I had to work today and snuck out to my car to hear a bit of Shorewood live on YouTube and happened to get some really unexpected sad news for me that made me instantly cry.
The crying could not have come at a worst time since I just started coming down with a cold in the night and woke up today with a sore scratchy throat. This is the first cold I've had since last September so I guess I should be grateful and expectant of one.
The sad news is Pastor Jordan, if I heard it correctly, announced he is stepping back from his preaching ministry at the church and might not be teaching on Sunday mornings for at least a period or more after this September.
Just another thing for me to adjust to as someone who works at a national retail chain that can't stand for me to ever have a Saturday or Sunday off and is now requiring that I work on Sundays due to "prime time" needs for "coverage."
Honestly, I feel like I've never been given half a chance of fitting into any local grace assembly in Ohio because of the pressures of my job that always demands me working Thursdays through Sundays in exchange for a "cushy" 9 to 5 hourly schedule that accommodates the needs of my 89-year-old mother who I live with as a single woman now 62 years old.
I know I am a crybaby but this makes me cry and this is not a good time to cry when I'm coming down with a definite cold.
*****
Here's a totally unrelated post from a study given by Richard Jordan in the last year and will have a new article tomorrow:
Isaiah 5: [20] Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
[21] Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
[22] Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:
[23] Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!
Verse 22 is sarcasm; it’s the Lord’s way of being sarcastic. You got these guys here who are considered heroes; the ones considered valiant ones, and the leaders in your culture, and they’re leading you into all this dissipation and what are they doing it for?
“They justify the wicked for reward.” There’s a completely corrupt government, legal system, society. That’s the result of all these things.
Verse 24: [24] Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
The unseen source of the life, the root, is going to be rottenness. What’s giving life to the culture of this sinful nation is rotten, so the bloom, the outward manifestation of the fruit, is dust; it’s nothing.
The root cause of the problem is they’ve cast away the law of the Lord. They’re just a bunch of rotten dirt bags because they despise God’s Word; they want nothing to do with His Word.
[14] Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.
[15] And the mean man shall be brought down, and the mighty man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled:
The satanic policy of evil opens its mouth wide; it can take all comers. And the glory, and the multitude, and the pomp of all the stuff they’re doing goes down to destruction.
[25] Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them: and the hills did tremble, and their carcases were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
All of this stuff they’re seeing, the judgments they’re seeing in these first four courses of judgment—he says that’s just Act 1. Act 2 is going to start in verse 27.
They’re not in the fifth course yet and He keeps holding out that opportunity: “but his hand is stetched out still.”
[26] And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth: and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly:
He’s still the sovereign of those nations and He’s going to summon those nations to come and take the nation Israel and scatter them in the earth.
[27] None shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken:
The whole idea there is they’re going to come, and there’s no stopping them because “they’ve despised my Word.”