By Lea Sylvester

The Days Are At Hand Part 1

By Lea Sylvester

Who are we and who can we be in the Lord? Our world is changing, very rapidly. People have moved away from denominational loyalty toward churches driven by programs and outside activities. We have moved away a society where people had porches and sat outside, they talked to their neighbors. We are now a society where we build back decks and privacy fences. We've moved away from a society where where our family doctor would come to our house with a little black bag. Now we go to a "doc in a box" where the doctor doesn't even know us.

We've moved away from the time when people have an inter-relationship with one another to one where there's email instead of postal mail. We can shop without talking to anyone else. We are in an economy where people may be forced to work during church activities. We are a generation that can have a meal in under 60 sec. We have media and technological advances, yet

all of this made us think we would have more time for family. And more time for friends, faith and fun, yet this has given us less time. There are more gadgets for us to put our hands on and less people to talk to.

We are in such a media-generated age that it is unusual to go sit and listen to a man speak in person. Visions of a utopian society are all around us. We had a pre-election promise from our current president; he told us there was going to be change - real change. This promise has fallen flat on America today.

Unemployment is actually in double digits. One in three homes are foreclosed or walked away from today. The national debt is $14.3 Trillion. Can we actually wrap our minds around this? America is in big trouble, our world is in big trouble.

Our grandchildren have no chance of recovery at this pace. We are being lied to, day in and day out. We don't need more spending, we need someone to put the brakes on. The change we have been handed is convoluted and takes away hope, takes away chances of recovery. Your government will not give you good news.

A dictator is a country with one ruler. We have two: the Democratic or the Republican Party. Government is not going to save us. No one can give us a vision for our family or for our future. We have to find our vision from someone else. Only God can point us to a powerful exciting beneficial future only He can give us a vision of life. I wish we had some politicians who had the guts to stand up and say I've got the answer and it is Jesus! He is the ONLY one who can

give us vision, who can give us life. He can give us life and give it more abundantly. He promised us this.

We are living in the last days. You would have to be a mouse in church in a closet not to to know we are living in the last days. It doesn't take a genius to realize what Jesus said in Matthew 24. All one must to do is go back and read the records of the number of earthquakes in our lifetime and the increase in them. We see wars and rumors of wars, look at what is happening in in NE Africa, the Middle East. Nations are literally tumbling. We have a type of antichrist in Ahmadinejad what he does is he believes the 12th Imam is coming. He takes his budgets where he believes the Imam is (a well) and he actually

throws his budget in the well.

You have to have vision and you must know that God has a purpose for us in life. Our careers will not give us our purpose in life. Having a big house is not going to give you a purpose in life, having a 100k car is not going to give you a purpose in life, if that was the truth then everybody with a big house would be satisfied and they are not. We are watching things crumble around us.

In Matthew Chapter 24, Jesus gives us the signs of the end. In verse 32 He tells us, "Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh." You don't have to wait until 2012 when the plants are to align and the earth is supposed to go through some cosmic adjustment. Jesus Christ can come back at any time!

It is the imminent return of Christ, it is the last promise for the church. Paul said "wherefore comfort one another with these words." I Thess 4:18. Be comforted in this, there is a vision coming to you .Jesus said "And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift your heads for your redemption draweth nigh." Luke 21:28

But what will you do today and tomorrow? This is the church's finest hour. Our hearts should be burning with anticipation. We as Christians today need a sustained vision: for our spouses, our children, loved ones, our families, our communities. We as a nation need a vision, a hope for our marriages and for our personal lives. We need to press forward as never before. We are living in a time when God is about to fulfill a vision of His people.

About 350 years ago, a ship load of people; after traveling 3,000 miles at sea, landed at the Northeastern coast of America. That first year they cut huge swaths of forest, built houses and a small town. The next year they elected a town government, the next year the government tried to build a road five miles into the wilderness, the fourth year the people tried to impeach their town government because they thought it was a waste of their government funds to build a road five miles westward. Who needed to go there anyway? Here are the very same people who had the vision to see 3,000 miles across the ocean, and overcome great hardships; but in just a few years, but they were not even able to see five miles down the road.

We're living in a nation that was founded upon the backs of those that would cross the oceans, of men and women who wanted to live in freedom and faced great perils to get here and to survive. And whether you know it or not, whether you believe it or not, this country was founded upon Godly principles. We are a Judeo-Christian Nation. You never hear it anymore, but God has a manifest destiny for America. He has a manifest destiny for you and we must take our vision and extend it down the road. We have to believe that God has us here for a purpose.

Then there's the story of David Livingston. Livingston single-handedly explored almost all of Africa. A missionary society wrote and asked if he had found any good roads. They said, if he had, they wanted to send some missionaries. Livingston wrote back and said that if they “... had men who would come only if there's a good road, I don't want them. I want men who will come if they know there is no road at all.”