*DAILY ⓂANNA*FRIDAY 18TH NOVEMBER, 2022*CLOSING IN*

🗣️CLOSING IN💫

It is advisable you read the text first

📜TEXT:ISAIAH 13:6-16📜

🔑📖KEY VERSE: "Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty" (ISAIAH 13:6).

It is amazing how the world reacts to divine truths. The modern man responds to spiritual realities as though they were imaginative conjectures. While most people would not dare stand before a moving train (because the danger is real), they grin, chuckle and sneer at the revelation that a day of judgement will come, when God's anger will be unleashed on the earth.

The events in our text describe the time of the great tribulation. This is one of the significant events in God's end-time programme. It is variously described as the time of Jacob's trouble; a day of darkness and of gloominess; a day of clouds and of thick darkness; a day of desolation. It will be characterised by woes, judgments, famines, bloody wars, explosions, plagues, terror, anguish, earthquakes, eruptions, etc. The purpose of the great tribulation is to make Israel suffer so that they can cry out to the Messiah whom they, at present, reject. It is also to judge the unbelieving men and women of all ages.

The Bible states that the great tribulation will happen after the rapture of the Church and will last for seven years. It will end at the second advent of Jesus Christ when He descends on Mount Olives for a-thousand-year reign on earth called the millennial reign of Christ. It is post-rapture because God will not want His children to pass through the tribulation, its judgment and destructions. So He will take His children away from earth before the great tribulation.

How we need to be conscious of this fact and make deliberate effort to escape God's judgment. Whilst sinners must repent of all sins, believers must maintain a daily life of holiness. It is also important to continue to warn sinners of the need to escape the imminent day of doom before it is too late.

✍🏽THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: The day of reckoning is closing in.

📜THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: 2 KINGS 14-15📜

    *MEDITATION*

  *Prepare for escape*

When fearful, credible and definite safety alert is given, men suffers the preventable consequences if the warning is neglected. The same with the alert of the impending great tribulation. Wisdom demands that the wise will start looking for a way of escape.

A study of the text gives a glimpse of this frightening coming great tribulation.

1. The description
a. Time of unprecedented destruction from God Himself, v6.
b. General heart failures, v7.
c. Fear, pangs of continuous sorrow, paleness of the eyes due to extreme hunger and frustrations will be a common scene, v8.
d. Experience of cruel anger and wrath from God, v10.
e. There will be prevailing fears due to constellations: Sun and moon will refuse to give light coupled with global energy failures due to destruction of energy facilities like it is happening in Ukraine at present, v10.
f. The divine punishment will be to the whole world with no exception, v11. Everyone with be humbled with helplessness and hopelessness, v11.
g. Obviously there would be nuclear war in addition to deaths through pestilence resulting in very few people remaining on the earth at that time, v12.
h. Children will not be spared and their parents will be helpless.
I. All these events, wars and woes are more vividly pictured in the Book of Revelation to confirm that they will surely happen.

2. Decision
a. Many often suffer severely and die as a result of indecision when there are safely or travel alerts.
b. Interestingly, the severity of the coming great tribulation will be so unbearable that God will not allow His children to pass through. It will be preceded by the Rapture of the saints, Revelation 3:10.
c. Only the wise, willing, waiting (for His coming) and the wrestling (against flesh, sin and the world) will be able to escape. Are you part of the wise, willing, waiting and wrestling saints?

Question
Are you made up to do all you can to escape or you are a prey of indecision already?

Prayer points
Lord I thank you for your love that will not want me to be part of the coming great tribulation🙏
Lord, strengthen my resolve to be ready for the rapture at all times🙏
Help me Lord, never to be indifferent about this divine alert of the impending doom🙏
Keep us Lord from sleeping at this 11th hour when death or rapture can happen unannounced🙏

HYMN Where will you spend eternity

Remember the content a got from the DEEPER CHRISTIAN LIFE MINISTRY daily-manna in October

[Source of the content]: Daily Manna