Great Distress Coming, and God’s People Not Prepared For It
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earth. While the world and carnal professors are rushing downward to
death, those who climb the hill will have to put forth efforts or they
will be carried down in the broad road.
The children of the world are called the children of darkness. They
are blinded by the god of this world, and are led by the spirit of the
prince of darkness. They cannot enjoy heavenly things. The children of
light have their affections set on things above. They leave behind them
the things of this world. They fulfill the command, “Come out from
among them and be ye separate.” Here is the conditional promise. “I
will receive you.” Christ from the beginning has chosen his people out
of the world, and required them to be separate, having no fellowship
with the unfruitful works of darkness. If they love God and keep his
commandments, they will be far from having the friendship, and loving
the pleasures, of the world. There is no concord between Christ and
Belial.
The prophet Ezra, and faithful servants of the Jewish church, were
astonished when the princes came to them, saying, “The people of
Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves
from the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations.
And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our
great trespass, seeing that thou our God hast punished us less than our
iniquities deserve, and hast given us such deliverance as this, should
we again break thy commandments, and join in affinity with the people
of these abominations? Wouldst not thou be angry with us till thou
hadst consumed us, so that there should be no remnant nor escaping?
O Lord God of Israel, thou art righteous; for we remain yet escaped,
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as it is this day: behold, we are before thee in our trespasses, for we
cannot stand before thee because of this.”
Ezra 9:1, 13-15
.
2 Chronicles 36:14-16
. “Moreover all the chief of the priests,
and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations
of the heathen; and polluted the house of the Lord which he had
hallowed in Jerusalem. And the Lord God of their fathers sent to
them by his messengers, rising up betimes and sending; because he
had compassion on his people and on his dwelling-place. But they
mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused
his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against this people, till
there was no remedy.”