When All Hell Breaks Loose

Tiff suggested that I listen to Rich Nathan's most recent sermon entitled "When All Hell Breaks Loose," so naturally I did. As an insight, Rich Nathan is the senior pastor of a mega church called Vineyard Columbus, he is an unbelievable speaker combining his Biblical knowledge, with worldly knowledge, and throwing a few lighthearted jokes in between. However, he really challenges the congregation and doesn't do so in a roundabout way. So anyhow, he opened his sermon by mentioning the fact that more than likely Americans didn't hear about a letter written from the Islam leaders of the world to the Christian leaders in an effort to build a bridge of peace between the two religions. Instead of the news filling the airwaves and telecasts with such a ground breaking and hope filled news, the news stations elected to push Britney Spears custody struggles and the Lance Armstrong dating Ashley Olson stories. After informing us of such happenings he got into the actual sermon which this week was about the end of times. Two things in scripture must happen to signal the end of times, an event must occur in the form of a great rebellion, this in addition to the culmination of evil ultimately expressed in one person, the anti-Christ. The culmination of evil is what Rich Nathan is going to talk about today in addition to the end of times. When talking about the end of times one should exhibit stability. Nathan went onto say that stability is a good trait in many other things such as the economy, the sea, other people, etc. The apostle Paul describes the anti-Christ to be the lawless one, doomed one, opposing one, and worshiped one, but Paul never says "anti-Christ." However "anti-Christ" is mentioned a few times in the Bible. The spirit of anti-Christ is the always the spirit of lawlessness, as they hate any type of law, whether governmental or religious. Along the same lines of being stable in the face of the end of times, we must also practice self denial, and be able to say no to oneself and say no to our selfish desires and therefore practice sacrifice to God.

So what's the response to the anti-Christ? God wins! All the world's inhabitants not of Christ will worship the beast (the anti-Christ). As Christians, we are not to give our loyalty to anyone, but to Jesus. It's clearly OK for Christians to honor the government and to love their spouse, but allegiance and loyalty rests primarily with Jesus. Additionally, we won't be guessing who the anti-Christ is as many people speculated about Hitler, Stalin, etc., they were wrong! In order to combat the anti-Christ we must be stable and love Jesus more than anything else in the world. This sounds nice and very easy to do, but in my reality it is something I struggle with every day. This isn't to say that consciously and unconsciously that God isn't the guide and the aim of my life, but at the same time we live in a world surrounded by distractions, but these distractions are very important to most Americans non-Christian or Christian, even such things as jobs, school, family, etc. And I'm not trying to say they aren't important, because they are, but I'm sure that most Americans would have those three things at the top of their priority list with God at the bottom of the priority totem pole. Yet at the same time NOTHING should take precedence over your relationship with God. Now this isn't to say to quit your job or school, sell your possessions, and completely forget about your family in order to live as a monk in Tibet. Instead, what this means is no matter how well or hard life is going, give thanks to God and have the hope and faith to know that God will pull you through adversity. He even has enough power, ability, and mercy to pull us Christian sinners out of the ultimate adversity that is the end of times!