Desiring A Sign?

by Ken Pullen

ACP — A Crooked Path

Thursday, March 21st, 2019

Are you one like the Pharisees and Sadducees demanding signs from God? Are you one who lives their professed faith according to world events and what is contained in the news and misinformation fed to people daily? Outwardly?

The Pharisees and Sadducees Demand Signs

And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So he left them and departed.

Matthew 16:1-4 — English Standard Version

As earlier they had tested Him and Jesus told them of the sign of Jonah:

The Sign of Jonah

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.”

Matthew 12:38-41 — English Standard Version

The Pharisees and Sadducees repeatedly sought signs from Jesus. Because of their unbelieving hearts. They were, after all, in Jesus’ words:

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Matthew 23:13-15; 23-28 — English Standard Version

Matthew 23 — King James Version Holy Scripture

Like the Pharisees and Sadducees we imagine ourselves so wise, so enlightened, so informed, knowing so much more than those who preceded us and yet we walk in the same corruption, the same blindness the same confusion not recognizing the signs of the times.

While we far to often place our faith in world events than in the Word of God. We spend more time with our faces pointing in the direction of glowing electronic screens, and some still in paper, delving into all the news of the world rather than immersing ourselves in faithful, devout, devoted reading and meditation upon the Word of God.

The seed for this particular column is simply this — I am of the same lost, corrupted flesh as everyone reading this. I am a sinner just as every other person who has lived before me, currently, and is yet to come. And in these times? One cannot go a day without reading volumes of proclaimed news and information as to the how and why everything is happening that is happening.

Yet in not one of those sources which people turn to and follow do they speak of, write of the REAL REASONS EVERYTHING IS OCCURING AS IT IS.

To the contrary. We live in the time of Great Denial rather than the Great Revival, the great Awakening.. Deniers of God, deniers of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, deniers of the Holy Spirit, deniers and corruptors of the inerrant Word of God — the only book of truth and all the truth only the truth on earth!

Even pastors these days (Pharisees and Sadducees of yore) are preaching how what is now categorized as “climate change” (faithfulness to environmentalism, see pantheism, see paganism) needs to be addressed when they are the hypocrites, the blind, the whitewashed tombs appearing beautiful on the outside yet inwardly are full of dead bones and uncleanliness.

While what I say here will be mocked, ridiculed, openly laughed at and I will be told how backward and ignorant I am what is visible to all, a true changing in the intensity and frequency of storms, a changing in weather, events occurring in creation all around the earth in greater number appearing to be running rampant and out of control like a locomotive with no one in the cab what has brought all this about is not the internal combustion engine, crude oil being turned into petrol, gasoline and plastics, nor the labors and discoveries of man — BUT BY THE SINS OF MAN AND MAN’S TURNING FROM GOD.

Rather than clearly see that, see the signs of the times at hand, men and women blindly turn to worldly teachers, false teachers and the myriad so-called experts. Not a one who mentions even for a second the spiritual state of mankind worldwide, the turning from God, the Holy Bible, or the need to repent as Nineveh needed to in order to not be destroyed.

Yet that is EXACTLY what is needed. What is at hand this day the Lord has given us.

To see the signs of the times. To repent of our sins. To not become entangled in the news and information of the world as put forward by mere men, but to rather come to a greater faithfulness, a putting on and keeping on the full armour of God to endure, survive and win the constant spiritual war waged.

We are allowing ourselves to be consumed with things such as will the Third Temple be built and when? When will the Lord then come? What will it mean if this man, this woman is voted into office? What happens now that this group, or that piece of legislation has become law? What is, what now, why, why, why, oh me oh my so much happening before my very eye!!!?

Yet where is thy faithfulness? Thy turning to, trusting in God our Father? In His Word? Where is our repentance and time spent in humble prayer not amiss and the study and meditation upon His Word?

We are becoming sucked into, immersed, snared in the quicksand of worldview, of world news, of world events and imagining the pace of these times cannot be harnessed or ignored and we cannot escape the whirlpool, the vortex of darkness and mayhem all around us.

Because we are not seeking, turning to, trusting in the Lord as we ought and are instructed clearly within His Word. We are not obedient, repentant children of renewed hearts and minds girding our loins for the times at hand, keeping the full armour of God on and understanding every part of that armour and uniform from the shoes on our feet to the bely around our waist, to the shield and helmet upon our heads — if we’re suited up at all!

Woe to us just as our Lord exclaimed woe to the Pharisees and Sadducees!

Woe to us if we cannot recognize the signs of the times and know where to place responsibility, blame — to clearly see and know as we ought to if we are washed in the blood, renewed of mind and spirit, born anew, His and His only not this worlds, and indwelt of the Holy Spirit which teaches us beyond our limited earthly ability to see and know.

Woe to us if we have our priorities out of alignment and live more for this world than for the Lord. Thinking our showing up at a building called a church on a Sunday is what it’s all about. Failing to see the church is the failing, ailing sick body that is supposed to follow and obey the Head, Jesus Christ the Lord, yet in these times is following every snake oil salesman striding into town, on the Internet, writing a book as we place our eyes on them rather than our Lord and on His Word!

You want to know the REAL REASONS for all the terrorism? Mayhem? Changes that cannot be kept up with? Pace of life? Everything seen and heard and done?

Because of men and women’s SIN. Because of men and women and even children in these times being given over to reprobate minds due to that fact they have deliberately chosen to turn from and deny the righteousness of God, His Son, Jesus Christ the Lord, and they live in denial of the truth of the Word of God, the Holy Bible while idolizing and placing their faith in themselves as gods, placing their faith in technology, in other men and women denying God, denying Christ, denying the Truth, the Way, and the Life —because they are the walking dead, whether they call themselves atheists, worldview false Christians, Hindu’s, Muslims, Buddhists, New Age followers — be they any person other than a repentant, genuinely believing, born anew, child of God, disciple of Jesus Christ the Lord living to serve and obey God and Jesus. Striving to live according to the Word of God.

There is no sugarcoating. No alternative way, path, route. Sorry, but we’re not all going to heaven as so many false preachers and pastors are declaring, as is the doctrine of the New Age Movement and which is the worldview.

And, yes, the climate, the weather is changing — but not due to the internal combustion engine, crude oil, plastic straws or the refusal to recycle and not buy an electric car — everything is changing due to the increased sin of men and women and the distancing from God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Bible and the truth.

Period.

But who in their right worldly mind is going to report, write about, speak about that, right? Since to genuinely believe in God and Jesus, to be a true disciple of Christ’s, to speak of and quote the Bible, to be “one of THOSE Christians” is at this point in history one of the most despised and not tolerated things one could possibly be.

Woe, oh woe nothing but woe now and to come to those preferring the ways of the world rather than the ways of the Lord our God and Head, Redeemer, Saviour and Lord of lords.