Is God’s Plan Fair? :: By David Cogburn

I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of us who follow the Rapture Ready site are born-again Christians who love the Lord big time and eagerly watch and wait for His soon return for His bride, the Church. Most of us love all things concerning God and His plan for the human race and our own individual lives.

What percentage of earth’s population do you think feels the same way as we do? And here is an even better question. What percentage of born-again Christians do you think feel the same way as we do?

Here is what we do know and what we don’t know. We know that if you are truly born again, you are saved, period. God does not make mistakes. He knows the hearts of every person; He knows who is sincere when they say Jesus is their Lord and Savior.

In John 6:39, Jesus says, “This is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those He has given me but shall raise them up at the last day.” This is what we do know.

What we don’t know is this: Of those who are truly born again, why do so many still live a sinful lifestyle, and what impact does that have on their eternal walk with the Lord?

We do not like to think of born-again Christians as living sinful lifestyles. How do we know that many do? God’s word, of course.

In 2 Chron 7:14, God says, “If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

This has got to be one of the saddest verses in the whole Bible. When God says if My people who are called by My name, it is easy to see that He is referring to born-again Christians, as we are the only ones “called” by His name.

He then says if they will humble themselves, which shows us that humility, which is something that God loves, is not part of their lifestyle at the moment. God then says if they will pray, which implies that many are not praying. Then God says if they will seek My face, which implies they are not doing that either. And here is the clincher: God says if they will turn from their “wicked ways.”

WAIT. Born-again children of God are not supposed to be living wicked lifestyles, are they? God says we are at this time.

Then God says IF they will do these things – be humble, pray, seek God’s face, and turn from their wicked ways, THEN He will HEAR from heaven, forgive their sin, and HEAL their land. Aren’t our sins already forgiven? Of course, but this is referring to our daily “walk” with the Lord.

Think of our daily walk with the Lord as one where we have a SIN NET between us. We send Him our prayers, and He sends us His blessings. And our desire is to be faithful in doing that so that the sin net “between” us is always “down,” and there is no hindrance between our prayers and God’s blessings.

But when we sin, the sin net pops up between us and is now a barrier between our prayers and God’s blessings. And when we “repent,” the sin net comes back down, and our walk with the Lord is restored with no current sins between us.

2 Chron 7:14 is implying that too many of God’s born-again children are living a life where the sin net is “staying up” the majority of the time due to more focus on the world than their relationship with God.

Is our land healed by God at this time? Far from it. Why is that? It’s because of all the items God enumerated in 2 Chron 7:14. Is our land in such horrible shape right now due to all the unbelievers in our nation doing “their thing,” which interferes with God’s plan to bless and prosper our nation? Not hardly. It has ZERO to do with them and EVERYTHING to do with us.

From the time God formed our nation until the end of World War II, God was important to the majority of people in some way. Even though most of them were not born again, they still held God in high esteem and made sure our laws centered around things important to God.

That all started changing after WW II when ungodly people started getting into politics, especially our federal judicial system. They started turning our laws based on the masses’ rights superseding the individuals’ rights to where, in the 1960s, our laws flip-flopped to where individual rights superseded the masses’ rights. And it has grown and gotten much worse to lead us to where we are today.

The masses wanted to pray in school, and we had prayer in school. But when individual rights became the law of the land, one person could object to prayer in school and cause prayer to be thrown out — even though, out of 100 people, one person did not want it.

The masses said hard-core pornography was illegal, and it was illegal until individuals said they wanted to see it. And we see how horrific it is today.

2 Chron 7:14 shows us that God’s born-again children are living a more “worldly” lifestyle than a heavenly lifestyle.

What does that mean for God’s born-again children? God is certainly speaking of the masses of born-again children living a worldly lifestyle at the moment.

The good news is that God is also saying this type of sinful, worldly lifestyle can be turned around and that if enough of God’s born-again children did turn around, then He would heal our land.

The title of this article is “Is God’s Plan Fair“? What plan? Actually, it’s God’s plan for “everything,” especially God’s creation of angels, human beings, and the universe.

The number of angels who remain saved percentage-wise compared to the number of human beings who are saved percentage-wise may not seem fair, but there is a good reason for it.

I have thought long and hard about this subject and decided to write a book that, hopefully, “easily” explains God’s plan for heaven, eternity, and the universe. As a matter of fact, that is the name of my book – God’s Plan for Heaven, Eternity and the Universe Explained.

I have written it so that it might appeal to all people – from people who don’t know God and have never read one page of the Bible to people who know of God but do not know how to truly have a personal, intimate relationship with Him, to people who love the Lord and are born again. Also, even people with advanced knowledge of the Bible will see things most have not thought about before.

I point out that for people who know very little to nothing about God’s plan, their understanding should be off the charts after reading the book compared to where they were before reading the book.

Just about everything in the book comes “directly” from the Bible or “indirectly” from the Bible based on what God has done throughout history. It is not based on my “opinion” or speculation. If I speculate about something, I say this is speculation, but it is speculation that seems “reasonable.”

A book is obviously too long for a Rapture Ready article, so I will post a link for anyone who might like to check out my book. If you like it and think it might be helpful to others you know, please pass it along.

Here is the link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gZ7seyAQmJsrpe5OusC49DYRg3qsCITp/view?usp=sharig

Many blessings, and Maranatha, Lord Jesus.

David Cogburn

dcogburn789@gmail.com

 

 

Dealing with the Devil :: By Terry James

We who see things developing from truth found in God’s prophetic Word can, I think, agree that secular (humanistic) efforts at dealing with the principalities and powers of Ephesians 6:12 aren’t working.

Man trying to hold back the evil of this world has failed miserably at every level. Therefore, God’s next catastrophic intervention into earth’s history is imminent. Bible prophecy overlays the issues and events of this troubling day in an astonishing presentation that provides the forewarning.

Something stupendous is about to happen!

An unidentifiable, pent-up energy pervades the atmospherics of these ominous times. Every indicator that exposes the human condition points to a coming moment of truth—an impending transformation—that will alter the way things are forever.

Evil permeating the current generation of earth’s inhabitants, one can sense, creates a demand that things be set aright—calls for a change that judges the bad and sets at liberty the good.

Man’s Failure

Winston Churchill, one of history’s greatest leaders and thinkers in the quest for world peace, framed humanism’s core hope for mankind following World War II.

“A world organization has already been erected for the prime purpose of preventing war. UNO [United Nations Organization], the successor of the League of Nations, with the decisive addition of the United States and all that means, is already at work. We must make sure that its work is fruitful, that it is a reality and not a sham, that it is a force for action, and not merely a frothing of words, that it is a true temple of peace in which the shields of many nations can someday be hung up, and not merely a cockpit in a Tower of Babel. Before we cast away the solid assurances of national armaments for self-preservation, we must be certain that our temple is built, not upon shifting sands or quagmires, but upon the rock.” (Robert Rhodes James, Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches 1897–1963, vol. VII [NY and London: Chelsea House, 1943–49] pp.7285–7293).

Churchill didn’t realize the prescience of his final words of this excerpt. The British prime minister was wrong in the first part of his statement about how to assure peace on earth, but he was on the mark—even if unwittingly—in the last part. The only way a truly peaceful world will ever be built is not on human government, not upon military might, but “upon the rock.” True, lasting peace will, in fact, be built upon the stone of Daniel 2:34, 45—the stone cut without hands that will smash to pieces the anti-God, man-made governmental system of this fallen world. That rock is none other than Jesus the Christ. Christ, alone, is able to deal with the devil as is necessary to bring all to a conclusion appointed by God.

Jesus told His disciples this unalterable truth as recorded in Matthew 16:13-18.

The humanistic roadmap for achieving mankind’s loftiest goals isn’t working out. Human government, as a matter of fact, is taking the world on the fast track to destruction.

Babel-like Rebellion Rules

Mankind exhibits the hubris of Lucifer the fallen one. Pridefulness grows in geometric progression while humanity proceeds deeper into history. Pride and rebellion in this sin-immersed world are synonymous. The world of rebels has come full circle and stands again where the tower builders of Babel stood in the Genesis account of God’s intervention into the evil affairs of man following the Flood. Heaven’s judgment thus cannot be far in the future.

The Genesis record frames the problem God confronted.

“And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth” (Genesis 11:4-9).

Modern-day one-world order builders have been able to circumvent the language barriers the Lord set in place to prevent the ancient tower builders from constructing the Tower of Babel. Technology makes possible instant communication from any place on earth to most any other place around the globe, no matter the language.

The neo one-worlders are every bit as set on trying to usurp God’s control over mankind as were Nimrod and his cronies of that ancient time.

The globalists elite today are observed at work within the United Nations, the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and deceptive entities like the World Economic Forum (WEF). These and others engage in constant efforts to formulate a new world configuration. Their grasp for power is joined by the many social engineers and scientists who seek to foist the global-warming hoax upon the rest of humanity. Their climate-change conferences — which thus far have not reaped the economic windfalls they hoped for — and lockdowns through contrived, engineered pestilences have failed miserably. Their pseudoscience, which was proved to be based upon fraudulent and contrived climate data, exposed their hubristic grab for power.

Warped Worldview Pervades

This generation, represented by the globalist-elite drive for one world order, fits well the description of rebellious earth-dwellers given in the final book of God’s recorded Word—Revelation. The neo-Babel builders exhibit hatred for those who want governance from the God of Heaven, not from humanistic reprobate thinking. Saints of the Tribulation era will appeal to the Lord against such “heathen,” “kings of the earth,” and “rulers” that “imagine a vain thing,” as outlined in Psalms 2:1-4.

Those who will have been martyred for the cause of Christ will ask the Lord a heart-wrenching question in that future time of horror:

“And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” (Revelation 6:10).

These who “dwell on the earth” today mock God and embrace Antichrist concepts. The Antichrist spirit is alive and well and is growing stronger in its influence.

The generations that have grown with the fantastic scientific breakthroughs have a visceral pride that makes them pull from the traces that God has designed for the moral governance of humankind. Humanity, in cultures and civilizations, always seems to go through the same kind of cycle of deportment toward total rebellion and judgment.

At this moment, we who “watch” things going on are like Lot of his day. We are “vexed” while the wickedness, deception, and unalloyed evil grow amongst us.

God’s Word, as always, tells us how to deal with the devil and the rebelliousness while we wait for and look for our blessed hope (Titus 2:13). Here is assurance from God’s Holy Word. The devil and his minions that have plagued mankind – including perpetrating their evil against Christians who are now, like Lot, vexed from day to day with their wickedness – will be dealt with in judgment.

“Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb….The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth. The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming. The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation. Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken. A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked. For the arms of the wicked shall be broken: but the LORD upholdeth the righteous” (Psalms 37:1-2, 12-17).

All evil we see accumulating, with Antichrist’s foreshadow now darkening the immediate geopolitical horizon, means the Lord is about to intervene with promised judgment and wrath. Jesus told of the exact times in which we now live in His “days of Noah, days of Lot” prophecies recorded in Luke 17:26-30.

It is the Rapture of all born-again believers that will begin the process of instituting that judgment and wrath.

Folks, that great event, when God will deal with the devil and his minions, both human and demonic, is on the very cusp of becoming a reality in our time.

“And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).