In The Last Days Discern The Times

Jesus said, Blessed are the persecuted and they are suffering big time right now. This is Bible League International and 19-year-old Aria was beaten by her own father and violated by local authorities. You know what her crime was?

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This is the Truth Network. You've heard me say before that we are living in the last days. I've referenced those scriptures before, but let me just tell you what this is all about, what I'm talking about. This podcast, our whole ministry really, and by the way, acleartrumpet.org, acleartrumpet.org is where you can find us. This ministry, the way we pray, the way we teach, everything we do, the example that we intentionally lay out concerns Genesis to Revelation, a third of which, by the way, is prophecy. And the reason I don't think I'm off on what I'm what I'm about to tell you is that Jesus' ministry was a lifestyle of the unusual. It was an expectation of the miraculous. There were demonstrations of divine interventions. God revealed the destiny that belonged to His Son in the way that the ministry, the earthly ministry of Jesus, was carried out. And in that example, we see so much. For example, Jesus did not come and go from the presence of God.

He was not in and out, up and down, sometimes on, sometimes not. Clearly, His expectation was God's intervention in the lives of His creation. The people God created, He loved, He cared about, and His heart, the heart of the Father, think about that, the heart of the Father was to heal their bodies, to bring them out of darkness into light, to deliver them on a personal level, everything from a personal level all the way up to national deliverance, prayer, the function of prayer, which by the way, prayer is a covenant function.

We couldn't pray unless we were in covenant with the Almighty God. It included restoration, redemption, recovery of things that are lost, were lost. And so the discerning of the times becomes a prophetic function that belongs to the people of God. And I believe, comes to us as a result of right teaching.

Again, Genesis to Revelation, a clear portrait. The story is obvious to me that we are taught from God's Word to expect the miraculous, divine interventions. It's not a rare thing.

I do think that it is rarely recognized. And just to expound there a little, I think that humanly speaking, we own positive outcomes as something we did, are caused, are rightly deserved. You know, when in fact God intervened in your life and brought to you healing, deliverance, redemption, restoration, He brought to you the ability to pray. He gave you the benefit of teachers to give you right teaching, right teaching at the right time. He even gives you prophets to help you to discern the times. So you and I are blessed this way to have the example that Jesus gave to us. His lifestyle was like this. He lived this way.

He taught this way. He walked this way and He believed God for the presence of God to bring to the people the light that swallows up darkness. Now whatever that looks like to you, you could call that miraculous. I don't know what you call that. I believe that the light of Almighty God swallows up the darkness that the enemy intends for me, for my children, my grandchildren, for this ministry, for those I care about, for my community, for my nation.

I believe God's light swallows up the darkness that is assigned against any of those categories every minute of every day. And yes, to me that is miraculous. It is divine intervention. And I don't think that I would consider our ministry a healing ministry, although I have friends who are in, quote, the healing ministry, end quote. And they have demonstrations of miracles of healing all the time. I highly regard and respect them. I don't think we have a healing ministry.

I do think that God has called me and therefore those who are a part of our organization, of our organization, those who partner with us in a supportive way to believe Him again, Genesis to Revelation, to see the demonstration of the Word of God in our lives daily as a lifestyle. And let me just speak to the issue of when things don't go well or when there is loss, because we all can speak to that because we've experienced that. I'm not dismissing that at all. In the storm, in the crisis, in the loss, the Word is clear. Look up.

Look up. That is not God's final Word. That is not the end of the situation.

It's not. So you need to get your thinking aligned this way. I believe it's right. I believe it's righteous.

And as I said, I don't believe I'm off in projecting this possibility and to say this is the hope that I have, because it is the demonstration of the life and the ministry of Jesus Christ. And the reason that we can say these things. So depending, let me just segue a little bit here and say depending upon how much you understand about the importance of Israel, the nation state Israel, the nation state of Israel, the Jewish nation state of Israel together with Bible prophecy which includes about one-third of the Scriptures, you and I, everyone really, we are responsible on a personal level to discern the times. That's a Bible term, to discern the times.

How do we know that we have this responsibility? Well, first of all, Jesus rebuked his generation for not discerning the times. In Matthew 16, we read that he referred to his generation, particularly the religious leaders of his generation as hypocrites. For this reason, he said, you cannot discern the signs of the times. That's hypocritical, because you can discern the time of year it is, you can discern the weather, but you're not discerning the times. He went on to refer to them as a wicked and adulterous generation.

Strong words. This is the rebuke that Jesus gave for not discerning the times. Also, the Apostle Paul admonished all believers, and this is in Romans 13. He said, do this, knowing the time, knowing the time.

Wake up, awake from your sleep. Right now, salvation is nearer than when you first believed. So both our Lord Jesus and his Apostle Paul taught the importance of discerning the time. So what do we discern? What are we to discern? Well, to name a few, and I don't think that this is exclusive to any area or nation, globally we are experiencing a culture of lying deceit, without consequence, without impunity, it seems, whereas years ago, earlier in my life, there was a consequence for lying, for being deceptive in an intentional way.

That is not the case anymore. Also, we're discerning lawlessness, we're discerning propaganda, the use of words to change the truth, change the truth, and to alter the understanding of the hearer. We're discerning the persecution that is growing worldwide against Christianity.

Other faiths are being persecuted, but no other time in the history of the world is persecution so elevated, so cruel, relentless, and without exception, even in nations that have not known religious persecution on the level that they are experiencing it now, there is a freedom to isolate Christians to be mocked, scorned, ridiculed, and for their livelihood, their families to be disrupted and targeted in ways that are completely upside down, completely wrong on every level. And this last term, which is you need to discern, which may be unique to my nation, this term Christian nationalism. In other words, if you stand for biblical principle, if you stand for truth according to God's word, if you practice your faith and expect your national leaders to do that in order to obtain your vote and to obtain your endorsement, you are now a Christian nationalist. It's not a good term.

It's not a favorable term. It doesn't mean anything other than great bigotry, racism, other things. So these are the things that you should be discerning. The culture of lies, lawlessness, propaganda, persecution, these terms like Christian nationalism that are permeating every society, really every society, every person is responsible at this time as we live in the last days to discern the times. On a personal level, well, on a personal level, everyone's situation is different.

And on a personal level, you discern your situation, your situation, you discern your status, that for you and those closest to you. But for everyone overall, listen to this, this is good news, the prophets are speaking. They are helping us to understand what is happening both subtly and below the surface and really out in the open because the gift of the prophet's voice, both Old Testament and New Testament is to defy what some people have, sort of a natural inclination to be shy and to be under-spoken, to be hesitant to speak up. Well, prophets are not like that.

It's part of their gifting to be a voice, to be one who vocalizes and announces, promotes, and trumpets, I love that word, trumpets, it's why we named our ministry a clear trumpet. We are always believing God to be a part of his prophetic voice to our nation and the world, but the prophets are speaking. Listen, wake up, wake up, don't get so buried in your own personal suffering or need that you are lulled to sleep about what's taking place in the big picture. And I love the prophet's message that tells me, surely you need to turn, you need to turn, you're going wrong on this path, you need to adjust your course, turn this way, don't go right, don't go right, go left. I mean, I'm speaking practically here, but you know what I'm saying in a spiritual sense, and even not just turn, but return, because the revelation tells us that for one whole church, there was the need to return to the Lord.

They had left him, they had left him behind, they left their first love. So the voice of the prophet is saying to me, surely wake up, you're missing something here. Their voice is saying to me, turn this way, go this way for the overall big picture and return to the Lord in these areas where you might have become dull.

You may be dull in some of those areas. And so, you know, when the prophets are speaking like that, some believers just cannot hear. You know why they cannot hear? Because they think it's a part of the noise. There's a lot of noise, both inside the church and outside the church, and they just are so tired of hearing so much noise that the voice of the prophets becomes understated, and it becomes more faint and more faint until they really cannot hear it any longer. I've experienced that, and the Lord has been faithful to come alongside of me in a way that it is trumpeted in an express way that I can hear it, and it wakes me up. Some are like that.

They get lost in the noise, and then the extreme, the far extreme, and this could be a warning to all of us. Ultimately, God allows a delusion to those who are intentionally tricked into rejecting God just outright, on any level or on every level. That's 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 11. And this is, let me just, let's look at just two renderings of that verse. The new living translation, so God will cause them to be greatly deceived, and they will believe lies. The ESV, English Standard Version, therefore God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false.

This is the possibility. This is where people are winding up. Again, it is an extreme place where God allows the delusion to come, to be visited. And so as I started this podcast, I said, let me tell you what this is about. I want you to understand that I don't mean particular instances of just amazing, supernatural, miraculous events, but your life, as a believer, should be an imitation of the lifestyle of Jesus Christ. And it can be. And it can be. He said to us expressly, these things and greater things will you do, because I go to the Father.

Do you understand I'm saying that's the plan? That is our real calling in essence. And so we try to write about it in our book, Running with Horses, which is a 365-day daily devotional, which covers many things, hopefully Genesis to Revelation, with examples of and exhortations to this kind of lifestyle. There's so much there. You can find our book on our website, acleartrumpet.org.

It's also available on Amazon and other online outlets. So I just highly recommend that book to you and, of course, this podcast, which is a great opportunity to speak directly to you. So let's just pray a declaration, really. Lord, everything that we have spoken today in this podcast, for me personally, for each of the hearers that you bring to this format, that we say to you, this is what we want. This is what we want. This is what we want.

This is what we want. We have not because we ask not, so we say and declare by faith, God, this is what we want. And by faith, we receive the possibility and are so thankful that you find us worthy to carry your mark and to represent you in the earth. And our answer to the question, do you really believe that God moves miraculously in the lives of people today? The answer is yes. He does, overtly and behind the scenes, not rarely, but as a lifestyle. God, oh, our amazing Father, the blessing of the Lord today that is on you is on me, on our lives, is that we have, the Word tells us, we have the mind of Christ.

That means the thought life of the King. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support this podcast, please share it with others. Post about it on social media or leave a rating and review. Don't forget to check out the show notes or visit acleartrumpet.org where you can subscribe to Shirley's email list. Download the ministry app and purchase your very own copy of Shirley's 365-day devotional, Running with Horses. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time.