peter said, man, I don't know what you are talking about. And immediately while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. At that moment, the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Suddenly the Lord's words flashed through Peter's mind. Before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny 3 times that you even know me. And Peter left the courtyard weeping bitterly. Bitterly. So here we see it was a consistent, persistent denial. I don't know him. I don't know him. I don't know him. He persisted in that compromise. He persisted in that disobedience. He persisted in that sin. That's what it was. He was lying. And as he begins to persist in this, he digs down deeper and he doubles down on his statements until it comes to the point where he's weeping, Bitterly, once he saw how he broke the Lord's heart. He saw that he had offended the one whom he loved. At that moment, the Lord turned and looked at Peter, looked at him. Peter felt it. He felt that grieving from the Lord. And that's what happens when we begin to persist in this way. 2 Corinthians 7:10 says this, for the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There's no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death. So there's a difference between worldly sorrow and godly sorrow. Godly sorrow actually results in repentance. So there is a good sorrow to have. If anyone ever tells you that you shouldn't feel bad for your sin, that's just not even biblical. That's borderline heretical. You should feel grieved by sin. You should be anguished over disobedience. Even little compromises should anguish you. And so when we are anguished over this, and again, this is not a matter of condemnation and leaving yourself in that state of condemnation, but in being anguished over disobedience to the point that you repent and then enter again, a life of joy and peace. But worldly sorrow hardens your heart. Let me say that again. Worldly sorrow will harden your heart. You continue to ignore that grieving of the Holy Spirit. And what happens is you become numb to it. The longer you ignore the voice of the Holy Spirit, the more difficult he becomes to hear. The longer you ignore the voice of the Holy Spirit, the more difficult he becomes to hear. And so as we persist in this disobedience, even while we're being grieved, We harden our hearts. Why? 'Cause we don't wanna feel that anymore. So we numb ourselves to that grieving, to that conviction. Well, once you ignore that, and this is very dangerous, by the way, let me just say this, do not ignore that conviction. Do not ignore that grieving. Do not ignore that sorrow. Don't numb yourself to it. You see, here's the sad truth. Many people want to be released from the consequences of their sin, but not the sin itself. They wanna be released from the guilt, but not from the sin itself. They wanna be relieved, from the mental torment that the sin brings, but not from the sin itself. But we as believers have to grow to hate sin itself in our own lives and deal with that with great fear and reverence. And by fear, I'm talking about a godly, healthy fear that is based on our love for him. And so when you have this hardening of the heart, now you begin to numb yourself. You ignore him again. and again and again, and you numb yourself so that you don't feel that pain. Well, now that sin begins to manifest in other ways and other people can see it. So this is number 2. And again, this is not necessarily in chronological order. Number 2, you receive a warning from others. Now this warning can come in several different ways. It can come as a direct, address of the issue in your life. It can also come in the fact that maybe people are distancing from you. Maybe people are starting to notice there's a heaviness on you. You're a little more angry. You're a little more quick to anger. You're tense. There's something off, there's something wrong. And those around you can feel it. Listen to me. Just because your loved ones Cannot see the sin itself. Yeah, maybe you're doing a temporarily good job at hiding it. And I don't mean good in the sense that it's something that's morally right. I just mean you are effective at keeping it a secret. Maybe you are effective at keeping it a secret, but even though they cannot see the sin itself, that doesn't mean they do not see the results of that sin. That doesn't mean, that doesn't mean they do not see who you are becoming now. They can see you becoming angrier. They can see you becoming more tense. They can see you becoming more cold-hearted. They can see you becoming more distant. They can see the passion that you have for the Lord beginning to wane. They can hear that you're not talking about him as often as you used to. They can see these results. And so again, Even if they cannot see the issue itself, the root cause of it, they begin to notice something's off and they begin to address you. Hey, are you okay? Hey, what's wrong? What's the matter? What's the issue here? And we sometimes ignore that too. We push them away. And then in other instances, as I said, they begin to distance emotionally. Maybe they don't wanna spend as much time around you anymore because you're becoming someone different. But then there are those times where God will send someone to confront you directly. Look at 2 Samuel 12. So the Lord sent Nathan the prophet to tell David this story. This, by the way, is after David had sinned. There were 2 men in a certain town. One was rich and one was poor. The rich man owned a great many sheep and cattle. The poor man owned nothing but one little lamb he had bought. He raised that little lamb and it grew up with his children. It ate from the man's own plate and drank from his cup. He cuddled it in his arms like a baby, like a baby daughter. One day, a guest arrived at the home of the rich man, but instead of killing an animal from his own flock or herd, he took the poor man's lamb and killed it and prepared it for his guests. David was furious. And now he's— he has righteous indignation. Isn't that interesting that when you become hard-hearted, you are angered by the sins of others, not by the sin in your life? So David was furious. As surely as the Lord lives, he vowed, any man who would do such a thing deserves to die. He must repay 4 lambs to the poor man for the one he stole and for having no pity. Then Nathan said to David, you are that man. The Lord God of Israel says, I anointed you king of Israel and saved you from the power of Saul. I gave you your master's house and his wives and the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. And if that had not been enough, I would have given you much, much more. Why then have you despised the word of the Lord and done this horrible deed? For you have murdered Uriah the Hittite with the sword of the Ammonites and stolen his wife. Now David is confronted. Now, of course, we understand that David repents. Now there were still some consequences that he had to bear from his actions. The Lord forgave him, But the sin still had consequences. And here we see an example of the Lord sending a voice of warning. Maybe God is sending a voice of warning to you, through your pastor, through your friends, through your spouse. Maybe even through this program right now, you're receiving a word of warning. Don't harden your heart. God sends voices to confront you. In fact, that's a part of his process. Look at Matthew 18:15-17. You see, before God will expose you, He will send people to warn you. Before God will expose you, he will send people to warn you. He follows the process that he's given to us. Matthew 18:15-17, if another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. So we go to each other in private is the way we are to do this. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back. In other words, leave it be. Verse 16, but if you are unsuccessful, Take one or two others with you and go back again so that everything you say may be confirmed by 2 or 3 witnesses. If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won't accept the church's decision, treat that person as a pagan or corrupt tax collector. So here the scripture is talking about the authority that we as the church have to correct these issues among ourselves. When somebody offends you, you can forgive them. And so in the same way, God will confront you. God will bring others to warn you. And if you don't receive that warning, listen to me now, please. If you don't receive that warning, repent and get it right. Exposure is coming. Exposure is coming. Once God has sent to you people who warn you directly about that thing, about that issue, about that unforgiveness, about that lust problem, about that attitude, about that compromise, whatever it is, you know what it is because even as I'm talking, it's coming to your mind right now. God will send people to correct that. God will send people to confront you. Now you can push them away and persist, or you can receive the correction. If you do not receive that correction, Exposure is coming. The Lord is compassionate, he's merciful. That is his last resort, not his first step. Number 3, your world is shaken. Well, look at Jonah 1:1-4. The Lord gave this message to Jonah, get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, announce my judgment against it, because I've seen how wicked its people are. So here he's given a direct command. But Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction to get away from the Lord. He went down to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish. He bought a ticket and went on board, hoping to escape from the Lord by sailing to Tarshish. But the Lord hurled a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent storm that threatened to break the ship apart. I love the way the scripture phrases that, that threatened to break the ship apart. In other words, the Lord was destroying his means of disobedience. Believers are not left in their disobedience. God is not going to abandon you to your rebellion. He's not going to leave you to yourself. He will destroy your means of disobedience. He will disrupt things. He will shake the systems upon which you think you stand. If you're in a relationship that you shouldn't be in, God's gonna shake that up. If you're at a place you shouldn't be, God's gonna shake things up. If you are running from the call of God, he's going to shake things up. God will disrupt and disturb whatever he needs to do in order to get you back on track. When he's spoken to you clearly to go one way and you stubbornly refuse to go that way, God will send a powerful wind from heaven. And that powerful wind will begin to disrupt your means of disobedience. So that's number 3, your world begins to shake. So, so, so, This is the thing though, you get into a wrestling match with God, you're not going to win. You begin to try to persuade him and convince him. Look, you can't persuade him that what you're doing is okay. You can't convince him to allow you to continue in disobedience. You can't make a deal with God that will leave some room for compromise. No, he gives a command and you obey that. And if you don't obey that, he'll begin to shake things up. He'll begin to pull that rug out from under you. The things upon which you rely, the things you hold dearest, he will begin to cause disruption. You say, well, God's not a God of disorder. I didn't say disorder, I said disruption. In fact, that disruption will bring you back to the place of order. This simply means that he displaces those things. He makes them inconvenient. He makes them harder to participate in. This is why, as I said before, true believers are miserable in their compromise. It's the most miserable time of their life. And so he will do what he needs to do In order to get your attention and put you back on course. So that's number 3, your world is shaken. And this may be where you're at now. You're trying to convince him, God, let's work out a deal. Come on, God, let me persuade you with seeing it from my perspective. But he sees from all perspectives and he's spoken. He's made it clear. He's given a command. And now it's up to us to simply say, okay, you're the Lord, not my will, but your will be done. And if you're going to try to get into that wrestling match with him, just understand, He's a lot stronger than you are. He is more loving than you are stubborn. Number 4, his presence begins to lose influence in your life. Now, I am not saying that the Holy Spirit leaves you or that God abandons you. What I'm saying is that because you're not yielded to that presence within, namely the Holy Spirit residing within you, because you're not yielded to that presence within, you begin to lack that influence in your life. So every believer has the Holy Spirit, but does the Holy Spirit have you? Yes, you have the Holy Spirit. You received the Holy Spirit the moment that you were born again. Absolutely. But does the Holy Spirit have you? In other words, are you surrendering? So it's possible to have the power of God, have the Holy Spirit, have the fruit of the Spirit available to us, but to not see the manifestation of that power and that fruit in our lives because of our disobedience. And so I'm not saying his presence leaves you, I'm saying you lose the influence of his presence. Galatians 5:16-18, so I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These 2 forces are constantly fighting each other. So you are not free to carry out your own good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under the obligation of the Law of Moses. So very simply put, whatever increases the influence of the Spirit decreases the influence of the flesh. Whatever increases the influence of the flesh decreases the influence of the Spirit. It's not that he leaves you, it's that you're not giving him influence any longer. That's why the scripture says, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. In other words, it requires the participation of your obedient acts. And when you begin to see the diminishing effects or the diminishing— the diminished effect, I should say, of the Holy Spirit's presence in your life, then you begin to see things like loss of favor. People don't see that something on you anymore. So those open doors are no longer opening. Those connections are no longer easy. Why? Because people can see something's different. This is why when I see, like, for example, preachers getting off base and they get around to some strange doctrine that's obviously not biblical, and instead of receiving correction, they doubled down on it. Well, you can see a loss of favor. You can see that there was something on them It's just, it's not there anymore. There's more of a tension and a frustration. It's like they're working very hard to make things happen in the ministry now. Why? Because they've gone off track. And it's not just in the area of compromising in doctrine. That's one of those areas that people can lose favor and not even realize it. Everyone else around can see, and they're going, something's different, something's off, something's missing. And everyone can see it but them. That's scary. That's pride. That's the effect of pride. It's not just being off on doctrine. It could be a secret sin. And everyone can see there's something, There's something off. There's something not quite right. Now, as a caveat, let me say that 99% of the time when people go, I don't know, there's something not right in my spirit, most of the time they're judging from the exterior, the person's personality, their appearance, or maybe even they don't like or agree with some of the things that they're saying. And so out of ego, they judge and they say, rather than saying, I don't like this person, they blame the Holy Spirit and say, well, something just doesn't sit right in my spirit. And so, They're taking their own personal discomfort and crediting the Holy Spirit with being grieved when that's not the case at all. But it still is true that people who are truly discerning can see a certain loss of favor. And that happens when we persist in compromise. There's a loss of peace. I mean, think of Saul in 1 Samuel 16:14. Now the scripture says that the Lord sent a tormenting spirit to Saul. I don't think that's the case for the New Testament believer, But there is something to be said of a loss of influence of the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life that does give the enemy an opportunity to attack you from the outside, attack you with things like torment, attack you with things like deception, and even maybe an increase of temptation. So there's this peace that begins to lack now. And in fact, your confidence in approaching God is now diminished. You see, this is why I say that, Persistent sin will disrupt your fellowship with the Holy Spirit. That's not to say that the Holy Spirit is now ignoring you. Rather, this is to say that your confidence in him listening to you is shaken. And therefore, when you pray, you lack faith. So it's not that the Holy Spirit now has turned a blind eye or turned a deaf ear. Now it's that you no longer have confidence that he hears you. You no longer have confidence that he sees you. And when you go to pray, instead of just thinking about the Lord and experiencing his presence, you're thinking about that compromise. And that of course disrupts your peace. It disrupts that fellowship. The same is true of joy. You begin to see a diminishing in your joy. The same is true of clarity. You now no longer can see with clarity now. It's difficult to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. In fact, you lose your sensitivity to the voice of the Holy Spirit. You begin to say, God, what are you saying? I need direction. I don't know where to go. All the while, You gotta fix that compromise. You gotta fix that compromise. 'Cause if you don't, it's gonna be very difficult for you to have confidence in the Holy Spirit's presence and to be sensitive to his voice. And then this is where you see old habits returning and getting worse. So these are some of the warning signs, and I want you to pay close attention to them. Strong conviction, warning from others, your world is shaken, and his presence begins to lose influence in your life.