God's Abandonment Judgment

Before Pastor Doug Riggs' message, you will hear many scriptures that warn of God's judgment on His people in covenant relationship with Him, whether Old or New. God's mercy endures, but there comes a time His mercy is exhausted and He has to judge. This is not a threat of losing the promise of eternal life. That is a gift free to us and paid for 2,000 years ago on the cross of Calvary by Jesus Christ. However, how we live our lives upon receiving this gift ultimately determines our eternal destiny, either 30-, 60-, or 100- fold blessing and reward, or 'saved so as through fire' with no reward. As Christians, members of the body of Christ, we were bought with a price and our lives our not ours to live for ourselves and fulfilling our own pleasures. We must learn that any habitual or continuation in sin will lead to serious consequences. That's what this warning is about, and especially significant due to the shortness of time we have yet remaining here on earth.

This is one of Pastor Doug's shortest but most powerful messages on what God does to His people when they refuse to come under His authority and lordship and continue in idolatry, even though He warned them over and over. There is a point where one crosses the line, and incurs this judgment of God:
1) The instruction to not pray nor intercede for them, as God will not hear;
2) God's wrath poured out on His people (O.T.- Israel; N.T.- the church);
3) God brings inescapable disaster on them;
4) God will not listen to their cries;
5) Abandonment judgment (see Proverbs 1:20-33); God withdraws;
6) Results with sword, famine and pestilence (disease/sickness).

The background to this warning had to do with an SRA survivor who was not willing to come under the lordship of Christ. However, this message applies to all of us who are lured away from the Lord into idolatry and recurring failure.

Often we've heard that since Jesus paid for all our sins on the cross, that God remembers them no more - they're as far away as the east is from the west, it doesn’t mean that what we sow won’t be what we reap. There are consequences to sin – and this message addresses the more dire ones to consider. God’s forgiveness is no license nor is it an excuse to sin. God disciplines and scourges every son He receives. 'Discipline' means to child-train; 'scourge' is a whip made from strips of leather embedded with broken glass, metal shards, and what-not used to whip the back of the one punished, stripping away the flesh, exposing the bones. The term 'forty lashes less one' meant that 40 could kill the one being whipped, so 1 was withheld so that person doesn't die. In this message, Doug equates this very extreme judgment on His people as a visitation - and the day of visitation is here.

What should be our response in such a visitation? "The only response to something like that (i.e.: warnings of judgment) - a word like that - is humility and repentance."

Speaking of coming judgment, "If we have multiple-pronged asymmetric strategies against this nation; multiple biological, chemical, or even nuclear things going off simultaneously in different cities; multiple attacks through whatever it would be; 'Black Lives Matter' (which is a Marxist/Communist-run organization) - whatever the combination will be, it's considered asymmetrical warfare. It's not like the invasion of a top military force. That will occur first - break down the infrastructure, and then Russia will take care of the rest, according to Jeremiah 50 and 51." Doug reminds us, "There is no hope for America." So, what about the church of Laodicea, Sardis, Thyatira and Pergamum? Since judgment begins with God's household first, what should we expect? How much of this will be before the rapture??? I believe some will be before - and the rest after we're gone. God will use this to sift out from the church what does not conform to the characteristics of Philadelphia. I also believe in the next couple months we will see drastic changes with reference to the unraveling of banking, infrastructure, food availability, pandemics, and societal disintegration… and very possibly worse.

But, we don't languish in hopelessness. Doug assures us, "There is hope for that which will represent a remnant church rising up in the midst of disaster. And in that day of visitation, what the revival will look like is the fullness of the Gentiles coming into the body of Christ out of disaster."

Resources mentioned:
Reagan on America's Spiritual Crisis, Part 1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eISukqlIJ4)

Reagan on America's Spiritual Crisis, Part 2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbA90h9lVQ4)

The Development and Significance of the Remnant in the Old Testament Prophets – article by Lionel Windsor (2003) (https://www.dougriggs.org/The_Development_and_Significance_of_the_Remnant.pdf)

Contact info:
bookministry.org@gmail.com
www.dougriggs.org