THE LAST CALL

In 1982, while I was casting a net for minnows at our fishpond, lightening suddenly struck about twenty feet in front of me on the water. Immediately I heard what I now know to be the voice of the Lord tell me, "You could have busted hell wide open." I turned and screamed from my innermost being a cry of stark terror, the cry of the damned, because I knew what I had heard was true. I ran home and when my Mom saw me a hour later I was still visibly shaken and when I tried to tell her what happened, I broke and could only weep.

This was on a Monday and with every intention of getting saved the following Sunday, I started reading my bible. Nothing happened that Sunday or the next. On Monday, 14 days later,the conviction of what had happened had started to wane when I heard the same voice speak to me again, "I have gotten your attention; this is your last call to get right with me." I had a Billy Graham answer book and I "happened" to turn to the question, "How can I know that I am saved?" When I read the answer I heard the same voice that had been speaking to me say to me, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh to the Father but by me." Immediately I saw for the first time that Jesus had died for me and I was astonished because in that moment I had passed from death to life. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into
condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (Matthew 5:24).

I am here today because I heard the greatest preacher who has ever walked the face of the earth: Jesus Christ!! His word is full of power and authority.His speaking and his action are one; he brings life to everything that he touches. One word from him can totally change a situation from hopeless to wholeness!When he changes you and brings you out of absolute darkness into Light, nobody will have to convince you that you are saved: Nobody could convince you other wise. As surly as he is alive, he will be alive in you; your lifestyle will prove that you are living the life of another. Whereas you were headed 280 South, you are now headed 280 North.

The Lord has brought me, through many dangers, toils, and snares, to this time to say to all who would hear:This is the last call,"Behold the bridegroom cometh." When the prophet Daniel read Jeremiah, he "understood by books" that it was time for Israel to return from the exile.If you will search the scriptures you will "know by books" that everything is going to change suddenly. Suddenly the Lord has come and is coming to cleanse the temple the second time, because judgment must begin at the House of God.Jesus is coming to awaken his church out of sleep. The truth is, we have been asleep, in bed with American Idol and every other pleasure that robs us of our time with the Lord, and our adultery has produced "strange children." We have "inoculated" the Word of God and have produced spiritual cripples.

If judgment begins with the church, if the righteous be scarcely saved,where will the ungodly and sinner appear? Several weeks ago while in prayer, the Lord spoke to our Saturday morning prayer group the following word. "The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, and make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. Do they provoke me to anger? saith the Lord:do not they provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces" Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man and beast...it shall burn, and not be quenched" (Jeremiah 7:18-20). On this same day David Wilkerson warned that a world shaking calamity was soon to come, that we were not in a depression but that we were under the wrath of God.

It is midnight: "Thus saith the Lord, about midnight will I go out unto the midst of Egypt..." (Exodus 11:4). God is going to bring his church out of Egypt and soon the trump will sound and we will meet the Lord in the air. What will be a "Red Sea" deliverance for the church will be devastation for those who hate God. He will make a difference between the righteous and the unrighteous.