Year 2010, the start of a new decade. Despite that it’s another new year, life is, for all of us, still uncertain, in terms of what will happen on a daily basis. Looking back at 2009, we can’t help but be amazed with how many times we woke up to something that either surprised us or shocked us. Life can truly be described with one word… UNPREDICTABLE.
This early in 2010, God has again demonstrated how shocking the next day could be. Just days ago, the country of Haiti was devastated by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. Buildings and houses collapsed that trapped and killed tens of thousands of people. Up to this time, thousands are still trapped in fallen buildings and houses, hoping that rescuers would come and save them. Not even the presidential palace of the country was spared, a testament that man’s power cannot counter God’s power. In light of what occurred in Haiti, let’s see what God could be telling each of us.
To the non-believer, God is showing you how He can just end life for you. No matter how strong the fortitude you call your home may be, if He decides that He has given you enough time already to get right with Him and you did not, your precious life can’t be safe from the timetable of God in terms of when you’ll have to leave this world. The event that happened in Haiti shouts at you, “You could be the next one to die!”
In the private school that I help manage, there was one graduating high school student that experienced how life could just end in a blink. 2009 was almost over. Their class was already preparing for their annual Christmas party and looking to March 2010 when all of them will finally graduate from high school. But the party and the graduation never arrived for this student. On his way home driving his classmate’s motorcycle, in a matter of seconds when he felt the need for speed, they crashed against a vehicle that caused him to fly from his ride hitting another vehicle coming from the other lane of the road. He was rushed to a hospital but to no avail as life ended for him after two days. How I wish he listened and made a decision to get right with God the morning he was involved in that accident when I preached for the nth time the Gospel to our students.
To the atheist, God could be introducing Himself to you. For a long time now, you have denied His existence but instead, tried to explain how everything began using science. And what do you have to show for? Still a declaration that somewhere out there is the “missing link” that will prove your point.
This was not the first time God made Himself a reality to you. Remember the complexity of the DNA. That’s God telling you that He’s real. Remember how you were confronted by the fact that the eye has 137 million light sensitive cells each with its own purpose for the eye to function correctly which you and Darwin concede its development is so difficult to explain via the theory of evolution? Well, that’s God showing how intelligently He has designed the eye. Do you want more? Then look at yourself? Do you honestly believe that with all your intelligence and abilities, you just developed randomly from a simple organism and that your nearest ancestor is an ape? Look at yourself at the mirror now. Do you now see God? You should for the Bible tells us that we were created in His own image. And the quake at Haiti? Can’t you see how the science-oriented man with all its bragging of how great he is, up to now, has not found a way to prevent these natural disasters every time God decides to step in to wake us up a little from our failure to recognize His existence? Unless you accept the reality of God now, you will someday have no doubt that He is really there when He in person brings His judgment to you on that scary day.
To the Christian, God could just be simply telling you to “Wake up!” From what? From our failure to do our duties of worship to Him, to live a holy life, and to preoccupy ourselves in telling others of the Gospel. You have lived a double life. You’re God’s child but after some time living like one, you have decided to play with this sinful world. Yes, you still go to church from time to time and still pray, especially when things aren’t going well for you. But have you truly loved the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength all your Christian life? When was the last time you really cared enough to tell another person about his true state in front of a powerful, just and holy God and how His judgment to a sinful man could be evaded? How dare you call yourself a “Christian” when all that is important to you is yourself. See the quake at Haiti. It calls you to once and for all live like a true child of God.
And finally, to the modern Gospel preacher, God is shouting at you, “My judgment is scary!” You have been preaching only half of what God is for a long time now. You only talk of His love and never about how He hates sin and how one day He will pour down his wrath on man’s transgression of His moral standards. And because you only preach half of the truth of God, you really never declared the truth in the first place. People who should have been walking now on the road to glory, because of your erroneous gospel preaching, are making their way to destruction. And what did you get in return for your irresponsible preaching? You have fame, you have wealth and you have man’s adulation. You’ve made your belly full and you’re not about to change things because of these. The cries of the nation of Haiti is God shouting at you for you to straighten up your message or else the blood of the sinful He will charge at you.
Time is so not on our side. The signs of the times prove this. Unless we wake up now, we will someday have the unenviable experience of waking up to God’s judgment. So wake up now!
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