Dear friends:

Billy Graham once said that in the end times the wheat and the tares will grow up together.

Jesus Himself made this sobering statement: “The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world (Matthew 13:38-40, KJV).

THE GOOD FRUIT.  We are seeing the evidence of good seed producing good fruit.  See the late Bill Bright’s article at http://www.choicesforliving.com/spirit/part4/revival.htm

THE TARES.  We are also seeing increasing evidence of the tares.

1.  As in the days of Lot. The world is turning into one big Sodom.  Just this morning, the news relayed to me by a South African reader is that on December 1 the South African high court ruled in favor of same sex marriages, an abomination.

In Romans 1, Paul indicates that widespread homosexuality is a sign of a culture’s ultimate and terminal depravity: “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion” (vs. 26-27, NIV).

Support for homosexual behavior is widespread, in the governments, in the media, and in academia.
“It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all” (Luke 17:28-29).

2.  As in the days of Noah.  “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man” (Luke 17:26).

And in the days of Noah, we are told, “The earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence” (Genesis 6:11).

Corruption. The earth is surely corrupt.  Selfish, greedy and corrupt people and governments are everywhere, including the U.S., where politicians are now selling their souls and engaging in treasonous behavior just to advance their own parties and self-interests.  They have no conscience.  Only the godly wisdom of the Founding Fathers in giving us a system of governmental checks and balances is keeping us going.

Violence.  The earth is full of violence, as never before.  The last century saw the first two world wars.  This century began with a third world war, against terrorism.  The enemy, the radical Islamist, is the most cruel and heartless perpetrators of violence the world has ever known, killing women and children at random, even of the own faith, and cutting the heads off of captives.

This was dramatically driven home to me yesterday when I found a Web site with actual videos showing Muslims beheading and shooting their victims.  One poor fellow was shown getting his head cut off and it was so gross I can't get it out of my mind.  He was lying on his back, conscious, and a man comes up with a knife and begins to cut his throat from front to back.  The body convulses.  Blood spurts out.  The head is severed, except for the spinal cord.  Even in that condition, the body is still moving, and breathing.  Especially chilling was then, now disconnected from the head, the man’s winepipe was protruding from the torso and still sucking and expelling air, making a loud, haunting, wheezing sound, and the body still moved.  Finally, a man came and severed the head completely, then held it up in triumph.  Other victims were shot in the head as they laid face-down in the ground.  I will never for get it.

Perversion -- corruption -- violence.  As in the days of Lot, and of Noah.  “So also will it be in the days of the Son of Man.”

ISRAEL.  The above doesn't even include the prophesied plight of the nation of Israel, how the nations have turned against her, and her own moral decay.  I read just the other day that Israeli tourist officials are making Tel Aviv the "gay capital of the world," and Jerusalem, the holy city where Jesus walked, is scheduled to host another more infamous walk -- the "2006 World Pride Parade."  Can you imagine these strutting, half- (or almost-) naked militant homosexuals walking and reveling in the same footsteps of Jesus, flaunting their perversion? http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3169556,00.html#n.

THE GOOD NEWS.  Jesus is coming.  So be it.  Maranatha.  Amen.  And when He comes, everything is going to be all right!

Jim