Tag: Repentance the way of Life

The Contrast – Envy & Love

The Contrast

Envy and Love

Love is its own reward
For in its power all is restored

Envy is the rust of soul
Corrupting all within its hold

Love rejoices in another’s success
For it is full in its own blessedness

Envy increases in emptiness
Receiving from its wretchedness

Love’s joy is ever giving
Flowing from Him who is ever living

Envy covets what others own
Reaping the ruin that it has sown

Love is life’s true delight
Freeing the heart from all sin and strife

Envy’s wages are hell and blight
Binding the heart in sin and strife

It is in envying the things of others
       our own garden is filled
with wicked weeds and evil deeds

Brian Troxel

“A heart at peace gives life to the body,
but envy rots the bones”
Proverbs 14:30

Brian Troxel
www.aword.info

I Know Your Works

I Know Your Works

“I know thy works…”
Rev. 2:2, 2:9, 2:13, 2:19, 3:1, 3:8, 3:15

This is God’s declaration to His Church. This word is spoken to every church in the Book of Revelation and is based upon what God sees. Somehow, with the passage of time, the marriage of faith and works became separated. Through erroneous teaching they became disassociated in many Christian circles. Faith became a noun; what men believed became their “faith”. Faith became a statement rather than a life. We have come to a very low point when faith now represents our doctrinal persuasion instead of the expression of the living Christ. In Jesus’ world faith was something He saw and heard. The Gospels are full of His response to their faith.

“And, behold, they brought to him
a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed:
and Jesus seeing their faith…”
Matthew 9:2

James tells us it is impossible to have and hold true faith without the corresponding expressions of works. John tells us that Jesus’ works bore witness to who He was. Everything living in God’s creation shows forth works which correspond to the nature within. Jesus spoke to the Jews in His day, “If you were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham” (John 8:39).

“Jesus answered them,
I told you, and ye believed not:
the works that I do in my Father’s name,
they bear witness of me”
John 10:25

Within the household of faith many profess great and wondrous things concerning our beliefs but the works and expressions of our lives reveal something far less. The purpose of God in sending His Spirit of Truth into the hearts of men and women is to make our profession harmonious with our walk. To be people of the truth means that the things we say we do. The ministration of truth into our hearts is to make us true to the end that our words and our works bear witness of Him. Peter enjoins us…

“So speak ye, and so do,
as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty”
James 2:12

The enormity of the call of God to us! We are to become true, we are to be liberated from the religious lie of speaking one thing while living another. We are (by means of the living truth and through the power of the blood) to become the verity of the Life of Jesus. Jesus spoke to us concerning the works of faith…

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me,
the works that I do shall he do also;
and greater works than these shall he do;
because I go unto my Father”
John 14:12

Jesus declared that those who believed on Him would do His Works and greater. How is it the church can be so full of believers yet we see very little in terms of authentic, powerful, “greater works” which are to be the testimony of the life and faith of Jesus within our hearts?

It is here in this great contradiction of life where we are afforded the wonderful opportunity to consider our ways, to allow the truth of where we are to permeate our hearts and to pierce our very souls. The response of repentance and brokenness to Him is in itself the very beginnings of a new work of faith within our hearts. Only His Life and Nature can produce the works of the Son. “He that has the Son has Life”. Works are the revelation of the nature of any living thing. What it is determines what it does; a simple statement yet filled with eternal ramifications (1 John3:7-10) . People who are bitter are filled with bitter expressions. The works of men who are self-seeking will result in the eventual revelation of their motives. Those who profess great things without the corresponding works reveal the horror and deception of a vain religion.

“But wilt thou know, O vain man,
that faith without works is dead”
James 2:20

It is a day for us to consider our ways. It is time for us to contemplate the words of our lives in contrast to the works of our lives. Truth by its very nature must reveal that which is untrue. It is in the ministration of this that men turn and recognize the essential need of a Saviour. Men and women love the promises of God, we love to hear about our position in heavenly places and that we have been translated from death to life in Christ. We are satisfied with the hearing of these things all the while ignoring the validity of these things in our lives. This is the womb of deception. There is no greater deception than that of a religious self-induced one. People who are at ease with the hearing but devoid of the doing deceive themselves.

“But be ye doers of the word,
and not hearers only,
deceiving your own selves…”
James 1:22

The verity of His Life in us is revealed in a genuine and demonstrative love for His People. The innate cry for relationship with each one is the mere echo of His heart. The lack of concern over His Body in the earth is the piercing revelation of how far we have strayed from the Truth. For the sole purpose of truth is to bring us to the Love of God beating within our hearts. We have no room to glory in revelations and the understanding of God’s Word if our works betray us.

“But as touching brotherly love
ye need not that I write unto you:
for ye yourselves are taught of God
to love one another”
1 Thessalonians 4:9

Who are those who are taught of God? Those who love their brothers and sisters! It takes very little scrutiny of our lives to conclude how little we know Him. Love is the revelation of the measure of truth which we hold in our hearts.

Faith without Works is Dead
Religion without Love is Vain

“Let us search and try our ways,
and turn again to the Lord.
Let us lift up our heart with our hands
unto God in the heavens.
We have transgressed and have rebelled…”
Lamentations 3:40-42

God’s greatest gift to His people is the gift and wonder of repentance. The divine enablement to turn from our ways to walk and live in His. His mercy never ceases and His grace is new to us as we respond from our hearts in truth. Repentance brings us to new and wondrous places in God, it frees us from the weights of wrong thinking, wrong speaking and wrong doing. It is because of His mercies we can rise up and become in thought, word and deed expressions of a love “that surpasses knowledge”. A Love which is beyond all human ability and a love which is nothing less than the very life of Jesus living and reigning within our very hearts. Even so Lord come and find your resting place in us. Amen.

Brian Troxel
www.aword.info

TRANSITION: The Way of Truth

Transition: The WAY of Truth

“And I turned to see the voice which spoke with me.
And having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands,
and in the midst of the seven lampstands
One like the Son of man…”
Revelation 1:12-13

Those who are true desire the truth; living truth which comes to those who walk and live in the Spirit. It comes at a cost and with the requirement for the individual to respond in order to receive its power. Any “truth” that does not require response and change is not living truth. It is in hearing and turning we are enabled to see. In turning from our ways and the current measure of truth we hold we are enabled by His wondrous grace to see Him anew. Those who walk in the static world of religion, words, teachings and doctrines of men never change. The growth and development of that on-going revelation of Christ becomes stagnant and motionless. The horizons of vision do not change with the passage of time and the wonder of His life becomes drab and uninviting to themselves and to those about them. The fervency of passion has long since subsided and the fire of burning hope is replaced with the cold and emptiness of a religious life.

It is in the hearing of His Word and the response from our hearts to the voice which calls us where we see Him in a new and higher way. This turning causes the former things to pass away as we step into that which is new and living. Transition and repentance is the hallmark of those who desire The Way. Those who walk in this living path become an antagonism to those who are static and set in something less than the “new” of God. God’s truth is one of unveiling the mysteries and glories of Christ and as such there is never a point of arrival; His Glory has no end! Eternity is not long enough to exhaust the wonders of our risen Lord. The scriptures are full of men and women who knew the Way of change and transition.

Job

“I have heard of You by hearing of the ear,
but NOW my eye has seen You;
Therefore, I despise myself,
and I have repented on dust and ashes”
Job 42:5-6 (LITV)

We must ever be going on. That which I know today must be eclipsed by a further seeing and knowing of Him. Those who are of the truth cannot abide in what they see now for within is the continual cry to see Him in a deeper and fuller way. Consider Moses who saw such signs and wonders in his walk with God yet cried out at the end of his journey show me more of your glory.

“Lord Jehovah,
You have begun to show Your servant
Your greatness and Your mighty hand…”
Deuteronomy 3:24

Moses at the end of his life knew that all he had seen, heard and understood was the mere beginning of God’s glory. Do we not feel within our own heart of hearts the desire for “more of God”? Is there not an aching to go deeper and higher wherein dwell things which cannot be put into words? Paul saw things, heard things, which could not be shared because of their holiness and the inability to put them into the vernacular of man. How can men and women rest in the shallow waters of teachings and concepts (though good in themselves)? These things must become the bud of which the flower is produced, and the flower must give way to the fruit. and the fruit must give way to the seed so that it may replicate the wonder and glory of God in another heart. Such is the law of Life.

Ezekiel could not stop at the waters to the ankles, he could not linger in the waters to the knees, and the waters to the loins could not hold him from the depths of the “waters to swim in” (Ezekiel 47). Let us find grace to hear, to turn and to respond to the call of God to see Him anew. May we be so smitten with His Glory that the present place of abiding is merely a momentary one of provision to finish the race set before us. Let His hunger to fill our hearts with more of Him. Relationship is the mystery of God into which we have been called; not things about God or even of God. The true heart cannot rest until it is found in Him and in Him we become new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17) of wonder at which even the angels will marvel for ages to come.

“…that He might show in the coming ages
the exceeding great riches of His grace
in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus”
Ephesians 2:7

The hunger of the average Christian life in our day is revealed in the contentment with the status quo. Paul in writing to the Church of God in Corinth about the Love of God spoke to them of transition and going on. He had earlier called them carnal for clinging to the ministries of God by choosing one over another thus segregating and secularizing the Body of Christ. (i.e. “I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ”) Paul’s call to this carnal church (which fully resembles the one in our day) was to move beyond the childhood phase to grow up and become full grown people in God. The transition from childhood in God into maturity requires us to put away (turn from) childish things. Childish things are not wrong in themselves but they become wrong when people linger in them and fail to develop in God.

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child,
I understood as a child, I thought as a child:
but when I became a man,
I put away childish things”
1 Corinthians 13:11

In the processes of God, we must grow from the infant into the man, we must go from needing bread to becoming bread, and we must go from water to the ankles to waters to swim in (Ezekiel 47:1-5) by responding to His living word.

The deeper truths are withheld from His children and reserved for those who have been exercised in their growth in God.

“Concerning whom we have much to say,
and hard to interpret since you have become dull in hearing”
Hebrews 5:11

The Apostle was eager to share the deeper truths of Melchizedek but was restrained because of their lack of development:

“For indeed because of the time you are due to be teachers,
yet you need to have someone to teach you again
the rudiments of the beginning of the oracles of God,
and you have become in need of milk, and not of solid food;
for everyone partaking of milk
is without experience in the word of righteousness,
for he is an infant
But strong meat is for those full grown…”
Hebrews 5:12-14

Our ability to see Him in His word is dependent upon growth and development within our own lives! It is we who determine what we see (i.e. Matthew 5:8), hear and know (in an experiential way) of the depths and wonders of Him. It is a day for us to turn, to give heed to that which He has spoken. If we linger it will be to our sorrow not only here but in the eternal to which we have been called.

The promise of God is sure and it is one upon which we can stand:

“Seek and I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you;
seek, and you will find;
knock, and it will be opened to you.
For everyone asking receives,
and the one seeking finds,
and to the one knocking, it will be opened”
Luke 11:9-10

James tells us the reason we do not receive is because we do not ask. The lack of seeking is the reason for not finding and the failure to knock is the reason why men and women do not have new doors opened in their lives. Let us hear this solemn word…

“For everyone asking receives…”

If we believe His Word our lives will be filled with asking, seeking and knocking.

Brian Troxel
www.aword.info

A Plea to God’s People

A Plea to God’s People

“This people says, the time has not come, the time for the house of Jehovah to be built. And the word of Jehovah was by Haggai the prophet, saying, Is it time for you yourselves to live in your finished houses, and this house to lie waste? And now, so says Jehovah of hosts: Set your heart on your ways! You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but are not satisfied; you drink, but not to be filled; you dress, but there is no warmth to one. Yea, he who sells himself sells himself for a bag of holes. So says Jehovah of hosts: Set your heart on your ways. Go up the mountain and bring wood and build this house. And I will be pleased with it, and I will be glorified, says Jehovah. You looked for much, and, behold, little! And when you brought it home, then I blew on it. Why, declares Jehovah of hosts? Because of My house that is ruined, and you, each man, run to his own house. On account of this, the heavens above you have held back the dew, and the earth is held back from her produce. And I called for a drought in the land, and on the mountains, and on the grain, and on the new wine, and on the oil, and on that which the ground produces, and on man, and on livestock, and on all the labor of your hands”
Haggai 1:2-11(LITV)

This word and its implication in the days in which we live are burning in my heart. The response of God’s people, many of whom once believed in the entering in (Hebrews 4:1-6; Philippians 3:8-14), is dismal as they have settled and grown weary with the way. I have heard it said that the reason for the poverty of this generation is because God is not opening the door. There will be no proper response to God from His people until we ourselves acknowledge that it is our doing which has brought about the spiritual malaise of this hour. It will require broken hearts, repentance and a coming together on the basis of His worthiness and His glory; people with an inherent cry to enter in to that which has been given to us.

It is we who have caused God’s presence to be dimmed as all the prophets of old have declared. We have become accustomed to the lack of His Presence in our midst. We have settled for ease and shrugged off our accountability unto Him. We have been forgiven, called, and gifted, in order to declare His Glory to this generation. Instead we have become comfortable with brothers and sisters who do not speak to one another, animosity and division which ruptures the very fabric of His Body. We are called to love one another, pray for one another and admonish one another unto love and good works. A great storm is about to break and we have not laid these things to heart. It is a day to repent, to turn from the love of the world, and to acknowledge that if I do not care about my brother I am walking in darkness. We must facilitate the rising up of HIS BODY in the earth. We cannot continue to walk outside of the fear of the Lord, for in His fear we are aware that our words and deeds are measured before our God.

It is with this attitude of heart that I plead with my brothers and sisters to reach out to find common ground in His heart; to relate to one another in His Love that we might receive the encouragement and admonition of the Lord and rise up out of our apathy in the Unity of His Spirit and His Faith. Unto Him be Glory in the Church now and forever! Amen.

A New Generation Arises

There is a new generation arising with faith and determination to enter into that which God has set before them. Many of the older generation* have failed to enter in because of unbelief (Hebrews 3:19, 4:6). They seek by prayer and religious works that which has already been provided for in Christ. The Word of God declares…

“So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief”
(Hebrews 3:19)

“Seeing therefore it remains that some must enter therein,
and they to whom it was first preached
entered not in because of unbelief”
(Hebrews 4:6)

The thing that God has promised sits before us, open and ready for those who step into the River Jordan. While the former generation hold prayer meetings and discussions about how God needs to open the door, a new generation is hearing the call. Those who sit in faithless inactivity fail to understand the truths in the parables of the pounds and the talents. He has given us great ministrations of His Life; it is what we do with them that determine the outcome. To declare that God is the one holding us back is to intimate our spiritual condition is due to His providence rather than our own unbelief. The River parts AS His People step into it. It is unbelief to pray to God to give what has already been given (Exodus 14:15-16). Unbelief cloaked in religious activities has been the sin of many a generation, yet within these times of unbelief God has people who are rising up to take the promise of their day and their hour. Such is the crisis/opportunity of today. In the midst of this unbelief there is a new generation arising that will not be denied. Their hearts cannot linger in the “religion” of unbelief and a faith that does not produce the works of the Son. The veil has been torn (past tense) and to ask God to open the veil is an expression of unbelief.

To say that the reason God’s people live in such spiritual poverty is because of God’s unwillingness to open the way is to lay blame for their spiritual condition upon God rather than themselves. This is a fearful place to walk.

While the bones of one generation bleach white on the sands of unbelief * a new one rises with added grace to enter in and displace the enemies who have too long held the Land of our inheritance. May we be those who feel Him pressing us to walk with the “hind’s feet” (Psalm 18:33) of His provisions. We cannot linger in the valley of vain words, religious meetings and wordy discussions. We must shed our unbelief and stop consoling one another with words rather than the works and admonitions of faith.

I am blessed and encouraged to see the faith of this new generation taking them beyond the impotence and staleness of former things. They are lights shining in the dark! Their words convey a faith not learned by reading books or hearing sermons but a faith that is the very gift of God. They know intuitively there is a Land filled with the Glory of God which is beyond the reach of the religious, but easily accessible by childlike faith. It is a great consolation to hear these voices arising which are speaking better things than the jealously of Saul, the gainsaying of Korah, and the greed of Balaam. The cry within their hearts is for the Unity for which the Son prayed and they will not allow jealousy, apathy and high-mindedness to deter them. They understand the truth of Isaiah 58; the true fast of the Lord is one of doing and becoming rather than the Pharisaical works of the flesh. It is of these that Jesus speaks “suffer the little children to come unto ME”. They are not schooled in the unbelief of our day. They do not know and care little about great men; they have been enamored by the ONE who matters. They know we are here to be the answer to HIS prayer and desire in the earth.

“…that all may be one, as You are in Me,
Father, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us,
that the world may believe
that You sent Me”
John 17:21 (LITV)

The final outpouring of His Spirit will not fall on a divided and sectarian people. The New Wine will only be poured out into a New Wineskin (Matthew 9:16-17). The old, inflexible wineskin, held together with the carnal energies of those who would seek their own glory and not His, will never be able to contain His Glory. Patching things up rather than seeking the New will never work. There is only ONE NAME by which this will happen; His Name is JESUS and it is above all others. This coming move of God will not be identified as Pentecostal, Baptist, Alliance or the thousand other names by which men have sought to differentiate themselves from others. Those who will be part of this New Wineskin will find their whole identity in Him and seek His Glory alone. They will so minister the life of Jesus that they will rejoice when their brothers and sisters surpass them in their knowing of Him. It is from such a heart that Paul declared:

“I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. for I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh”
Romans 9:1-3

This is the heart that draws the anointing from God; the heart to which God can entrust the power and the wonder of His ways; the heart that knows the ministration of the Holy Spirit is not about them but about His People and His Inheritance. It is into such a vessel that this New Wine will be poured out without measure. It will not be poured into those who separate themselves from God’s people and pray for God to move. Faith without works is not a living faith. Elijah prayed for the “child of promise” which had died and when the prayers were not answered he stretched himself out and identified with that dead body (three times) in order to see it arise (1 Kings 17:19-22). Any “truth” which does not cause an individual to identify with God and His People is not truth but simply a teaching.

“But he that doeth truth cometh to the light,
that his deeds may be made manifest,
that they are wrought in God”
John 3:21

One cannot hold faith or truth within their hearts
and be without the deeds which are borne of them.

* Note: In the midst of a whole generation failing the purposes of God at Kadesh Barnea there were those of that generation who walked in the faith and fire of God. These are they of whom it is said they followed after a “different spirit” than the generation who declared the enemies were too large and strong…

“But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land wherein to he went; and his seed shall possess it”
(Numbers 14:24)

The promise of entering in is not based upon teachings or doctrines; it is determined by the spirit in which one walks with God. Many linger in things which are dead and passing away, even things which had life for many years. They now must give way to the New and the New can only be known by having ears to hear and a heart to obey.

“Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth…”
(Isaiah 43:18-19)

Brian Troxel
www.aword.info

THERE IS HOPE!

THERE IS HOPE!

“And Shechaniah the son of Jehiel,
one of the sons of Elam,
answered and said unto Ezra,
We have trespassed against our God,
and have taken strange wives
of the people of the land:
yet now there is hope in Israel
concerning this thing.”
EZRA 10:2

Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 10:11 that the things that happened to Israel throughout their history are written for our admonition and learning. Human nature does not change but the good news is neither does our God! We read here that Israel was subjected to the judgments of God and taken captive in a strange land. The temple and the Holy things of the temple had been taken and as time went on they began to CONFORM and become integrated WITH the people among whom they lived. God in His mercy began to stir the hearts of some with strong prophetic words and powerful unction to a rebuilding and restoration of the people to His Glory. Whenever God begins to move in the face of His peoples’ failure the call to repentance is ALWAYS coupled with the power of HOPE. Hope is more than just a faint intellectual concept; hope is a power that enables men and women to respond to the call of God. In spite of tremendous failure hope gives the assurance of God’s forgiveness as a response to those whose hearts have responded to the call of God. It is inconsequential how deep and how complete the apostasy, how indoctrinated the people of God have become by a dead religion, how infiltrated by the world the church has become; the message of the hour is THERE IS HOPE. The “strange wives”* spoken of here speak spiritually of God’s people embracing worldly ways, of deep affections with the world and the things of the world around them, and covenants of compromise personally and corporately. In response to the prophetic word of God we see the sons of Elam responding BECAUSE there was a hope ministered into their hearts! These men RESPONDED…

“Now therefore
let us make a covenant with our God
to put away all the wives,
and such as are born of them,
according to the counsel of my lord,
and of those that tremble
at the commandment of our God;
and let it be done…”
EZRA 10:3

True repentance is fueled by a living hope in the God of mercy and truth. Shechaniah responds “yet NOW THERE IS HOPE”! There is hope in spite of what we see. There is hope that pulsates within the darkness and confines of a religious system that functions like any other worldly corporation. There is hope even as in Jesus’ day of the money changers being expelled from the very temple of God. There is hope against the religious pride of men who have taken the ministrations of God and made them positions of a hierarchy. There is hope for the people of God for whom words like “victory” and “overcoming” have been replaced by a gospel that tells them this is as good as it gets. There is hope for the church that has been divided by the strivings of men to propagate their own “church” and “ministry” over that of another. There is hope that the LOVE of God can invade our carnal hearts to such an overwhelming extent that even the world will have to declare this love is beyond all human origin.

Let us embrace the power of this HOPE calling us to respond to HIM regardless of the failures and hopelessness of our situations. Let those who have been defeated, backslidden, and faithless hear the call of HOPE arising in their hearts and join themselves to others who by faith are arising in this hour; for such is the response of Shechaniah…

“Arise;
for this matter belongeth unto thee:
we also will be with thee:
be of good courage, and do it.
Then arose Ezra,
and made the chief priests,
the Levites, and all Israel,
to swear that they should do
according to this word”
EZRA 10:4-5

Ω

Hope is the anchor
That holds us in our plight
Hope is the womb
That births fresh life
Hope is the beacon
That shines in the darkest night!

*NOTE: Articles on this to follow

Brian Troxel

A Dire Warning

FOUR WORDS
FOR
AMERICA

“MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN”
DANIEL 5:25

PART TWO

JUDGEMENT BEGINS AT THE HOUSE OF GOD

“For the time is come that judgment
MUST begin at the house of God”
1 PETER 4:17

The judgment of God IS COME to America. She has been weighed and measured and found wanting. Great division and strife will be the outcome. Desolation and burning will be the reward for her ways and her works. God is Holy, He is Pure and Righteous. In order for His righteous judgments to proceed He must begin at His Own House; it would be hypocritical for Him to do otherwise. He must have a purified house before He can rightly judge the world (II Corinthians 10:6).

The “church” of today in America has become worldly and wise with a wisdom that is of the earth. She has forsaken the CALL to be a light unto the world and a revelation of the Living Christ; she has become worldly, trading her heavenly call for a worldly one. Rather than standing in prayer for the nation she has become political, secular and adversarial. She has forsaken the spiritual weapons which are mighty and taken on carnal weapons to fight within the realm of politics and reason. Rather than praying for the leaders of the nation this church has become carnal, contentious and rebellious. The weapons she now wields will bring judgment and persecution upon her and this is GOD’S DOING.

“I exhort therefore, that, first of all,
supplications, prayers, intercessions,
and giving of thanks,
be made for all men;
For kings, and for all that are in authority;
that we may lead a quiet
and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
For this is good and acceptable
in the sight of God our Saviour;
Who will have all men to be saved,
and to come unto the knowledge of the truth”
1 TIMOTHY 2:1-4

Not once in the entire New Testament did Paul ever mention Nero, the Roman leader who was ferociously persecuting the Christians of his day. Not once did Paul mention the Roman assault on Jerusalem; for the Kingdom Paul and the rest of the Apostles were preaching WAS NOT OF THIS WORLD! Jesus said to Pilate…

“My kingdom is not of this world:
IF my kingdom were of this world,
THEN would my servants fight…”
JOHN 18:36

The “church” of America has in large part declared, by her actions, that in fact her kingdom is of this world. She has declared this by taking up the carnal weapons of political warfare, by speaking evil of dignitaries and seeking to influence the world around her by legislation rather than by the revelation of Jesus Christ. She has sought to change the world by political force instead of spiritual reality. Jesus said to render to Caesar that which was Caesar’s, and to God that which is God’s. We are plainly told this world is passing away and we are to look toward the Day of His Kingdom. We are not to become entangled in the affairs of this world. When the Church ceases to be a light to the nation, darkness and deception will readily fill the vacuum.

God must judge a church that has become worldly and carnal. The idea of God judging His House is a foreign concept to the church of our day (read the Book of Revelation chapters 2 and 3)! Yet we read plainly in 1 Peter 4:17 that the Judgment of God MUST BEGIN AT HIS HOUSE! WILL WE NOT LISTEN, WILL WE NOT TURN AWAY FROM THE CARNALITY, WORLDLINESS AND SIN that so plagues us? JUDGEMENT MUST BEGIN AT GOD’S HOUSE. Let us read this as a dire warning of what is about to unfold.

PERSECUTION

There is a persecution that is about to break forth in a fury of unprecedented proportions. It is because the church has failed to represent HIM and instead has become proud and arrogant. She has become “rich and increased with goods… and has needed nothing” from God. She is unaware of her own spiritual condition and the horror of her wantonness and worldly desire. She has settled in this world with an ease and comfort as the result of the “deceitfulness of riches”. Her kingdom is of this earth, her power has become political and, like Samson, she has laid her head in the bosom of the world and lost her anointing and forsaken her call.

SAMSON
(A PICTURE OF HOPE AND RESURRECTION)

Like Samson she has been blinded and bound and great will be the fall. The world will make sport of her. She will be mocked and her persecution will be a sport to the world; a means of entertainment for all to see. Yet in her humiliation and brokenness there will be a turning and a repentance. She will remember her call. She will return to her place as a beautiful bride willing to sacrifice her life to see the will of God fulfilled in the earth! She will arise anew and great will be the power and glory that results from the Judgment of God upon her. The fury of the Judgment that is about to fall will be devastating and horrific. The savageness of it will be beyond comprehension. Many Christians will take up arms to fight against that which is coming and they will fall as surely as all who have done so throughout the history of the church. However, there will be a people who will turn and repent, who will humble themselves under the hand of the Almighty GOD to find grace and mercy in this 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

The judgment and humbling of the Church will result in the purification and restoration of her place of authority in God. When this is finished, when our obedience unto Him is complete and full, then God will Judge the Nations with a Rod of Iron. The Judgments* linger UNTIL the Obedience of God’s people is complete.

“…having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience,
WHEN YOUR obedience is fulfilled”
2 CORINTHIANS 10:6

A FINAL WORD

“Gather yourselves together,
yea, gather together, O nation not desired;
BEFORE the decree bring forth,
BEFORE the day pass as the chaff,
BEFORE the fierce anger of the LORD
come upon you,
BEFORE the day of the LORD’S anger
come upon you.
SEEK ye the LORD, all ye meek of the earth,
which have wrought his judgment;
SEEK righteousness, SEEK meekness:
it may be ye shall be hid
in the day of the LORD’S anger”
ZEPHANIAH 2:1-3

*NOTE: The Judgments of God are predicated upon His People and their obedience and spiritual condition. This is why God must Judge His Own House first.

1. Jesus said that His coming would be as it was in the days of Noah (Luke 17:26) “God waited while the Ark was preparing…”(1Peter 3:20). God waited for Noah to complete the building of the Ark before the Judgment of God could fall in Noah’s day.
2. Jesus said that His coming would be as it was in the days of Lot (Luke 17:28-30). God’s Judgments could not fall on Sodom until Lot had come out of her… (Genesis 15:19-26)

“But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom
it rained fire and brimstone from heaven,
and destroyed them all.
Even thus shall it be in the
day when the Son of man is revealed”
Luke 17:29-30

We see in the Book of Revelation the voice of God calling His people to come out of her (Babylon)… for if we partake of her sins we will surely partake of her plagues…

“And I heard another voice from heaven,
saying, Come out of her, MY PEOPLE,
that ye be not partakers of her sins,
and that ye receive not of her plagues.
For her sins have reached unto heaven,
and God hath remembered her iniquities.
Reward her even as she rewarded you,
and double unto her double
according to her works:
in the cup which
she hath filled fill to her double.
How much she hath glorified herself,
and lived deliciously,
so much torment and sorrow give her:
for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen,
and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.
Therefore shall her plagues come in one day,
death, and mourning, and famine;
and she shall be utterly burned with fire:
for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her”
REVELATION 18:4-8

Brian Troxel

After having received this word from the Lord several months ago
I confess my own lack of praying for my own country and its leaders
and my own need for change. It is a day for turning, it is a day
for the people to rend our hearts for the day is upon us for our
God is no respecter of persons.