Psalm 145:8-9

“The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, Slow to anger and great in mercy. The Lord is good to all, And His tender mercies are over all His works.”

There are many, many verses that demonstrate God’s compassion for us sinful people. I am currently reading through the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah.

There is a lot of trouble that comes to the nation of Israel, but consider how long it took for the Lord to act in anger towards His people; hundreds of years, to be honest. When we take the time to look at the account of the Flood in Genesis 6-9, we will see that there were hundreds of years between the fall of man and the events in Genesis 6 that led to the Flood. And, even after the pronouncement and the judgment that was to come, Noah took 100 years to build the Ark, and the people of the world were able to see the grace of God and experience it. Even if they did not accept it, God knew they would not accept it. He, God, did what God does; He extended His grace. Even down to the very last week or so, God extended grace, Genesis 7:1-5.

“Then the Lord said to Noah, ‘Come into the ark, you and all your household because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation. You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female; also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth. For after seven more days I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and I will destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made.’ And Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him.”

Even after the 100 years that it took to build the Ark, God still waited another 7 days after it was completed and Noah and his family had entered the Ark before the rain began to fall. God is compassionate, He is patient, He is slow to anger, He is full of lovingkindness, and He extends His goodness to mankind, even when He knows we will refuse it.

We who take prophecy seriously, we who read Matthew 24 and can see the trends coming into place, we who read Revelation and can understand why Russia and China are so prevalent in the fight against the Anti-Christ in the Tribulation, we are seeing the end-time players fall into place and line up to fulfill the prophecies of John and others. We can see the Globalists and the people in their way, like Russia and China drawing lines in the sand that will take us into the Tribulation.

From my understanding of the Bible, it teaches a Pre-Tribulation rapture, but I have many dear Pastor friends who are mid-tribulation people. I think they are wrong, but at least they believe in the Rapture. Lately, I have met some people, not a lot, but some who say there is no rapture. There can be a callousness that comes on us as we understand that the end is getting closer and closer.

We can begin to despise the world around us as we see the fight that is coming our way. We can see the laws that pass, making Biblical speech illegal, laws that pinpoint our children, and how the government is making sin legal. Making what is right legally wrong can make life here very uncomfortable. We can see the persecution of Christians around the world; even here in North America, it’s beginning to take place and becoming more and more intense. The natural urge, the natural tendency, is to say, ‘come quickly, Lord Jesus,’ and I can completely understand that. I mean, who in their right mind wants to suffer at all? I also think of my kids. I do not want my daughters, son, and son-in-law to suffer for Jesus, so come on, Lord, let’s get out of here.

But this is not the God that we serve. He is in no rush to destroy the very people that He sent His Son Jesus to die for. He is gracious, merciful, and slow to anger. We like to hear that when it pertains to us, but not when it pertains to others. Lest you think this is an Old Testament sentiment, we find this verse in 2 Peter 3:9-11,

“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. ¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. ¹¹ Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness.”

Verses 10-11 assure us that the judgment will come. It will come when the Lord is ready and in His time. But verse 9 reminds us that God’s focus right now is the salvation of mankind. He is longsuffering, patient towards us. He is in no rush to send billions to hell. The price that He had to pay to offer redemption to us was the most expensive ransom ever paid, and He is making sure to extend it to as many people as He can.

This should be a lesson to us. God’s focus is the salvation of souls, the redemption of man, and the building of his Kingdom. He is still sending missionaries, sending preachers, and having the Bible translated into more and more languages. There are more sermons online than ever before, and the Gospel is being sent to the end of the world.

You know, before the whole COVID mess, most of us little conservative churches did not have proficient online ministries. But we had to adapt, and we had to expand our reach to make things work. We are a small church, but we have extended our reach as far as Pakistan. A small Christian group there found our services online, and we connected. They run an orphanage and minster to modern-day slaves that are working in very harsh conditions. We pray for them; we have helped a bit with financial support when we can, and we pray for each other. They are thrilled to have someone, some persons, a local church praying for them. We have had other churches send them materials, and the Gospel is being shared.

Every week on Facebook especially, I see churches posting about salvations and baptisms, and it is thrilling. We are in the right frame of mind, God’s frame of mind, that all men everywhere would repent and trust Jesus. The end will come when God is ready; He does not break promises. But for now, for today, for this time, and with the resources that we have, let us diligently seek the salvation of men and women, boys and girls, everywhere we can.

Why should this be our focus? Because God is a gracious and merciful God. We should be a gracious and merciful people, His people.

Look, let me get down the nitty-gritty. I live in Canada, and we have a corrupt and globalist Prime Minister who needs to go. But as much as I want him gone, I should have an even more intense desire for his salvation. If more of our leaders become children of God through Jesus, they will vote differently and act differently, and just maybe we can hold off God’s wrath for another generation.

As I am reading through Jeremiah and Isaiah, it seems to me that the people of Israel and then Judah in the southern kingdom hurried their destruction because they disobeyed God. This disobedience was led by their political and, sadly, their spiritual leaders. What if the POTUS got saved, the PMs of the world got saved, and on and on we can go? You say, hey Sean, that is a pipedream, and I would say read Daniel 4. If a tyrant like Nebuchadnezzar can be saved, so too can any of our leaders today.

So, are you full of mercy and grace? Are you and the local church that you attend actively praying for the salvation of our political leaders? I can admit that the two churches I serve have not prayed out loud in a public setting for the salvation of our PM in a long time. We should be ashamed; I am ashamed as the leader; God loves him, and Jesus died for his salvation. God is longsuffering to him and wants him to be saved. We should never let our anger at the immediate events take precedent over the eternal view.

Jesus was the evangelist right up to his very death. I know of a dear brother that died almost 3 years ago, and His wife testified that he was witnessing to the nurses as they made his last few days of life comfortable in his own home. He, too, like Jesus, was an evangelist to his last breath. I pray we will all be like this.

This is the heart of God; He longs to be merciful to us sinful people. He longs to see us restored to fellowship with Him, and He longs for us to simply take the free gift of salvation that has been offered, and it’s still being offered. In Noah’s day, all people had to do to live was to walk up the plank to the Ark and go in; no pretense, no fanfare, just a simple walk. Salvation is that simple; stop complicating it and simply get out there and offer it.

In John 4, the woman at the well went and offered salvation to the very city that despised her. Why? She met Jesus, and He extended mercy, grace, kindness, and love. She could have hoarded it like so many of us do, but instead, she went and brought the whole city to meet Jesus. This world hates Christians; that is because they have not met Jesus. Let us bring Jesus to them.

Jesus will come to right the world; He promised He would. Jesus will come to judge sin; He promised He would. Jesus will come, and sadly, many will go to Hell; He promised the judgment. However, our concern is the salvation of men and women all over the world. Our concern is to make Hell as empty as possible and Heaven as full as possible. How will we do this? When we become more compassionate, more merciful, and more gracious, mimicking our Lord and Savior.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch
Online: https://www.mississaugamissionarybaptistchurch.com/ (under construction)
Email: missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

 

(Jeremiah 14-16; 1 Timothy 5)

When a particular individual is singled out for his wickedness in the Bible, you can be assured that the things he did were over and above God’s threshold for tolerance. And let’s be honest: God has a pretty high threshold. How many times did Israel reject Him and fall into idolatry and sexual immorality, yet He relented, forgave, and returned to bless her? However, God has a long memory. It also seems like there was a template that the people followed from times past which, when they repeated it, angered God until He could take no more.

The wicked king whose sins the inhabitants of the Northern Kingdom of Israel continually emulated was Jeroboam. We often see reference to “the sins of Jeroboam” when the Biblical text describes why God brought disaster upon this segment of His inheritance. Running a close second to Jeroboam in that region was King Ahab, who did quite a lot to kindle God’s wrath.

In the Southern Kingdom of Judah, although there were several good kings, one was specified as having been particularly egregious in his transgressions. It was his leadership and example that tainted the people of Judah down through the years and became the last straw, breaking the proverbial camel’s back and causing God to finally act to drastically punish His beloved children. Here is what we’re told in Jeremiah 15:4:

“And I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem.”

Manasseh, son of good king Hezekiah, was the poster child for Judah’s downfall. He took the people he was supposed to shepherd and lead toward God into great apostasy. That had consequences. God instructed the prophet in Jeremiah 16:10-12 what to say to those around him:

“And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, ‘Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’ then you shall say to them: ‘Because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord, and have gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law, and because you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me.”

Did they not have a clue what their sins were? Perhaps not. It may be that they were so deceived by their wickedness that they thought all was good with God, despite their having turned from Him.

Jeremiah tried to tell them they were on a road leading to disaster. God declared what would happen because of these transgressions in Jeremiah 16:13:

“Therefore I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.”

The Lord told Judah well beforehand the nature of her fate. He would cast the people from this good and plenteous land that He had so graciously given them. Rather than serve Him and receive all His merciful blessings, they would be forced to endure the harsh requirements of other gods.

How would this come about? Where would they go? Jeremiah 15:2 detailed this:

… “Those who are for pestilence, to pestilence, and those who are for the sword, to the sword; those who are for famine, to famine, and those who are for captivity, to captivity.”

Throughout the ages, these have been the big four destroyers that God has sent to punish those who had earned His severe condemnation:

Pestilence
Sword
Famine
Captivity

If plague didn’t bring the fear of death, then God would unleash a foreign power upon the people. If they didn’t perish in war, they would be reduced to famine conditions and starvation. If that didn’t destroy their pride and self-will to continue rejecting the Lord, He sent them into slavery in another land. Perhaps through these punishments, Israel would awaken to her need for the One true God.

Similar times are coming upon the earth in our current days. Although we haven’t had apostate kings, per se, to lead our nation far from God, the lure of Marxism has been strong, working in conjunction with the abundance of our nation. Playing upon guilt and privilege, our children have been taught that life is unfair. The only way to rectify the problem is through socialist, equal distribution so that all in society have the same outcome. They’ve learned that diversity, equity, and inclusion are the only means to achieve parity, which is the highest god above all.

This has brought about many evils and led the vast majority of our nation to reject God while embracing the State. After all, only government can regulate the thoughts and actions of people to ensure this fair and just outcome. Since we’ve forgotten God, exactly what is left for Him in this equation? Our hearts are hard against Him, and He has no use in our lives.

Here’s what Jeremiah 15:6 shows is God’s response to this kind of nonsense:

“You have rejected me, declares the Lord; you keep going backward, so I have stretched out my hand against you and destroyed you— I am weary of relenting.”

God’s patience is long and storied, but it also wears thin and finally reaches a breaking point. For the hard-hearted and stiff-necked, God will give them what they want. They desire life without Him? Fine. They will get it.

How near must we be to this point where God completely gives people over to their own burning needs? All conditions are in place. Perhaps there are a few more people whose hearts will melt, they will repent to trust in Jesus, and they will ensure their entry into the Kingdom of God. Beyond that, what’s left?

Only the Rapture of the true church. Once we’re out of here, the world will rejoice, and it can have its own way. But soon, it will learn how that road leads only to destruction.

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The Lord has put it on my heart to always read completely through His Word at least once each year. From that practice, it resulted in my producing the Awaken Bible Study Notes, a 4-volume set correlating with each quarter’s readings. This is the link to Amazon for Volume 1 covering January – March (Genesis 1 – Judges 5; Matthew 1 – Luke 7):

Awaken Bible Study Notes series Volume 1

Following that year’s efforts, God gave me the “assignment” of writing a daily essay on what I had read. That produced the 4-volume Awaken Bible Commentary and Reflections series.

Here is the link on Amazon to Volume 1, which covers January – March (Genesis 1 – Judges 5; Matthew 1 – Luke 7):

Awaken Bible Commentary and Reflections series Volume 1

If these daily writings have been a blessing to you, I hope that you’ll acquire these books for further study. My intent in all I write is to bring God the glory and to make His people think. Both the Study Notes and the Commentary and Reflections delve into the prophetic and supernatural nature of God’s Word, a combination you simply won’t find elsewhere. They attempt to show the parallels to our times with the peril from the past when God’s people turn away from Him and His commands. Scripture is very much a blueprint for today.

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Gary W. Ritter is a lay pastor, Bible teacher, and prolific author. His Whirlwind Series comprises three end-times books: Sow the Wind, Reap the Whirlwind, and There Is a Time. These books are contained in the collected volume of the Whirlwind Omnibus. Gary has written many other Christian thrillers that will challenge you, and which you can learn about at his website:www.GaryRitter.com.

You can also watch Gary’s video Prophecy Updates on Rumble at his Awaken Bible Prophecy channel: https://rumble.com/c/c-783217.