30th Mar 26 | 13:54
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Luke 21 10-19 WATCH AND PRAY II 03 Luke 21 12 God’s prophets in the end times
📖 Luke 21:10-19
13May2021 - *God’s prophets in the end times* - _Luke 21:10-19_ - WATCH AND PRAY II (3) – Bible reading: _John 16:2-3_
God is calling the church to be the prophets of our times, to speak God’s word to the nations. The word of God to the nations is that God hurts far more than anyone else does over the calamities of our times.
These have come because of our willful disobedience to God and God is using these catastrophes to shake man from his arrogance and bring him to repentance. If man repents and returns to God, he will be saved from the wrath of God, which awaits all those who continue to defy God.
The church needs to one with God in His pain. We are still crying and pleading with God to stop the pandemic and relieve the world of the current sorrow and suffering.
We ought to be feeling the pain of God’s heart that the world is not repenting, even when the Lord is shaking up the world through a crisis and calling the world to repent and return to Him. We ought to be repenting to God on behalf of the world, identifying ourselves with the sin of the human race.
_Luke 21:12 But *before all these things*, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and rulers for My name's sake._
Persecution against the church has increased. Right in the very beginning of the end times, one of the significant events that will happen and which is happening is the church being persecuted.
Even though persecution against the church, in general, has increased the world over, it has not yet increased to the level to which it has been described by our Lord.
What will happen as a revival in the church in the end times, is that we will truly become prophetical to the world.
Our prophetic message to the world is to *reveal the pain of God’s heart for the human race that it is not that God is wanting man to suffer. These sufferings are man’s creation*. We have created our monsters. Our prophetic message is to *plead with the world to repent and return to God*. Our prophetic message to the world is to *warn them that if they do not repent and return to God now, then what awaits them is the second death*, which is the fire of hell, for eternity.
Today, the church has not yet become truly prophetic. The world is complaining and asking, “Why has God allowed this pandemic? Why is God not taking it away?”
We, are taking the cry of the people to God and we too are lamenting, just like the world, and we are pleading with God. “Please God, take away this pandemic and give relief to our people.” Our messaging today as the church is still quite confusing and ambiguous.
We ought to be prophetic and tell the people as to why we are suffering. Tell people that God is hurting much more than anyone else over these sad experiences in our world. we have created our own tragedies but God is using these to shake up man and get mankind to repent and return to Him. Our prophetic word has to be to people to call on the name of the Lord and be saved from the wrath of God, which is the second death.
This pandemic is only God’s voice of shaking man to repent, not the actual wrath of God, which is hell.
It is only when the church becomes prophetical that the actual persecution against the church will begin. Then *the world will be angry with the church for we are placing man responsible for the pandemic and not God*.
_Luke 11:49 Therefore the wisdom of God also said, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute,'_ Our response right now needs to be to say, “Here we are Lord, to be the prophets of our times to our people.”
_Matthew 23:34 Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city,_
To be prophets there has to be our willingness to be totally identified with Christ and turn fully away from the world, which is holiness.
Praise God that the church is awakening to holiness. This move of God of separating the church from the dross of the world is happening right now, which is the precursor to us becoming prophets to our world. When we become prophets then the actual persecution will begin.
_I John 4:17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; *because as He is, so are we in this world*. Act 9:4 Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, *why are you persecuting Me*?"_
When Saul was persecuting the church, he was actually persecuting Christ, for the church is His body.
As we are prophetic, we also need to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. _Matthew 10:16 “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves._
We must be wise prophets for our times, able to speak with clarity and conviction about the warning of God. There is a need for the church to be prepared for the end times and we need to encourage each other for the task of the church, which is to be prophetical to our people at the end times.
_Mark 13:9 “But *watch out for yourselves*, for they will deliver you up to councils, and you will be beaten in the synagogues. You will be brought before rulers and kings for My sake, for a testimony to them._
*Thought to ponder*
```Let us not be surprised, when we are persecuted for the name of Jesus.```