"'How can it be?' you say. 'That couldn't happen to us,' you tell others. How blind you are. You cannot see the signs all around you that tell you to prepare in earnest for the coming of My Son. How foolish your life is to those who really love Me. You live the days that I have given you devoted to your own needs. You walk past those whom I have given to you with a cold, uncaring heart. They are dying, and you are unaffected by their plight. You are awakened only when you are in peril. You are like drunken sailors on shore leave. Your only quest is to live for the next moment before you must return to work. My work has become burdensome to you. Now I will yoke you to a heavy plow to end your foolishness, and return your heart to Me."
I Sam. 16:7b AMP
For the Lord sees not as man sees; for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.
Matt. 9:37-38 AMP
37) Then He said to His disciples, The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the laborers are few.
38) So pray to the Lord of the harvest to force out and thrust laborers into His harvest.
Matt. 13:22 AMP
As for what was sown among thorns, this is he who hears the Word, but the cares of the world and the pleasure and delight and glamour and deceitfulness of riches choke and suffocate the Word, and it yields no fruit.
Matt. 24:42-46 AMP
42) Watch therefore [give strict attention, be cautious and active], for you do not know in what kind of a day [whether a near or remote one] your Lord is coming.
43) But understand this: had the householder known in what [part of the night, whether in a night or a morning] watch the thief was coming, he would have watched and would not have allowed his house to be undermined and broken into.
44) You also must be ready therefore, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not expect Him.
45) Who then is the faithful, thoughtful, and wise servant, whom his master has put in charge of his household to give to the others the food and supplies at the proper time?
46) Blessed (happy, fortunate, and to be envied) is that servant whom, when his master comes, he will find so doing.
Ten years ago, most of us would have locked ourselves in our rooms, so frightened that we would not have been able to function, if the perils that we now deal with on a daily basis were present then. We have become so accustomed to the downward spiral of society-maybe not in your little corner, but in general-that we don't even notice how horrible it really has become.
We are a nation at war. In a heartbeat, the comfortable lives that we live at present could be unrecognizable. At this very moment, there are people with aggressive agendas making sure that our lives do not remain the same for very long.
I am convinced that soon the world and most of the church will wander around from place to place wide-eyed, drooling at the mouth from fear and astonishment. Only those who know their Lord, and actually respond to the wooing to draw close to Him for His power to overcome the horrors during perilous times, will prosper. They will have unquenchable resources to bring souls into the kingdom of God, while others will be part of the huddling masses.
Somehow, most of us seem to desire to be casual observers rather than eager participants in the Lord's work. We see the signs that were predicted in the Bible all around us. We know in our hearts that there is a time of trouble close at hand, but somehow we hope that we will be unaffected by what is about to occur. It is as if we are looking at our ever-changing world in an early morning stupor. It seems impossible to be shaken awake.
God, however, is about to do the shaking. He is about to take self-serving wimps and form them into gallant warriors for souls. In His economy, there is little time left to put up with our foolish, hedonistic lives. He has placed each of us in this generation to accomplish His will of gathering in the harvest before all is completed. He will make us into the kind of missionary that is needed for the times and seasons in which we live. It is His promise to those who press in and allow Him to do it in them. It is the only place of real safety.
Needing the strength to have the wisdom to even press in,
Jim Corbett