Contending for the faith | Making Disciples | Equipping the Saints for Ministry

FACING THE ELEMENTS

Part 1

God Is On the Throne

By Rayola Kelley

      There are days in one’s life you will remember. It is not the day that will stand out to you; rather, it is the event that happened on that day that highlights it. For example, I remember the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas Texas. I was in the second grade at the time and I came home for lunch and my mother was laying over the ironing board and sobbing because she had just heard about it on the news. I remember after joining the Navy the events surrounding my enlistment and my boot camp experiences. I could tell you how on the day I flew to Orlando, Florida, for boot camp the feelings surrounding the overwhelming task of trying to maneuver my way through the Chicago airport to get on the right plane. At 12 midnight my plane finally landed in the Orlando, airport where I was loaded on a bus and finally able to retire in a strange bed and place at 2 a.m., only to be awakened at 5:15 a.m. by a reveille call.

      There is another day that will stand out to me and that is February 20, of this year. I had to say good-bye to our sweet little companion of 13 years, Bell, a long-haired Chihuahua. We had rescued her from a bad situation when she was three or four years old. We were looking for a good companion for our princess Angel, a Chihuahua-Shiatzu mix, who had shouldered the great burden of being our watchdog, as well as “babysitting” me when we were in the car. She also seemed to attempt to carry other responsibilities to try and keep the household in running order. Needless to say, Angel’s responsibility shifted to Bell, allowing Angel to retire and rest in her elderly years. We lost our dear Angel February 8, 2013, another day I will not forget, but then we gained a Tucker on February 14 to help Bell with her mourning and her loneliness.  As Jeannette stated about Bell’s absence, we are going to miss her cuteness that resonated through her personality and actions. Her bigger-than-life personality not only filled our lives, but our home and became a source of countless moments of joy and entertainment.

      We are told that God created everything of this world for man’s pleasure, but due to man’s rebellion, all of creation now groans under the terrible weight, consequences, and sorrows brought on by sin (Romans 8:18-23). In many ways man abuses and uses what God has entrusted to him, resulting in ruin and destruction. In fact, there is an ominous warning in Revelation 11:18, that God will destroy those who destroy the earth. Even though we have certain groups who are trying to save the earth, it is not because they are being good stewards but because they worship it. These same people may want to save the whale, but they couldn’t care less about saving our children from abortions and sex-child enslavement and trafficking.  

      Due to sin, the cycle of this present life is death. In death is the realization of the great cost of sin and the tragedy of it. The great cost of sin is death and the tragedy of it is the great sorrow it leaves upon us because of the many losses we experience along the way. These losses often include the quality of life in light of losing relationships, loved ones, and material possessions.  

      There is much we have to face as we maneuver the events that often intrude into our lives. Depending on our relationship with God, how we look at life, and our attitude will determine whether we become bitter, hard, or like a fine wine that becomes more refined with each experience. As Romans 5:3-4 remind us, we glory in tribulation because we know it works patience and patience experience and experience hope. Life is meant to be lived out, to be experienced, and it is for this reason, trials are often the tools that shape the character of our faith, the fiery ovens that establish it, and the challenging experiences that eventually takes flight on the wings of expectation in light of the glorious hope yet to come.    

      The first five paragraphs of this article were added when I was trying to finish writing it. Here is how I initially started this article: As I write this we are out and about. Jeannette is at an eye appointment and I am sitting in the car with our two dear little companions, Bell and Tucker, waiting for her. As you can see, on that day we were together as a pack as I was reflecting on and writing this article in the car.

      Bell, like some of my other dogs, left her paw prints on my heart. Angel taught me much about grace, but Bell reminded me that life is to be explored, experienced, enjoyed, and appreciated. She loved to explore her surroundings, experience her environment, often from her chair, enjoy her blessings that came by way of food and treats, and appreciated her time with us.

      Bell taught me that even in the challenging times, we can still appreciate the gift of life for it is short and fragile and at times we must reflect on what kind of footprints are we leaving on this world. During this unusual time of Covid-19, lockdowns, and the constant insane affronts being made against truth, righteousness and our Constitution by various entities, it is nice to step outside of the small world of home, office, and regular routine to remember one thing: God sits on the throne.

      God’s creation reminds us of who is in control, what is real, and what will be in the end. It declares His sovereignty over all matters along with incredible truths, that regardless of the season that is upon us, the light of day will confirm that life goes on in spite of the wicked schemes mankind is involved in during the long dark spiritual night that is now upon us. It is clear that powers in high places will be brought down in due time, the wicked will fall into their pits, and the evil will end up tasting their own wretched judgment upon their soul. Meanwhile, we wait, watch, pray, and learn to rest upon who God is and what He has said and promised (Matthew 24:42-51).

      We are living in interesting times and probably the greatest indicator of this time is the great deception that is being advocated by the godless system that has infiltrated every area of our lives. Needless to say, this wicked system has the same agenda, and that is to silence the majority of decent, law-abiding people while the wicked despots and evil taskmasters of this age attempt to take us captive to indoctrinate, punish or destroy us according to the mystery of iniquity which has been working through Satan’s various systems for years (Matthew 24:3-5, 23-26; 2 Thessalonians 2:7).

      The goal of the mystery of iniquity is to bring the whole world under Satan, but the beginning of executing this plan started with Satan’s first move when he rebelled against God and took a third of heaven with him. This reveals that the foundation of this system is propped up by absolute rebellion and hostility towards God. It was obvious in the devil’s mind that he had outgrown his glory and wanted to secure the glory that only belongs to the true God of heaven (Ezekiel 28:14-19; Revelation 12:4). He apparently needed an army to accomplish such a task

      His next move was to take the dominion of earth entrusted to Adam in the Garden of Eden from him. He had an army but he needed instruments, tools, and water boys who would carry out his evil plan on earth. In order to do this, he had to bring man and the function of earth under his domain. It is true that Satan became the god of the age but not of the universe. The reason Satan will never be God of the universe is because He is not GOD, the Creator of all creation, but in his arrogance, Satan, the prince of the air, the spirit of the world, believes if he can take control of the congregation of the north, God’s chosen people, he will rule as God. However, the vessel will always be subject to the potter, the instrument to the musician, the subject to the true king, the ship to the captain, the soldier to the commander, and the servant to the Lord. Satan is a created being; therefore, he will ever be subject to his Creator (Genesis 2:28; Isaiah 14:12-14; Romans 9:20-23; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2).  

      Satan’s plan, which was clearly first unveiled during the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, is quite simple. This plan is in accordance to what happened in the Garden of Eden. He must first get man to rebel against his Creator. He does this by enticing him with the idea that God does not mean what He says and that there will be no real consequences because God’s motives are wrong, leaving Him without authority and credibility. Even though God had commanded both Adam and Eve and Noah and his family to multiply and fill the earth and be fruitful, the people of Babel never wanted the world to taste the wrath of God as it did in the flood so they began to build a monument that would once and for all unite them under the government of man. In their mind, if they imagined such an environment, nothing would be able to stop them. However, God knew that all He had to do to bring down their plans was to confuse their languages in order to cause them to separate into groups and spread out over the earth in compliance to His instruction.  (Genesis 2:28; 3:1-6 9:7; 11:5-9).  

      This plan to bring man under a one-world system has been set in motion many times to only hit an unseen hand that renders each attempt to implode and fall to the wayside and be buried by the sands of time. Whether it was the great empires or the Alexanders, the Napoleons, the Hitlers, the Stalins, religious leaders and political movements, or wicked ideologies, they have all failed. These empires have been destroyed and buried, the Alexanders died young, the Napoleons ended up being exiled, the Hitlers met with destruction, the Stalins with insanity, religious leaders with ruin, movements fizzled out as other movements swept in and out like tides, and wicked ideologies met with failure because they lacked any substance to maintain them.

      Today we are faced with coming under one system, Satan, united by one language—technology; oppressed by despots with self-serving agendas; tyrants with ego complexes; and, crooked politicians that must keep the institution alive in order to hide the wicked system that is in operation. In essence, these people have sold their souls to the god of this world and they are obligated to carry out the devil’s plan to bring the whole world under one man who will serve as Satan’s puppet. Those who carry out this sinister plan have been promised the right to partake of its evil fruit as a means to gain riches and power. However, they are also abiding under the great wrath of God which will quickly come upon them, leaving them without any real recourse or way of escape (Proverbs 6:12-15; Luke 17:26-30; 1 Thessalonians 5:3)

      These wicked individuals not only come under Satan, but they become what I refer to as the walking dead. These evil people have hidden their abominable practices in darkness because of the wicked preference to do the work of darkness. This great darkness would cause the ordinary person to quickly, as it did Daniel, to lose the ability to speak and they would find themselves fainting from the immensity of it in operation (Daniel 8:27; John 3:18-21). The eyes of those who are sold out to this darkness either reflect hard glints of indifference and cruelty or deep, dark pools of emptiness and their minds are reprobate—minds that are unable to be reached or reasoned with. They live in a bubble of elitism that puts them above the rules while oppressing those they consider beneath them. They not only worship Satan, but they flaunt images of Satan as in the case of the Baphomet monument in Washington DC, while bowing down before Baal and various pagan altars upon which they sacrifice the innocent in the name of the gods of power and greed. Their deviant, wicked ways serve as a type of “right of passage” into the dark, insane world of the occult.

      Mankind either worships earth or erects materials that are used for worship. He gives his particular god a place of importance and an identity which he can relate to. If God has not given a person a new heart and spirit (born again), they will have a divided heart and prove to be an idolater. They will have a reprobate mind, infidel ways, sinful practices, and prove to be an enemy of God’s kingdom and work. The Lord is clear that creation declares He exists, so there will be no excuse as to why man does not seek Him other than that he has no inclination or desire to do so (Romans 1:20-28). He wants to do his own thing on his own terms without worrying about any consequences and judgment.       

      I believe we are living in the days “as of Noah” (Genesis 6; Matthew 24:27-39). According to what we read, these days would be considered as normal, for people will be eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, but the other aspect of Noah’s days is that there was great perversion taking place in imaginations, lawlessness and violence everywhere, abominable practices abounded, and profane unions were encouraged, regarded, and treated as being normal. We can see normalcy today, but we are also aware of the great perversion that is invading every area of life.

      Consider the practice of the world. There has been an international and national sting operation to bring down the child-sex trafficking that has been going on. To me the abortion issue reveals much about how much our society is spinning out of control, but the sacrifice of our children has not stopped with killing the unborn, but has become a matter of stealing children in order to sacrifice, plunder and use them up according to sick imaginations, demonic rituals, and abominable practices in order to gain what they think is power by torturing, raping, and murdering the innocent. According to one statistic, in America alone 100,000 children come up missing every year. Another source claims 460,00. Can you imagine the number of children that are being robbed of their innocence, killed, and destroyed internationally? Sadly, this trafficking, which is nothing more than merchandizing the souls of our young is a $150 billion-a-year enterprise that helps prop up many people, some who hold very high positions in government.

      Even in our own government, we have so-called “leaders” who are involved with this demonic practice. Sadly, they use the concept of time-honored institutions such as the Senate or the Supreme Court to serve as a front to hide or protect their wickedness, and to try to cover the stench of it, while attempting to silence the cry of those whose life-blood has been spilled. No doubt their cries are becoming louder and louder as the atrocity is being exposed.

      It is important to note the land will spew out wicked people and their abominable practices. For Noah’s time a great flood came and rid the world of a culture gone mad, but when it comes to the present, it is a system that will be judged. Right now, the light is being turned on to what has been going on and the American people are beginning to wake up, but when they finally see it for what it is, they will be inclined to seek these wicked individuals out and tear them from limb to limb. The names of these people will not just be associated with disgrace or sick joke, but spewed out with great contempt.   

      It is vital to recognize the significance of an imagination which opens the door to pornography. When you study the fall of great societies, it comes down to a few issues. There is always the moral issue and without the proper discipline of morality man’s curiosity, initiative, and work ethics slide down into a cesspool of imagining what he can do to fill inner lethargy caused by spiritual indifference and feed the insatiable desires of his flesh to stir up sensationalism, while pandering to his ego so he can feel good about himself. All the while he will be sliding down into a cesspool of moral rot and decay.

      The second aspect about a society that is sliding into a cesspool is that there is a great deal of delusion, and it will eventually open up to hell itself. Immorality can only operate in an upside environment where good is called evil and evil good to justify the destruction that follows. In such a society everything sacred is mocked, discarded, and exploited to defile all innocence, silence all justice, and to cause righteousness to hide in some dark insipid corner to never raise its head again.

      What we need to realize is that the scene is being set up for when this wicked system will be judged. A contrast has been given as a means to force people to choose who they will believe and what they will stand for. These wicked people have been turned over to their lie in order to expose their agenda to others. A hook has been put in their mouth that is pulling them towards the traps they have laid for others. At this point they are nothing more than “useful idiots” to their wicked handlers, court jesters in Satan’s temple, and marked for God’s wrath.

      It seems that currently the righteous are losing at every turn, but we must remember that such victories are hollow. These enemies are arrogant and each victory makes them more foolish and obvious as to their plans. Remember, pride comes before a fall (Proverbs 16:18).

      God is sitting on the throne. He is the One who is shaking the world to wake people up, while giving them an opportunity to repent or perish. He is letting people taste the bitter cup of their indifference to what is right and moral, to make them realize that they must be involved and they must educate themselves so they will not be caught off guard. He is giving man a contrast so he can choose and make the right decision before being taken in judgment.

      I know I am standing on the right side of eternity because of what Jesus has done for me, and I trust those who read this are also standing on the winning side, but if not, time is short. The place of repentance will soon be shut up to mankind, and after that is judgment where the unrepentant sinner and the wicked will seek to hide from the wrath of God but will not be able to do so.