The following report is from Joel Rosenberg’s FlashTraffic Blog:
PREPARE CHURCHES FOR INEVITABLE: America, Israel and the Church are at risk
PREPARE CHURCHES FOR INEVITABLE: America, Israel and the Church are at risk
Rosenberg: Prepare churches for inevitable
February 13, 2012By Joni B. Hannigan, Managing Editor, Florida Baptist WitnessJACKSONVILLE (FBW)—The handwriting is on the wall and war between Iran and Israel is imminent, Joel Rosenberg, an evangelical Christian and New York Times best-selling author, told the last session of the First Baptist Jacksonville Pastors’ Conference Jan. 29.
“War is coming,” Rosenberg said. “You and I are living in an extraordinary moment in one of the most dangerous moments in the history of our country; one of the most dangerous moments in the history of Israel and the Middle East; and one of the most dangerous moments in the history of the church.”
And the question is, “Are we ready for what could be coming?”
The popular writer, who grew up with a Jewish father and a gentile mother, shared lessons from Daniel 5 on the future of America and the coming war in the Middle East.
Rosenberg, whose newest book Implosion: Can American Recover from our Economic and Spiritual Challenges in Time is set for release in June, said many pastors are unwilling to speak about the future in terms of Bible prophecy.
For some it’s because prophecy has been “sensationalized” in the past and they resist the “cheapening of God’s Word,” he said. Others might feel unprepared. Some have simply forgotten its power.
“Prophecy is an intercept from the mind of an all-knowing and all-seeing and all powerful God,” he said. It is meant to inspire, motivate and encourage. It will lead to repentance, holiness, and prayer and fasting, Rosenberg said, adding that prophecy is about the “preaching of the Gospel, making of disciples, planting churches, reaching young people with the Gospel, [and] reaching all people with the Gospel.”
Speaking on “The pastor and his future,” Rosenberg asked pastors, “What is it that God is calling you and your congregation to do?”
Sharing examples of escalating tensions in the Middle East and rejecting “replacement theology,” Rosenberg said the physical state of Israel is the Israel about which the Bible refers. “God is not done with us, He loves us, He has a plan for us,” Rosenberg said. “God so loves the world, the whole world, that He gave His only begotten Son.”
After a recent trip to the concentration camp at Auschwitz, Rosenberg said he was reminded “bombs can do in six minutes what it took Adolph Hitler about six years to do; to kill six million Jews.”
The church needs to teach Bible prophecy he said. Bible passages like Ezekiel 38-39, Jeremiah 49, and the book of Joel. “God is going to use a whole series of events ultimately for His glory, but in the meantime, the church has got to ask ourselves, ‘Are we just gonna be silent? Are we just gonna act like nothing’s happened? … Or we don’t care?’”
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http://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/prepare-churches-for-inevitable-america-israel-and-the-church-are-at-risk/
