Well would you? If you step inside a Catholic church you'll right away notice all the flash - the priest who is dressed immaculately, the stained glass windows, the candles blazing, and icons and statues representing the saints situated everywhere.
Meanwhile, people are fiddling around on their cell phones as the priest delivers his message. Some step outside for a cigarette or run across the street to Jollibee or McDo for a coffee and a snack. Others gossip. Their hearts are simply not in the right place. This may be said about any modern church.
The heart
It is in examining a person’s heart that we may learn what kind of a person s/he is. Jesus said: "You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34, ESV).
Even in the Old Testament we learn about the heart of people: "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9, NIV). The question is rhetorical - nobody is able to understand his/her own heart, much less the heart of others. Only God understands our heart.
Street preachers
We see a lot of street preachers in the #Philippines. Or at least we used to see them. Many of these street preachers are false teachers who preach "another gospel" (Galatians 1:6-7). Many are from cults that preach false theology and/or that deny the divinity of Christ Jesus. Their doom is certain. The cults and false teachers are more active that God's remnant of believers!
And we see preachers in the market, too. The congregation is usually collecting tithes or donations to further spread the gospel message. This annoys people who simply turn their heads, as if the preacher wasn't even there. Their hearts are also far from God, their hearts have hardened and have waxed cold.
Enter the pandemic
The pandemic has sent preachers scurrying under cover with fear. They fear a virus that God either allowed to happen or sent as a warning to repent - a judgment against those who have turned their backs on Him.
Churches have closed out of "an abundance of caution." But its not caution - it is fear! Preachers have disobeyed God and obeyed their government. Haven't you heard? "We must obey God rather than human beings!" (Acts 5:29, NIV).
Instead, many people trust their government to tell them the truth and they willingly obey. We observe the pleas and mandates for all people to be vaccinated "for our own good." Little do people realize that the Nazis of Germany in WWII used the exact pleas and mandates when they rose to power and took guns away and forced Jews into death camps. The Nazis called it: "Fur hire Sicherheit" - It's for your safety.
After all, governments preach that the protected need to be protected from the unprotected by forcing the unprotected to use the protection (vaccine) that didn’t protect the protected in the first place.
You can't make it any crazier!
But we deserve God's judgment. We have not preached the gospel; we live in sin as if there is no tomorrow or no judgment; we imprison ourselves willingly to corrupt governments; we worship idols like Facebook, money, crucifixes, statues, computers, people, the occult, politicians and more.
Isaiah
There was a man of God named Isaiah. His name in Hebrew means "Yahweh is salvation." He was a prophet sent by God to preach to the people in Judah, what was at that time the southern part of what we call modern Israel. It was a divided nation back then, with Israel in the north and Judah in the south.
Isaiah wrote the prophecy between 739 and 681 B.C. That's a very long time ago. But there are an abundant amount of things we can learn from it. Even Jesus quoted Isaiah!
Back in those days the Assyrians had captured Israel in the north and carried them into exile in 722 B.C. because of their sin and failure to repent of their wicked ways. Judah was spared for a time. Then a mighty kingdom called the Babylonians arose and defeated the Assyrians after a ten year war. The Babylonians expanded the massive Assyrian empire.
Judah was then in peril. God sent Isaiah to preach to Judah. Nobody wanted to hear Isaiah's proclamations from God. Isaiah was beset by tough opposition from the people, thus God used miracles to get their attention. But they refused to listen, just as people refused to listen to Jesus.
The message
Isaiah preached a message of repentance. God said to him: "Take off the sackcloth from your body and the sandals from your feet. And he did so, going around stripped and barefoot" (Isaiah 20:1-2, NIV).
Isaiah preached naked, or at least barely covered.
It took 20 years before the Babylonians finally conquered Jerusalem in 587 B.C. The Babylonians had three campaigns where they took portions of Judah into exile. The first was in 607 B.C., where Daniel and his friends were carted off; the second was in 597 B.C., when King Jehoiakim and 10.000 of the people were carried away (including Ezekiel); the third was in 587 B.C. when Jerusalem was conquered and its walls and palaces and also the temple were destroyed and the inhabitants carried away into exile.
Today
People refuse to listen to God today and repent of their sins. Many are too preoccupied with the things of this world to heed God's call of mercy and salvation. He sends his preachers and teachers for us to hear, and in His mercy delays His judgment. But this won't last forever!
"As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man" (Matthew 24: 37-39, NIV).
Do not be like Israel and Judah and continue in your sin. Turn away from the world and all that is in it. Haven't you heard? "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them" (1 John 2:15, NIV).
Therefore, repent and believe in the Lord Jesus for your eternal salvation. Today is the day!
I want to be friends with you🤝