Sighing and The Divine Response

(Prologue to Chapters 1-5)

“The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple. I open my mouth and pant [or sigh], longing for your commands. Turn to me and have mercy on me, as you always do to those who love your name. Direct my footsteps according to your word” (Psalm 119:130-133).

“The LORD said to him, ‘Go through the midst of the city, even through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which are being committed in its midst” (Ezekiel 9:4).

Sighing is not the only prerogative of lovers languishing and waiting for the beloved or the facial expression of discouragement of a student facing homework that is beyond his intellectual capability. It is, in fact, as inherent to man as laughter is.

All sighs do not possess the same value or meaning. There are sighs that lose their weight in the immensity of a cruel, merciless universe that can lead to despair and even death in the absence of a saving answer. Such is the condition of the human being without God. Can the answer to the mysteries of life be found without asking pertinent questions about it?

In my generation, Nihilism, the Absurd of Eugene Ionesco’s theater, artistic expressions such as the painting “The Scream” by Edvard Münch, the literature and the lifestyle of intellectuals such as Camus and Sartre were faithful mirrors reflecting the alienation, the despair and the perplexity, all experiences of our modern life. They had no valid and satisfying solution to offer for the complexity of increasingly insurmountable problems. The influence of their promising modern ideologies and philosophies have only produced a bitter fruit poisoning the existence of a humanity close to her last sigh.

However, there is another sigh that comes out of the depth of the human being. In Ecclesiastes 3:11, the wise King Solomon declares that “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity [the desire for or the thought, concept or essence of eternity] in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

It is the act of sighing or panting that best expresses this absolutely essential need of a human being suffering from separation in the search for his creator who alone can satisfy his deepest need. (“As the deer pants or sigh for the water, so my soul longs after you.”)

The Lord God is the Father (Creator) of the spirits of all mankind (Acts 17:25), and he wants to guide us by his Word, by the sound of his voice on our way back to our eternal home. In Numbers 27:15-18, “Moses said to the LORD, ‘May the LORD, the God who gives breath to all living things, appoint someone over this community to go out and come in before them, one who will lead them out and bring them in, so the LORD’s people will not be like sheep without a shepherd.’ So the LORD said to Moses, ‘Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him.'”

Before one can go out, before knowing freedom, one has to find the door to go in that leads to liberty, to eternal life, to our destination. Who is this man, this guide? What is this door; where can it be found? So many questions, so many sighs!

What about you, my reader, my friend? Are you asking yourself these same questions? Do you know these deep sighs that will only be fully satisfied with a response that would fill the deepest part of your soul?

God knows your thoughts even before they are formed in your brain. In fact, it is he who is seeking you. He is just waiting for you to sigh; he understands the burdens that we all bear.

Jesus invites you: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

Ozymandias of Egypt

(Delusion of Grandeur)

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip and sneer of old command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings.
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away. – Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792-1822

The Stairway to Nowhere

Well then, my friend, did you sigh

Last night while falling asleep:

Or are you feeling like this king

Master of his domain

Following his own whim?

What drives you and leads you?

Your castle made of cards

So patiently constructed

Can in a single night

Become an abandoned ruin,

A no-man’s land where children

Laugh and play without worrying

About why and how

Such an accomplishment

Such a beautiful edifice

With a proud and tall stairway

Is left to lie, forgotten

In the great hour glass,

The hallway of memories

Lost forever

In the labyrinth of the past.

“For whoever wants to save their life [or soul] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” (Matthew 16:25-26).

Come with me if you want, if today you have lost the hope of finding the key to the exit door that leads to life.

Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8).

FOREWORD

One day, in blind ignorance,

A man stumbles over a stone,

The first step of a stairway

That leads to the most high place.

In haste, without pause,

At the cross road between light and darkness

Pride opens his mouth and mocks the stepping stone

Calling it a stumbling block.

Then, further deceived by his lack of understanding

He turns around indignant and walks away

From the Rock that Love placed there

To help him on his journey.

So, tonight, don’t forget to sigh. It’s as natural as crying or laughing. It is the others who do not like to hear the complaints of our souls. You have to understand them. They do not know how to take them. A sigh, as soon as it is released, flies off upward like sparks from a campfire in the night. But someone is listening and hears you. If you persist, he will answer.

So long, and take care. I hope to meet you at the desert gate.

TO BE CONTINUED

Jean-Louis

https://thelightseed.blogspot.com/2011/02/joshua-tree-desert-parable.html

 To hear the “The Joshua Tree” ebook on audio (1 hour and 12 minutes),  go to:

http://livinginhisname.org/mp3s/other-works/the_joshua_tree_ebook.mp3

 

After the Rapture #69

Those Left Behind plus the worldwide group of crazy uncles should be aware of this:

This article marks the start of the third year of this ” After the Rapture ” series; and in nearly all of these articles, I have tried to offer advice, suggestions, printed directions, sources, techniques, etc., on what crazy uncles should be leaving behind in their left-behind from the rapture  boxes. Also, it is directed to those left behind to further educate themselves and hopefully help save them from eternal destruction in the lake of fire.

Granted, I personally doubt if many, if any, non-believers and non-followers of Christ Jesus read this and other prophecy websites, TV prophecy teachers, and other sources of finding their way to eternal happiness. This is why the “Crazy Uncle Club’s” efforts before they depart the planet Earth are so important now. Most of those left behind are deep into life and the ways on earth. Granted, once the tribulation starts, reality will set in; and then they must suffer through 7 years of Satan’s hell on earth.

Satan and his demons have made this present life on earth very pleasant and happy, but wait until after the rapture. With Christ’s Church gone along with His restraining powers, ALL HELL WILL LITERALLY BREAK LOOSE! So now is the time to step forward and serve Our Lord.

Massive deaths can be avoided (both physically and spiritually) during the 7-year tribulation period if those left behind would read between the lines in some prophetic verses and take the rest literally that all is inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Let’s look at Revelation 8 in the midst of the tribulation period as a starting point:

“The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.

“And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.

“And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter” (Revelation 8: 7-11).

Worldwide famine and starvation will come upon the entire world (Mark 13:8, Matthew 4:7, Luke 21: 11, plus the above Revelation 8:7-11), so get the ideas out of your heads that some places and people will be safe from God’s judgment. God will pour out these judgments on areas such as Israel, the Middle Eastern countries, Iran, Russia, North Korea, etc. These plagues will surely fall upon all those places that rejected God’s word and His people but also includes Roosterville, Missouri, and the rest of the so-called Christian world. These judgments fall on all those left behind on planet Earth, believers and non-believers alike.

Many of those left behind will begin reading God’s printed word in His Bible and will have a huge advantage over the fallen-away plus the followers of the antichrist with hardened hearts in that they will read, study and believe in the Book of Revelation, Matthew 24, Book of Daniel, etc., for God’s plan for earth and His end-times. The new followers and believers in Christ will then be able to plan for His 21 judgments yet to fall all over this planet. I in no way mean for this to mean “dodge” or escape God’s judgments but rather for them to endure and maybe even survive through them. The lost will suffer God’s complete judgements without hope and will all end up in hell.

So where does the worldwide starvation and famine come from? All grass will be burned up. Grass crops include wheat, rice, oats, barley, etc., which means all the grocery-store shelves (including bread, pies, cakes, crackers, cookies, etc.) will become quickly empty, and all livestock that graze on the grassy pastureland, which will now be burned up, will starve and be dropping dead like flies. There goes your meat-and-bread Big Mac!

And there is no sense in going fishing, as one-third of the fish will be dead (Revelation 8:8-11), and all ships and commercial fishing vessels will be destroyed. This will include ocean-water fishing plus your freshwater fish from your local ponds, rivers and lakes (vs.10-11).

So much for your worldwide meat, fish and bread supplies!

Some people will have food canned in cellars and pantries plus preserved in deep freezers, but that will run out shortly. That won’t last 7 years.

The antichrist will surely have food and drink if you take the 666 mark. In that case, those who take the 666 mark will eventually spend eternity in the lake of fire (hell). Satan has the advantage, as his fallen angels (demons) do not need food and drink in order to survive. They are eternal evil spirits who follow Satan and have survived without food and drink since before their fall from heaven onto earth centuries ago. And they will survive through the end-times 7-year tribulation period until Christ returns to take them out of circulation. Everyone in hell will be in eternal punishment without a drop of water or a morsel of food (Luke 16:23-26); so make your choice.

Those left behind who realize the error of their ways and beliefs and HOPEFULLY flee into the wilderness, form their own daily Bible study, and go through the left-behind box contents, plus, can use the prophetic writings as a guideline as to what is to come. Antichrist’s followers (including the demons) don’t read the true Bible (which antichrist will destroy en masse). All they will have is the “tribulation bible” authored by the false prophet, which will be completely false with humanism, New Age, world climate control, etc., as its “gospel.”

So crazy uncles everywhere need to place this article in easy-to-find locations and point to the judgments to come. They should also need to review all previous articles in this series (see the Rapture Ready archives) and add items they missed or forgot. After all, most of the crazy uncles will be in heaven safely with the Lord. Those left behind will be in their own survival mode and will need water purification equipment and products, preserved and canned foods, garden seed, etc., and food with a 7-year shelf life.

Revelation 8:7-11 covers just 3 of the 21 judgments poured out by God on all earthlings. Besides God’s judgment, the left-behind in the wilderness who have finally accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior will still have up to 7 years to dodge and hide from antichrist, his massive forces, and satanic followers (antichrist’s gestapo). But hiding from God’s wrath is impossible for all but a few headed for the thousand-year millennium (Revelation 16:6). Only the new believers will be saved.

ADD TO YOUR LEFT-BEHIND BOXES:

A long list of survival items for you to stockpile for your left-behind boxes and rooms is at the following link:

https://www.raptureready.com/2018/06/14/rapture-32-dick-ainsworth/

For your comments and/or prayer requests, send to:

dick.ainsworth65@gmail.com