Sound The Trumpet : The End of the Theocratic Kingdom

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“The End of the Theocratic Kingdom”
by Art Sadlier
August 1st, 2012

For four hundred years the Lord had sought to establish His theocratic kingdom in Israel. God had sought to rule over Israel through divinely appointed kings. It was, and still is, God’s purpose to establish His kingdom on earth through the nation of Israel with one man on the throne, the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ.

However, both Israel and her kings rebelled against God and refused to obey and submit to Him. For four hundred years the lord had sent His prophets warning Israel to repent and return to Him. Lastly He sent Jeremiah and Jeremiah faced the nation on the brink of disaster.

There is a striking similarity between Jeremiah’s day and our own day. This present hour is very much like a replay of the final days of the theocratic kingdom in Israel. As we read the book of Jeremiah it is as if we are looking into a mirror. We live in a society which ignores God. Men plunge headlong into sin and vice and are busy giving expression to their reprobate and depraved minds. In our society justice is breaking down, standards are perverted; right is wrong and wrong is right. God has been replaced by the gods of materialism, sensuality and human ego. We are now so far removed from God’s standards that there are no moral foundations left in our society. There is no fear of God in our society today, evil abounds and has filtered into the church.

About ninety years before Jeremiah the Lord sent Isaiah who said, “Judgment is coming!” Jeremiah said, “its’ here!” Jeremiah warned that the Babylonians are going to come and slaughter you; those who survive will be carried away in chains to Babylon. Jeremiah stood on the edge of a holocaust. Jeremiah was the prophet of the end of the glory days of Israel. Isaiah prophesied at 11 pm, Jeremiah prophesied at midnight.

Today we are standing on the brink of a holocaust; for our society.

It is midnight!

The Babylonians did come. Judah was slaughtered; the people and the land were decimated.

Jeremiah knew what was coming; he knew that judgment was coming. Jeremiah wasn’t fooled by what appeared on the surface to be a revival. While Josiah was on the throne there appeared to be a great turning to God. Listen to God’s estimate of that situation, “And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the LORD” (Jeremiah 3:10).

Today some TV preachers are acting like we are in the midst of revival. Some churches are being filled to overflowing with church growth methods. Purpose driven churches are multiplying and they are bulging at the seams. They attract the carnal, the uncommitted and the unsaved.

At Rick Warren’s Saddleback church they focus on how to solve the world’s problems in the world’s way. Aids, poverty, illiteracy, leadership and health issues are the agenda. Their goal is to bring peace to the world by solving the world’s problems. Their method is partnering with other groups. Warren has demonstrated by his words and actions that he will partner with anyone to bring the world peace. He will join with Catholics, Jews, Hindu’s, Muslims, atheists, homosexuals and whoever else will join with him. He has called for Evangelicals to be united with the mainline denominations.

Warren started with worldly Christians and unsaved world lings. He fed them the world’s music, the world’s methods and the world’s entertainment. Now they are joining with the world to solve the world’s problems in the world’s way. It is apostasy; it is counterfeit Christianity; it is the ultimate fruit of New Evangelicalism; refuse to contend for the faith, instead dialogue and compromise.

God has a program for this world.

1. It involves the proclamation of the gospel.

2. It brings salvation and regeneration.

3. It results in transformation.

This program involves separation from the world. 2 Corinthians 6:17, “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.”

The world may not understand it and it may not like it but God has no other program for this world at this time.

I believe our society is standing on the brink of a holocaust. I believe the Day of the Lord is at hand. The most distressing thing is that a large portion of evangelicalism seems to be caught up in this last day’s apostasy.

Today’s apostasy is incredibly deceptive as Jesus said it would be, “For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Matthew 24:5). I believe that simply means that many pastors and preachers will come along and claim to speak for Christ but will misrepresent Him.

Today we have apostates who say they are fundamentalist or evangelical but they deny what the scriptures say the church is to be and what it is to do and how it is to do it. They bring the world into the church, they use the world’s methods, and they use the world’s music. They use entertainment to keep the carnal Christians and the unsaved coming back. They fail to ground people in sound doctrine and they fail to preach separation from the world and separation from counterfeit Christianity. The bottom line is that in spite of the large crowds and the outward appearance of success they are destroying the church. It is the ultimate fruit of new evangelicalism. The only way to stop it is to separate from it.

After four hundred years of warning Israel the Lord sent Jeremiah to give a final warning. For forty-two years Jeremiah warned Israel of coming judgment. For forty-two years Israel steadfastly refused to repent. Finally the Lord said to Jeremiah, Judah has crossed the line, their fate is sealed and judgement is now inevitable. We read in Jeremiah 5:23, “But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone.”

They passed the point of no return.

We read in Jeremiah 7:16, “Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee.” It is now too late! Jeremiah’s message now would be a message of judgment; judgment to a nation that was beyond repentance and doomed to destruction. There would be a remnant who repented but the nation was doomed.

God will punish unrepentant sin. God is angry at sin. Roman’s 1:18, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.”

America and Canada have declared war on God, by our courts, by our government and by our people.

Our courts

have ruled the Bible and prayer out of our schools. God has been ruled out of existence by the officially endorsed teaching of evolution. In the US all Christian symbols must be removed from public property.

The courts have sanctioned and protected homosexuality. Canada has legalised gay marriage. Congress has refused to authenticate that marriage is between a man and a woman. Our society has rejected God’s Word. The courts, government and the people are saying, “God you shut up! We are not interested in what you say. You don’t even exist as far as we are concerned. God don’t try to tell us what to do.” God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone for homosexuality. Do you think that He will spare America and Canada?

Fifty million babies have been murdered in their mother’s wombs and the voice of their blood is crying out to God at this moment, and this crime against God is sanctioned by the courts. Four out of every ten babies are born outside marriage which is another defiance of God’s moral law. The foundations of our society have been broken up.

Our people

have turned away from God like Israel of old. Jeremiah 2:13, “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” Like Israel of old, Americans and Canadians have turned away from God.

Materialism is the God to whom we bow down; the lust for things by all of society is unprecedented. They are our joy and delight and our satisfaction; they are our broken cistern and that which calls itself the body of Christ is by and large no different.

Pleasure is another god to whom we bow down, it is the only rival to the lust for things. The only cure we know for boredom is pleasure. Much of our lives are spent in front of the TV or a video drinking the wine of the world.

Pornography is an incredible flood that sweeps over society while our streets are filled with nearly naked women. Our society is totally sensual and it reaches into that which calls itself the body of Christ. One survey indicates that 50% of professing Christians are involved in internet pornography.

Moral perversion, pedophilia, drug addiction, drunkenness, brutality and bestiality, in fact our society is filled with violence.

Our governments

have rebelled against God. Our governments are involved in the attempt to drive Israel off the so-called West Bank in defiance of God’s Word. Our governments have rejected God’s Word at almost every turn. They have said we will not have this God to rule over us.

I believe our society and our nations, like Judah in Jeremiah’s day, have crossed the line and judgment cannot now be escaped. I believe our nations stand on the brink of catastrophe. I believe our society is a sinking ship and we need to rescue as many individuals as we can. We need to preach the gospel with a new urgency!

The signs of a soon coming economic and societal collapse are everywhere. When the house of cards fall the whole end time scenario will quickly begin to unfold. Let me ask you what are you living for? If you are living for the things of this world you will be swept away.

Much of that which calls itself the body of Christ will be swept up in the flood of apostasy that will engulf it. We see that in Revelation 3:17, “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” Can anyone seriously doubt that this is the evangelical church of the present hour? Matthew 7:21-23 is also a part of this same scenario, “Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”

What should be our attitude in this troubling hour? Notice the attitude of Jeremiah in Jeremiah 9:1, “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” Do we care about souls perishing? Do we warn them with a broken heart? All the while the tears ran down Jeremiah’s face he preached judgement with fire in his bones.

Jerusalem was in laughter, they were having a party. They had advanced far beyond Jeremiah’s outdated ideas; they thought Jeremiah was crazy. The party was on and Jeremiah was the sad sack, and they mocked him. They put him in jail; they shut him up because he was raining on their parade. Our pleas and our tears will not be understood. Our message will not be accepted. We may weep alone, but if we care we will weep.

But weeping is not enough, we have a message and we must declare it. People are perishing and the church is occupied with committee meetings, entertainment, programs and all kinds of activities. We are occupied with banquets and fun and games. We are occupied with our comfort and success. These things are legitimate until they become a priority and replace our God-given commission to reach the lost.

There is hope; there will always be some who will come to Christ.

The hour was late for Judah. Jeremiah 8:20 says, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” The hour is late for our society; the Day of the Lord cannot be far off! For some years now all of the pieces of the end time scenario have been falling into place.

That Old Testament Day of the Lord was a foreshadowing of the soon coming Day of the Lord facing our generation.

After 9-11 we experienced a revival; the attention of the nation focused on God. It lasted for two weeks and then it was over.

During the Y2K scare there was panic as many thought disaster was about to befall us. For several years prior to the year 2000 Evangelist Sam Gipp states that he travelled back and forth across America four times. He preached in fundamental churches and during those years many, many people came to him and stated that they were prepared for disaster. They had their guns and many rounds of ammunition. They had dried food and water stored, and many had a cabin in the woods or a bunker somewhere. But in all those years, the evangelists said, not one person came to him and said there is disaster coming and I have gotten right with the Lord.

One pastor of a fundamental Baptist church says that for 12 years he promoted missions and at the end of that time 12 members of his church joined the military, but not one person answered the call of God to the mission field.

A friend of mine shared with me that he and his wife revisited a Bible conference after 20 years of absence from it. He shared that they were grieved at the change of attitude and the change of atmosphere that had taken place. The emphasis was now, not on the Bible teaching but, on the fun and games. We are living in a period of spiritual decline; spiritual tides are at low ebb.

Israel of old experienced times of great revival and commitment to God which showed itself in obedience and faithfulness. How quickly the change took place in Israel: from commitment to the Lord to worshipping idols. We have seen such a change in recent years, not among liberals or among new evangelicals but among those who identify themselves as a part of the body of Christ, among those who call themselves fundamentalists.

As night descends on our society and as the Day of the Lord is about to bring destruction on an unsuspecting world, there are false prophets who stand in the house of the Lord and tell people, “all is well, we have no worries.” “For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 8:11). They stand before a church filled with the carnal, the uncommitted and the unsaved and they open their Bibles and preach ditties to dummies, and people love it. “A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?” (Jeremiah 5:30-31).

The hour is late; the Day of the Lord is at hand; the trumpet is soon to sound. It is time for God’s people to get right with the Lord. To the backsliding children of Israel the Lord said, “Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you.....” (Jeremiah 3:14a). “Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD” (Jeremiah 3:20, 22). “But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you” (Jeremiah 7:23).

Believer, are you ready or will you be ashamed at His coming?

My friend, are you saved or will you be left behind? The question is not are you a professing Christian; the question is, are you a true disciple of Jesus Christ?

Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13