Thunder

As a child, and on into manhood, living on a farm, one of our greatest blessings was that of rainfall.  I saw my parents, grandparents, neighbors in the community, spend so much time and hard work preparing the land putting in the expensive commercial fertilizer and seed and then waiting for rainfall, the most essential gift of God next to sunlight in crop production.  Often, weeks would go by into months without rainfall, the crops would just suffer unto death in the dry, sun parched land.  And then, many times at night, as you lay in the bed you could here a rumble of thunder in the distance and you would have the thrill of knowing as the thunder grew closer most of the time accompanied by lighting that rainfall was on the way.  And then you would hear the great trees swaying in the wind and you would hear the first drops of rainfall and by morning the entire surface of the earth was soaked with water.  It would appear that all life, animal and plant, were rejoicing in the rainfall.  You would notice that the chickens, the pigs, the cows, even the birds were singing more melodiously.  God always kept His promise, He would always send the rain in time and the crops would grow and mature.  The garden vegetables, the flowers in the yard, everything would respond to the blessings which usually started with Gods message of thunder. 

As I grew older, went other directions other than farm life, I have noticed that God still sends a message ahead of time concerning everything in living.  When in Rangoon, Burma, where the smell from dirt and unclean facilities everywhere, as in most communist countries, where there are not detergents or people having the will to clean, there is a constant nauseating smell.  You have probably noticed such in certain urban cities where the people do not have the desire and decency for cleanliness.  Also in Burma, 130,000 people along the coast were surviving in makeshift shelters of straw from the ravages of cyclones.  The communist government, as is usually the case with all totalitarian governments, keep the people in absolute slavery including not allowing any humanitarian help. 

The same type attitude was encountered in Russia where a professor at the University of Moscow told me that the women were so reluctant to bring a child into communist misery that most Russian women of child bearing age have had an average of 11 abortions. 

Perhaps the first symbolic thunder, I ever heard, and which I will never forget, happened on a photography safari in Botswana, Africa.  We were in a remote area of the African bush and my driver said, “We must get out of here, I don’t want you to hear what is about to happen.”  He had seen ahead that some poachers had been caught and arrested by the army.  The trial of poachers in Africa consists of the army looking into their bags to see if they have ivory. If so, they are executed on the spot.  These poachers, knowing the were about to be shot, facing eternal death, were screaming and begging, but after some shots, everything was quiet. 

One can not read God's word without hearing the sounds of thunder, an absolute falling away, the takeover of Satan and these sinful practices which the world loves. 

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;”

“And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” (2 Timothy 4:3-4) 

Satan’s followers, those who worship the devil, have no discernment at all about the “signs” of our Lord to return and the deliverance of His followers from this world of corruption and unbelief.  As Bill Bright said long ago, “They see the handwriting on the wall just as those at the Belshazaar feast and it means nothing to them.”  (Bill Bright graduate of Fuller Theological seminary, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, which currently has 27,000 full-time staff and over 225,000 trained volunteer staff in 190 countries.)  God alone knows how many people have heard Bill Bright’s warnings before he died in 2003.  But, my friend Bill’s work still goes on. 

How anyone, with the intelligence of a flee cannot understand or comprehend the thunder of warnings taking place all over the world. Three ex-presidents of South Korea have gone to prison for corruption.  Just think of the scheming and stealing taking place in your country as we speak.  Two automobile manufacturing companies are broke.  California, the wealthiest state has been bailed out with 79 billion of your tax dollars.  The politicians, for whom many of you voted, believe you can get out of debt by going deeper into debt.   An administration, for whom many of you voted, believes that there is nothing wrong in the slaughter of thousands of the most innocent children everyday (3,500 abortion each day, 1,400 black babies).  Many of you, have pastors for whom you voted, who just entertain you.  The truth is the truth whether anyone believes it or not.  It is long past time for the pastors and the patriots of this country to stand up for the truth.  Can you not hear the thunder? 

“Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.”
(Psalm 119:165)