The Devil Knows His Time Is Running Short

Two days ago, Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) was celebrated in Israel and around the world among the Jews and in 2 days the Feast of Tabernacles will be celebrated. Usually around this time of the Hebrew calendar, interesting things do take place.

The WTC twin-tower attack on September 11, 2001 also took place around this time based on the Hebrew calendar and to have two big earthquakes and one monster typhoon all happening within one week is just uncanny. Typhoon Ketsana left a trail of devastation in Manila and now Vietnam and even Cambodia were lashed by this same monster. Imagine one month's equivalent of rain fell on Manila in just under 20 hours and caused floods affecting more than 2 million people.

Next came the 8.0 magnitude earthquake around Samoa this morning and because the epicentre was not that deep, a tsunami with waves of around 5 metres swept over the islands in the region. And just three hours ago a 7.6 magnitude earthquake shook Padang in Sumatra island and we could feel the tremor here in Singapore.

So what conclusions can we draw from these incidents? that the devil is angry because his time is really running out literally as the Lord Jesus Christ will come back very shortly for His Bride the Church.

Hebrews 12:26-29 states -

v26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens."
v27 The words "once more" indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
v28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe,
v29 for our "God is a consuming fire."

Was God responsible for these incidents? Definitely not for it is very clear that the devil is responsible. Is God doing anything to prevent or stop these? I do believe that God is in control and He will definitely not allow His children to be touched by the devil. But a friendly word for those who have yet to put their faith in Jesus - even the devil knows when his end is coming so how about you?

When the Lord Jesus Christ returns, there will be a reckoning for eternity - those who have place their faith in Christ will be taken up to spend eternity with the Father while those who do not believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior will be eternally separated from the Source of Life. So what would you choose?

Speaking Words Of Wisdom

Recently there was a revival of the songs written and sung by the Beattles and I was constantly bombarded by this particular song, "Let It Be" with the word 'speaking words of wisdom', over the Singapore radio channels in the morning, afternoon and evening over my car radio.

And as I listened to the words of the song, I am again reminded of the words of Wisdom that are found in the Bible. 1 Corinthians 1:24 states, "but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." You see, many of us so often forget (and therefore need reminders) that Jesus Himself is the Wisdom of God personified and the entire Bible was written by and for Him and so when we read His Word, we are actually reading and hearing from Wisdom Himself.

And so, with the timely reminder in the sermon last Sunday, I want to be guided each day by none other than the Word Himself and know what actions I should be adopting as I face the daily challenges of life.

The Doctors DO NOT Have The Last Word BUT JESUS DOES!!

On Monday August 24, 2009 a good friend of mine collapse at home due to the bursting of a major artery in his brain and this happened in the very early hours of the morning. Unfortunately his wife was in Kuala Lumpur and only his 19 year-old daughter was at home.

He was immediately warded in the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Changi General Hospital and put on life-support. As the doctors there presumed he was by then brain-dead, they wanted to harvest all his organs to save other lives. This has now been enacted by the HOTA (Human Organ Transplant Act) passed in the Singapore Parliament and unless one opts out of this, his/her organs are now eligible to be transplanted out of his/her body without the need for consent.

Of course his wife and family members were completely taken aback and protested that he is still alive and so two specialist surgeons were assigned to conduct a series of six tests on his body. Four tests return positive results of no brain activities but two turned out negative results. By the grace of God, in one of the tests, his fingers started to twitched and that put a temporary halt to the doctors' ambitions. However, they still maintained that twitching of fingers are non conclusive of brain activity and that they are still sticking to the theory that his organs can and will be harvested - it is just a matter of time.

Having witnessed the ridiculous nature of the behavior from the doctors (their eagerness to enforce HOTA on my poor friend's body), my family has now decided to opt out of the HOTA Scheme as we believe that the doctors do not hold the last word on our lives. The question of brain-death is not even a viable consideration as far as we are concerned. Have they not heard of cases where a patient, after an extended period of comatose, wakes up and start functioning normal lives? I do not wish to have the doctors playing 'god' over my life. Only Jesus has the final say over how and when my life should end - be it physical death (or sleeping as described in the bible) when Jesus tarries or physical rapture when Jesus comes back. Immediately I will have a brand new body that will last me for eternity; one where there will be no trace of any disease or sickness but perfection.

The Mystery Of The Long Silence

In case you are wondering what happened and the long period of silence on my end for the past two months, I have been so richly blessed that I feel I must share here. You see, after I came back from my holidays in June, I had been tied up trying to complete one of my ongoing projects and get ready for three more that are expected to have started end July but due to last minute changes will only start week after next.

Meanwhile, the Lord's blessings are so tremendous; two of my certification classes achieved perfect scores with a third scoring more than 86 percent (six candidates out of seven passed the certification examinations) and I know that the Lord was using those results to encourage me that more great things will be coming across my path. Also I went to see two clients and both indicated keen interest in pursuing client relationships with my company and one even went to the extent of giving me assurances that my package will be shortlisted immediately and viewed very closely and favorably.

Also the Lord caused certain rather influential people to come across my path and they have indicated keen interest in exploring business transactions. So now you know! What else can I say - when the Lord blesses, He does not understand how to stop. He will only stop when we mortals limit Him and take so little. In fact the Lord, during the feeding of the five thousand men, gave the crowd so much to eat that there were leftovers and I know that there were only twelve empty baskets available for the leftovers; had there been more baskets, I am convinced that He will fill them all too.

In Luke 24:13-27, Jesus chided His two disciples for being foolish and slow of understanding - how many times the Lord have reminded me of His goodness in my life!

And so now I have decided to be a glutton for the Lord's blessings on my life and if He is blessing you and you feel you don't need them, please remember to send them my way and thanks for the thought.

Abba Father Prospers Even Our Mistakes!

My wife and I have just returned from a wonderful eight restful days at the Hakone area in Japan. From here, we can visit Mt Fuji (the highest mountain in Japan) and explore the lakes around the mountain ranges. Throughout our stay we had nice cool (and at times cold - yes, in the midst of summer) weather and a couple of days of showers and these were very welcome for us coming from a dry and hot Singapore and for me it was even more dramatic as I had just returned a few days prior to our departure to Japan from hot Muscat in Oman where daytime temperatures actually hit a high of 54 Celsius and night temperatures drop to only 35 Celsius.

So we were thoroughly thrilled when the thermometer readings dropped to 15 Celsius in the day and nights of 10 Celsius. And we decided to venture a trip from where we were staying (at Nakagora town) to Stage Five on Mt Fuji on Thursday June 11, 2009. The morning started with rains and we decided to stick to our plan and venture forth armed with transparent brollies (umbrellas) at 8:30 AM. Twenty minutes later we were at the bus-stop where we were to make our next connection and so we stood there in the light drizzle with our brollies and waited and waited not understanding that there would not be any buses for the next 90 minutes or more as the timetables posted on the pole at the bus-stop were all in Japanese and we could not understand the language.

Well, having stood there for almost forty minutes we finally realized that we could be standing there in vain and so we decided to flag a taxi to bring us to the next train station/ bus terminal to connect to Kawaguchiko town and from there to catch the 'mountain-climbing' bus to Stage Five of Mt Fuji.
Mistake #1 came when the taxi-driver took us on a slightly longer route to the station and the fare came up to 4,650 yen or close to US$50 (about S$70).
Mistake #2 was when we bought the ticket to the wrong station (two major stops too early)
Mistake #3 was when we decided to alight along the way way ahead of the 'wrong' station and we ended up back-tracking and trying to seek directions in English in a mainly Japanese speaking area.

But that was probably where the misery ended and our blessings started.
1. Where we ended up to ask for directions was also one of the most friendly places - the Japanese lady was so sweet; she went out of her way to connect us to the nearest tourist information desk at the station where we were supposed to have stopped to make our transfer.
2. This lady not only gave us instructions in English but also worked out for us the various steps we had to take to end up to where she was and she actually came out of her office at the station to meet us and hurry us on to our next destination.
3. When we arrived at Kawaguchiko to catch our bus to go up to Mt Fuji, not only had the rain stopped but the sky was so clear that we could actually see the mountain from the train station.
4. The weather continued to hold for us and we were pleasantly greeted at Stage Five with one of the clearest days for visitors. It had been observed that one can only see Mt Fuji in all its splendour on thirty days in the entire year and we were so blessed to be given that opportunity to view His majestic splendour. Thank you Jesus for Your blessings.

Well, the blessings did not end there. We continued to be able to see Mt Fuji again the next day as we decided to take the ropeway to the top of another mountain to visit Lake Ashi. In fact we saw Mt Fuji from various spots that second day - every time the bus turned round a corner and where the vegetation permitted, there was Mt Fuji. - we were simply awed by the Father's blessings.

Indeed He had turned our mistakes into His blessings and we were able to not just have our rest but enjoyed the splendour of His creation. Praise Jesus!