May God turn again wholly the hearts of His people (this means you and me, each of us needs to look into our own heart in relation to the whole Word of God and ask the Holy Spirit to convict us of any area in which we are in sin, ignorant or otherwise) back to Him.... that we may repent... that He may then return to deliver us and take vengeance upon those that hate Him and the only true morality that He established, which never changes. Each and every one of us needs to DAILY search our own hearts and ask the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth and convict us of any sin.
As righteous as Nehemiah was, he confessed his own sins, those of his own family and ancestors, and those of the people as a whole, and admitted he and his family had contributed to the sins of the nation. Anyone who will not do this is delusional, diefies himself, and is a major part of the problem, not part of the solution.
As the old saying goes, "It is not as hard to get people saved as it is to get them unsaved"—that is, get them to realize that they are indeed sinners in need of salvation. Most Christians (even as most nonChristians) think of themselves as "good" and everyone else as a sinner (if they even believe in sin).
As I have expressed in several books, though a bit crude and humorous, it gets the point across: "Most people, Christians included, think they fart cotton candy" (but that everyone else's gas is foul). The sin of each and every one of us is an affront to a Holy God and we are all contributors to the national woe. Even as our nation languishes in immorality and political corruption because each person thinks, "I am just one person, what little can the good I do, change anything"—and if 50 million people stopped believing that Satanic lie, we would not be in the mess we are in nationally (in each of our once-Christian nations)—so also, each true Christian needs to look into his own heart and admit it aint a pretty sight, and that each of us daily sins against God, in many ways; including many ways in which the majority of Christians are utterly ignorant, believing the antichrist lie that God abolished His Law—that God abolished His Standard of Morality by which He commands us to live.
Judgment begins in the HOUSE OF GOD (I Peter 4:17). WHY...? —because we are most responsible. Moral, refined, intelligent people who know what God expects, are MORE responsible than a bunch of uncivilized savages (which is what they are regardless of where they live or whether they wear clothes or not). A Father disciplines his own children first, before dealing with the immoral neighbors or packs of dogs ripping open the bags of garbage at the curb.
God used this very method (of dealing with His own first) in the Old Testament, even as He tells us in the New. A father chastens his own children; not bastards, not the neighbors' children. Chastening is not "punishment." Chastening is discipline and remedial in nature. Punishment is punitive and terminal. If the local judge's children have been running around with the neighborhood refuse, vandalizing, robbing, intimidating, assaulting, the judge (if he is moral) will deal
God will punish those who are not His children. But first, He will discipline His own. How could one claim to be holy if he ignored the sins of his own family, while being self-righteous and condemning those outside the family who are LESS responsible. To whom much is given so also much shall be required. In the OT before Judah was conquered, God followed the same prescription: disciplining His own FIRST:
Jeremiah 25
4And the LORD hath sent unto you all his servants the prophets, rising early and sending them; but ye have not hearkened, nor inclined your ear to hear. 5They said, Turn ye again now every one from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the LORD hath given unto you and to your fathers for ever and ever: 6And go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands; and I will do you no hurt. 7Yet ye have not hearkened unto me, saith the LORD; that ye might provoke me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt. 8Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Because ye have not heard my words, 9Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the LORD, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations. 10Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle. 11And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. 12And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the LORD, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations. 13And I will bring upon that land all my words which I have pronounced against it, even all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah hath prophesied against all the nations. 14For many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of them also: and I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the works of their own hands.
Ecclesiastes 12
13Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. 14For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
We are told to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. This does not mean we should pray blessings upon the wicked imposters there living. Jerusalem represents the seat of God's ruling authority on earth. The only way there can be peace in Jerusalem (God's legitimate people and authority) or anywhere on earth, is if the PRINCE of Peace rules there and the Bridegroom will not return to deliver to His bride the Kingdom, as long as she is running around immorally, refusing to submit herself to His Rule. Until then, like the Progidal, she, we, God's people must reap what we sow, living face down in the pig sty until we come to our senses and realize, "this isn't life, this is shameful" and repent and cry out to Him, and then Christ will return to put down all illegitimate rule and destroy the wicked and establish the Millennial Kingdom here on earth. Those who will not submit to God's Law, which is what will be established in the Kingdom, will not be given the Kingdom until they realize the error of their own ways, and the error of foolishness of their forefathers who millennia ago insulted God and declared, "Give us a king" and "we would not that this man (Christ) should rule over us."
Until GOD'S PEOPLE --each and every of us-- humble ourselves, confess our sins, and the sins of all of God's people, and cry out for Mercy, that God pour down His Holy Spirit upon ALL OF US, as upon a dry and thirsty ground... to convicted each of us of our sin, to deliver each of us from our false doctrine, carnality, foolishness, sinfulness, hard hearts, delusions--and not merely enlighten us by His Holy Spirit to KNOW what is right, which did Solomon little good, but that He also gives us a HEART and MIND and WILL and EMPOWERS US to DO what is right--as the ONLY option...
[What Solomon should have asked for was "the Power of Thy Spirit" for to know what is right is useless without the will to do it. Solomon had only asked for wisdom, to properly rule God's people; God gave him wisdom, but also wealth and fame... and sadly, the wealth and fame overrode the wisdom and Solomon himself became oppressive and took sin to an entirely new level and his heart itself was turned from God.]
until each and every one of us prays this sincerely to God many times a day (whenever we see immorality, pain, injustice, suffering, corruption)... then each day that we do not we choose death... we choose to continue in this filthly, immoral, rotten, perverted world... we choose to remain face down in the feces and urine in the pig sty.
Ignorance is a choice. Sin is a choice. Deliverance is a breath away if it is in ones heart to so breathe... and if it is not, then all a person should do until it is in his heart, is to pray continually and do nothing else. It is not a matter of winning the lottery, where we can just continue on with our "fake life" until we hit it; it is a matter of LIFE AND DEATH, our people being brutalized and murdered all over the globe--we must lay hold to the horns of the altar and cry out as did Jacob, "I cannot let thee go except thou bless me." And if we do not, then we don't really care... not about ourselves, not about others, we are just deluding ourselves.
Christ, the personification of wisdom, declared in Proverbs 8:36: "But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death."
God Himself also admonished and counselled us: Deuteronomy 30:19: "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: 20That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them."
Robert