The Day is Coming!

            There are many who shrink back whenever God comes near to correct or warn them, some become bitter, others become obstinate not realizing that every rebuke that comes from His lips are borne out of love and a passion to see each individual end well. God is love and He is forever pleased whenever men especially His own children take heed to His warnings. He sees the end from the beginning, who else would know best? Hebrews 10:38 says ‘the righteous will live by faith, if he shrinks back My soul has no pleasure in him. 1 Sam 15: 22 equally says ‘has the Lord great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord?”.  Faith is simply believing God even when there are no physical evidences to support what we believe (Hebrews 11:6). Thus, God is deeply pleased when we heed His instructions and warnings. Scriptures clearly reveal how different people responded to His warnings. Some responded in humility and repentance, while others hardened their hearts and responded in pride because of their little successes even though God still had much more in store for them. When King David was rebuked for his promiscuity, he humbled himself, while his predecessor Saul, when rebuked for his disobedience responded in pride and arrogance. Friends, the question is how do you respond to God when His Word pricks our conscience?

          The morning after the Lord visited and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, the Bible says Abraham got up early, stood where he had spoken with the Lord, “and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plains, and he saw, and behold the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace”. Not even Abraham as he interceded could have imagined the magnitude of what was coming. That day all the daring and pride-filled ways of the Sodomites and Gomorrahites came to a sudden end. Sin surely has its consequences! During God’s discussion with Abraham earlier in Genesis 18:20, He said there was an outcry that came from that city that has drawn His attention. Friends if that was true about a single city, how much more outcry has gone up to God in our time? And can we even begin to imagine the magnitude of its consequences?! That was why He warns in Malachi 4:1 “the day is coming, burning like a furnace. And all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming will burn them up, says the Lord of hosts”.  Also Luke 17:29-30, “but on the day Lot went out of Sodom, fire came down from heaven and destruction came on them all. So will it be in the day of the revelation of the Son of man”. What then should be our attitude to these warnings? Paul puts it these way “knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are well known to God, and I also trust we are well known to your conscience” 2 Corinthians 5:11. Friends before that day finally comes we have a window of opportunity to become known to God by a sincere and an ever deepening relationship with Him even as we call others into this eternal blessing. God bless you.