Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD.
“Sowing and Reaping”, “The Widow’s Mite”, “30, 60 and 100 fold return”, “The Cheerful Giver”, “Don’t Eat Your Seed” and even tithing taught in some forms, are just some of the topics that have been twisted and manipulated to extract more and more money from trusting congregants. READ MORE
Woe to the Shepherds!
One of the most scathing rebukes found anywhere in the Bible is in Ezekiel 34. It is a rebuke to the shepherds, or in today’s culture, the pastors. The Prophet Ezekiel was not the least concerned with sparing anyone’s ‘feelings’ when he gave his politically incorrect rebuke in the 34th chapter. He was concerned with saying what the Lord instructed him to say. He didn’t water it down, and he didn’t consider how it might put him in social jeopardy. He was not afraid of the shepherds, but he did have a healthy fear of God, something the modern Church seems to lack. READ MORE
Woe to Those Who Destroy Others!
The world loves to hear gossip. In addition to printed material, we now have the ability through social media on the internet to multiply the effects of what we say for good or for evil. This is the information age, but we get a lot of disinformation!
One of the greatest travesties of social media today is the ability of anyone to start rumors, gossip and slander about anybody. Hollywood even glamorizes it! The right of ‘free speech’ is taken to the absurd and social media is often used as a vehicle to air suspicion, bitterness, and outright lies. People who are looking for something bad about anyone will usually find it on the internet! READ MORE
Woe to rebellious children who do not take council with the Lord!
How many people do you think understand that rebellious children are a sign of the Last Days? I don’t think too many Christians actually do equate a rebellious generation with the soon coming of the Lord, but that is, in fact, one of the signs. It’s easy to spot the other signs: earthquakes, wars and rumors of wars, famines, pestilences, etc. READ MORE
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil!
Any born-again Christian who listens to the rhetoric from most of the politicians and newscasters in this country must be shaking their heads along with us. Sometimes I don’t even believe how crazy things are getting. Things that are being said and done are just completely opposite of the truth – and preachers are so busy teaching people how to get more money they don’t have time to warn the flock! READ MORE
Woe to Him Who is Alone
Up until I went to prison in 1989, I had always had lots of people around me. Most of those people were slight acquaintances, some were co-workers, some were friends, some were church folk, and some were family. I must confess that back then, I often got the priorities in my relationships out of order. I let my slight acquaintances and other working relationships preempt the most important ones that I should have nurtured. READ MORE
In the entertainment crazed society we live in, very few people, even Christians, will endure a message of what they consider ‘gloom and doom.’ They would much rather hear some cleverly told story containing a lot of humor! Nevermind that we are living in the days that demand a sobriety and a vigilance to understand and be ready for the events of Revelation.
As I begin a series of blogs titled “Woe is Me”, I guess I feel the need to try and preempt some of the negativity to such a serious subject. I felt the same way back in the mid-nineties when I was given the message that was contrary to what a lot of people had been preaching, including myself, of the prosperity gospel. READ MORE
The week after the Japanese earthquake, many people world-wide began to take emergency preparedness seriously, at least for a little while. The same seriousness fell like a blanket on this country after ‘911’. People went back to church – at least for a few weeks. Then, after the initial shock wore off, they were back to business as usual. I don’t know why, but it seems like it always takes a major calamity to jolt people into action.
This Spring and Summer, we have seen weather extremes like never before. Record-breaking floods, droughts, temperatures and storms have battered the country and left much of our farmlands barren. What do you think this is going to mean to food prices? Well, I’ll tell you – food prices are going to skyrocket – and sooner than you think!
This past week, we have seen the stock market go up and down like a roller coaster. What we don’t readily understand is what all that means to the economic situation in this country and the entire world. What it means is that our money is very soon going to be worth almost nothing!
In Matthew 24:8 Jesus said the signs of nature will be like “birth pangs.” The closer a pregnant woman gets to the time her baby is born, the birth pangs increase in two ways. They increase in frequency and intensity. That is exactly what Jesus meant here. The closer we get to His coming, the more frequently we will see natural calamities like weather extremes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, plagues, famine, wars and the like.
Why does Jesus tell us about the signs of His coming? Jesus didn’t say that He would take us out of this world before we would experience any of these things. If that were true, we would already be gone, wouldn’t we?! No, Jesus told us about the signs because He didn’t want us to be taken by surprise and be unprepared!
Why then do we yawn when we hear these things in our newscasts and act as if we are not going to be affected? It’s time now to ‘read and heed’ Matthew 24!
A recent article I read said we can count on three things very soon:
Today, you may only hear about the world’s violence and economic woes, or see the faces of famine in another country on the news, or watch as natural disasters effect other parts of the nation and the world. But rest assured, we will not always be exempt from all these things. The world you see around you today may be very different tomorrow. Don’t wait until it comes to you – you need to be ready today for what may come tomorrow.
The prophetic dreams, visions and revelation that the Lord gives his people are for a reason! We are not to ignore them! Everywhere, the Prophets are warning to get ready! Of course, that means spiritually FIRST – but it also means get ready with food, water and other necessities!
“A prudent person foresees the danger ahead and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.” (Proverbs 22:3 NLT)
“A sensible man watches for problems ahead and prepares to meet them. The simpleton never looks and suffers the consequences.” (Proverbs 27:12 TLB)
As we see the events of Revelation escalating at a phenomenal rate, let’s make sure we are prepared – spiritually and physically. We still have time but we need to act NOW. The economic situation in this country and all over the world is going to make it very difficult, very soon to gather things we need for Times of Trouble. The stock market is on a roller coaster and it’s not going to end well. The drought and extreme weather we are having is going to make food prices unaffordable rapidly! It’s all coming together, or maybe we should say it’s all coming apart.
For now, we have a good supply of emergency food that we can hold the line on the pricing. But in the very near future, you won’t be able to get this food at any price! It’s fast coming to that and we know it to be true by the economic forecasts. Don’t wait on this – your family is counting on you to provide the basic necessities of life for them when calamity strikes.
Do what you can today for your family and then rest in the fact that we are in the hands of a loving God. Get your plan going! Do something today to prepare for tomorrow!
I don’t want anyone I love to have to suffer unnecessarily, and I want to have something left over to give to others.
Love,
Jim
Wall Street had its worst day today since the 2008 financial crisis that put the United States into a financial calamity that we are still in today! We are in the days that the book of Revelation told us would come before the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no way the Antichrist can take control without a time of crisis so bad that millions of people will sign up with him just to get food to eat. READ MORE
We recently celebrated my 50 year Anniversary in Ministry and what a celebration it was! There were many people from years gone by that surprised and delighted me on the show! It seems nearly impossible that it’s been that long, yet I can remember some things as if they were yesterday. As a young Evangelist, I would hold revivals from Tuesday through Sunday night and then travel on Monday to the next location.
Quite often, after preaching and being in the anointing at church, I would turn on late-night TV to unwind. There was very little to watch at that hour except Johnny Carson. I remember listening to everything they would talk about; most of it gossip, politics or entertainment news of some variety. It didn’t take long for me to be completely annoyed by all of the frivolous things that passed for late-night talk show content. I remember thinking “why doesn’t someone talk about Jesus?”
It was this small, yet profound inspiration that led me to break new ground in a revolutionary Christian talk show – so that Christians could have an alternative to the world’s ‘babble’ and more people could participate in talking about Jesus! I began on “The 700 Club” and eventually moved into pioneering “The PTL Television Network.” PTL inspired the birth of countless other Christian talk shows.
Before long, there was an abundance of Christian programming and those who knew Jesus could now rejoice because they had an alternative to the world’s ‘babble’. Now that’s what I had been inspired to do as a young Evangelist! To see and hear so many people talking about Jesus on television was the height of my life’s dream – not only for the Christians, but for those who were to become Christians by hearing the Gospel!
Today, the dream lives on. The times we are living in have brought many people to Christian television seeking answers for this prophetic age just before Jesus returns again. Even the unbelievers are looking for hope. While a large part of the world still fiddles away their time in the mindless, meaningless pursuit of trivial things, there is a beacon of light being broadcast through the darkness. The Gospel is still being preached, the lost are still finding their way to Jesus, and the dreams of a once-young Evangelist are still coming true.
