R. Loren Sandford - Visions of the Coming Days: What to Look For and How to Prepare

I love Gods ways, Gods power, Gods authority and how God acts on our behalf before we even ask. I also love true prophetic words, divine supernatural encounters and dreams from God. It is through these events and other miracles that God confirms His deity. He is constantly displaying His attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, immutability and eternality every day in our lives. Whether we recognize the splendor of His acts or not does not dilute or diminish the fact that He wants us to know Him in a vast panorama of ways.

In the midst of all of heavens interventions, I believe we are to do as the Bible has instructed us to do: We are to tell of His wonderful deeds and teach them to our children and our childrens children. In so doing, all remain in awe of God.

We are also to continue to give God all the glory and take none of that glory upon ourselves. We are not to exaggerate what He has done, diminish what He has said or tell things that He did not do as if He did them. We are to hold clear and strong biblical doctrines, and live those beliefs before mankind. In so doing, we are to be witnesses to others of all God has done and is doing, and give others hope that God will continue to act as He has.

Regrettably this is not happening on a widespread basis today. In fact, we, the Body of Christ, are experiencing less and less relevance to the world we were placed here to influence. As a result we are living in a time when the logic of politicians, the cleverness of pundits, the sermons of pulpiteers and the revelations of prophets are all failing to capture the hearts of the people they are hoping will listen. This should not be true, but it is.

Jesus and the prophets of Scripture prophesied, with alarming accuracy, that a time will come when the humanistic logic of man will lead to the perplexity of nations. That time has arrived. Todays logic, at best, may solve human quandaries in the short term, but it exacerbates those quandaries in the long run. The fruit of this line of thinking is now being harvested, and the perplexity of nations has expanded and become global.

Conversely, especially within the broader charismatic/evangelical Church, there arises an equally anti-logic sentiment of a nice God who would never chastise or spank His children. Paralleling this anti-logic paradigm is a mindset in which spiritual experiences become the goal. If left unchecked, this mindset will broaden to become an accepted rule of theology. Thus, in some circles, spiritual experiences are sought more than a deep relationship with God. This experience-oriented atmosphere rapidly leads to a perspective that what happens to you is more important than what happens in you; when the verbalization of your experience becomes more important than the transformation of your being; and, even more saddening, when your philosophy becomes more important than your theology.

Subtly, almost imperceptibly, the yeast of a philosophical approach to Scripture is rising and a philosophically moralistic perspective of God is taking over. Thus, if God is love, there can be no such place as hell; marriage is seen as a convenience rather than a covenant; sin management is sought more than sin eradication; and even the devil will get saved.

If this continues, you will see an increasing emphasis placed on so-called spiritual feelings and the intellectualization of spiritual realities that attempt to make imagination equal to true supernatural experiences. In other words, if you can imagine it, you have experienced it. I am afraid we have arrived at a crossroads where the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life have become almost indistinguishable. Sadly, more are climbing the wrong tree and unknowingly getting steeped in the acceptance of New Age thinking as a legitimate means of promoting Christian experience.

If we are not careful, we will find that in our efforts to help the Body of Christ accept the biblical truth of the charismata of Scripture, we have lowered the standards for the exercise of those spiritual gifts. It seems we have forgotten the need for integrity and character to be woven into the life of any person who has been given a spiritual gift. Thus, weak and incomplete prophetic words are treated as if they were mature while errant prophecies are left unaddressed. This is already happening. As a result, those with supposed spiritual gifts, rather than creating a new hunger for biblical truths and the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit within the Church, have begun to alienate other believers.