A View of the Shaking

I saw some, with strong faith and agonizing cries, pleading with God. Their countenances were pale and marked with deep anxiety, expressive of their internal struggle. Firmness and great earnestness was expressed in their countenances; large drops of perspiration fell from their foreheads….

Evil angels crowded around, pressing darkness upon them to shut out Jesus from their view, that their eyes might be drawn to the darkness that surrounded them, and thus they be led to distrust God and murmur against Him. Their only safety was in keeping their eyes directed upward. Angels of God had charge over His people, and as the poisonous atmosphere of evil angels was pressed around these anxious ones, the heavenly angels were continually wafting their wings over them to scatter the thick darkness.

As the praying ones continued their earnest cries, at times a ray of light from Jesus came to them, to encourage their hearts and light up their countenances. Some, I saw, did not participate in this work of agonizing and pleading. They seemed indifferent and careless…. The angels of God… went to the aid of the earnest, praying ones…. But His angels left those who made no effort to help themselves, and I lost sight of them.

I asked the meaning of the shaking I had seen and was shown that it would be caused by the straight testimony called forth by the counsel of the True Witness of the Laodiceans….

My attention was then turned to the company I had seen, who were mightily shaken…. The company of guardian angels around them had been doubled, and they were clothed with an armor from their head to their feet….

I heard those clothed with the armor speak forth the truth with great power. It had effect….I asked what had made this great change. An angel answered, “It is the latter rain, the refreshing from the presence of the Lord, the loud cry of the third angel.”

Maranatha p. 201
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Prayer Requests
—–Please pray for Peter (age 2) who has an EEG and MRI scheduled for tomorrow. Pray that all goes well and that we will be able to follow the doctor’s directions. He has to stay up late tonight, get up at 4 am and tomorrow cannot have food until his MRI is done. Pray that the MRI, which is scheduled for 11:30 will be on time. Rose

—–Prayers are needed for my family right now! Amber

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Dear Friends,

Years ago, before Ron started working as an avionics technician, he painted houses for a living. He did a very good job of painting both the inside and the outside of houses new or old. He also stained woodwork to a satin-like finish. When he was done with the house, it would be perfect. He, on the other hand, did not look so perfect. He would be spattered with paint and stain. I could always tell what colors he had been using, because he was almost as covered with paint as the house he’d been painting.

Try as I might, I could never get his clothes clean. No matter how much washing his clothes got, they still had paint on them. The washing never removed the paint: it only cleaned the cloth. Ron’s mother suggested that I try soaking them in lye. Even that did not get his paint clothes entirely clean although it did help.

How often we are like Ron’s paint clothes all spattered and dirty with sin. We may try to hide our sin for a while, but soon it becomes noticeable to everyone. “The show of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.” Isa 3:9 We may attempt to wash away our sins by doing good deeds, but “though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord GOD.” Jer 2:22″

“The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” Ps 14:2,3 We are in a pitiful condition. “We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” Isa 64:6

How helpless we are to change ourselves. “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.” Jer 13:23 We see what we should be, but we cannot cleanse ourselves any more than I could get the paint out of Ron’s work clothes. We can but exclaim as did Isaiah, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.” Isa 6:5

Paul, speaking of this, also gives the solution: “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Rom 7:18-8:4 As we look at the “perfect law of liberty” (James 1:25) God’s Ten Commandments, we see how sin spattered we are. God’s law can never save us. It can never change us. It is our “schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.” Gal 3:24

Our loving Saviour died to save us from the death we deserve, for we have broken His Commandments. He became our sacrifice for sin. He paid the penalty for us, so that we can be free from the condemnation of the law. He has promised, “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely.” Hosea 14:4 Does this mean that the Commandments are no longer in effect? No! They are the very foundation of the government of God! Paul reminds us, What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” Rom 6:1,2 Our Dear Saviour bids us, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” “And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” John 14:15; Rev 22:12-14

May we come to Jesus for the cleansing we so much need claiming the promise, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9 May we be “doers of the word, and not hearers only, remembering that “as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also, ” ” keeping God’s law because we love to please Him, because of His Great Love and Sacrifice for us. James 1:22, 26; 1 John 4:19