Rumors

"And you will be hearing of wars an rumors of wars; see that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines, and pestilence's and earthquakes. "But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs." Matthew 24:3-8
Sometimes, I guess when I read these type of verses, it doesn't really hit me that this is REALLY going to happen and could already be happening. Just today, there was an earthquake in central North Carolina, how odd and the other day there was one in Hawaii. Daily we are bombarded with rumors of wars and news of the real wars that are going on around the world. There is talk about North Korea and if any of the nations will invade them or if North Korea will actually attack China or surrounding countries. These things Jesus told us about so that we would be encouraged to go out and keep sharing the gospel. Jesus also said that some would grow cold because of the iniquity that was around and the lawnessness. I feel that I have grown cold in many ways. I read Ray Comfort's column last night and it challenged me to how cold I've gotten. When I read his story, it got me really excited and I remember when I used to have stories similar to his. He goes out and does ridiculously crazy things but the gospel is always preached and people come to know Jesus.

A group of friends and I were walking downtown Greenville the other night and a man stopped me. He handed a gospel tract towards my way and I told him that I was a believer and smiled. He then said, "Pray for us." It didn't really hit me until after someone in our group said something to the effect of..."you wonder why people do that and if anyone ever really gets saved etc?" I didn't really say anything much at the time but it did make me think. 2% of the church actually shares the gospel according to statistics. I'm sure if I would have probed my group that night, not one of us had shared the gospel but yet willing to criticize someone else for passing out a tract and trying. When Paul was in prison once, there were people outside the prison that were preaching Jesus so that Paul's chains would be tighter. They didn't sincerely care about Jesus or the gospel, but they wanted to make it tougher for Paul. Paul's response summed up, "I don't really care what motives they have, I just care that Christ is preached." God can take the words of shy, ignorant, greedy, unloving people and make something happen .