Last Exit

Last Exit

            In America's highway system, you make your way into an unknown place by getting off the highway at the correct exit. Many believe that in the Presidential election last week, our nation missed its last exit, escaping the rapid road to ruin, the slippery, slimy, sorted road to the Hell of a profane existence.

            A few years ago, Dr. Jerry Falwell, led the nation in a political-religious movement called the moral majority.

            Led by the anti-Christ Obama and his ilk, the nation has moved into an immoral majority. He and his followers embody the very spirit of the anti-Christ. The writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, "The Gulag Archipelago" said the worst thing that ever happened to him was being booed when he finished speaking at Harvard University. How must God have felt when he was booed three times at the recent Democrat convention in Charlotte? This, Paul writing to Timothy, is where we are today:

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,

Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,

Traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;

Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. (2 Timothy 3:1-5).

            Just think, a four star general, Princeton PhD, top intelligence position in the world (CIA), impeccable credentials from West Point to last week, same snare, entrapment, as Adam, the patriarchs and every other man, Sampson included, who lost his intelligence while caressed by a woman.

            Only Joseph, sold into slavery by his own brothers, the iron shackles must have immunized him against the wretchedness-counterfeit of sin as he traveled in the grip of slave traders to Egypt. Age 17, in Potiphar's house, the seductive snare of another deceitful witch-woman, "How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" And so, for his sobriety-manhood-obedience to God, he went back to prison. As has been the case with so many in this world, where is God when you obey Him? From prison, 13 years later, age 30, taking over Pharaoh's position in Egypt, Paul must have remembered Joseph as he and Silas sang hymns in the stocks in prison. But, we are told that the other prisoners listened (Acts 16:25). The unsaved do not get excited over well healed believers, fancy-comfortable church houses, polished-sleek television preachers, the unsaved always recognize hypocrisy, even if they do not recognize anything else. The church has always grown when persecuted. Unbelievers believe when they see Christians who suffer (for Christ's sake). It may very well be that the remnant-chosen who are his, predestined-elected, may undergo much persecution-damage to self and everything else we hold important as God has his way with our nation. The radicals, unbelievers, those playing church, those pretending to be patriots, will learn that God does not mess around and it is given to us not only to believe but to suffer for his sake (Phil 1:19).  I could easily have called this article "The Night the Barn Burned." I still remember, wee hours of the morning, everyone asleep, tired from another day of hard work, Mr. Clerance Overman calling to my father from outside the house, "Joe your barn has burned"...and so it was. The big barn with all its contents, farming equipment. Twice in my life I saw my hardworking, God fearing, tax paying father, cry. When the mother of his four children died and the burning of this barn. I was old enough to wonder if he would continue the life he had always led, family, church, community. He never slowed down one minute. Perhaps this is what got me through my blindness, from the poverty of the farm, working my way through eight years of professional education, now a totally blind veteran, a 100% disabled medical officer, A GOOD DOCTOR, God electing me to do other things.

            Even a poor student of history can understand God's judgment on nations, people, individuals. We do not believe because we do not want to believe. Crucified Christians, burning, lighting up Ceasar's garden, millions killed by Stalin-Mao-Pot, whether Herrod or Hitler, most believers knowing the thrill of redemption in Christ could say with Joan of Arc, another 17 year old just before being burned at the stake, "I was born for a time like this."

            There has never been a more important time to know Jesus Christ, "I am the door" (John 10:9),  the door of the sheep fold. He knows his sheep, calls them by name, gave his life for his sheep (John 10:11).  Jesus is way,  truth, life (John 14:6).  He is light and bread of life (John 6:35). We delight in the knowledge that we are saved because God gave us to him. "I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine" (John 17:9).