Visions of Disaster (3)

The situation on earth has changed since Old Testament times. The Holy Spirit was not released then, because Jesus had not come, so God had to work in less effective ways against evil. He drove out evil nations living close to his people. He destroyed evil empires that were becoming too powerful.

Since the cross, God has a much better weapon in his arsenal: The good news and the Holy Spirit. He prefers to use them to bring down evil nations and empires. The Western church does not understand that and still wants to use the redundant methods. If the US had paid 100,000 people, equipped to share the gospel of the kingdom in the power of the Spirit, to Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, they would have had far better results than their military achieved.

Although God does not want to destroy peoples and cultures, he will destroy alternative power centres. The institutional church was an alternative power centre distracting attention from the Holy Spirit. God is allowing it to collapse.

Human governments are the strongest alternative power centre in our age. God will eventually destroy government power, so the Holy Spirit power is welcomed and released

Sometime a culture will becomes so evil that God is shut out of it. When that happens, the power of evil will have a free hand, and the culture will destroy itself. God will warn of what is happening, but he can’t stop it. But New Zealand, and the US, is a long way from that.