Leaving Sodom Amidst the Shakings – transcript of podcast by Christine Beadsworth
I’ve really had such a heaviness in my heart since I
heard of the decision of the Supreme Court in America to legalise gay marriage
in all 50 States because it really is the ringing of a bell in the spirit,
declaring that a different era has begun and I’ve been speaking much about the
Bride of Christ coming into the safety of the ark for the Lord’s protection, in
this time, when a flood of evil has been released on the earth and as I woke
this morning, the Lord reminded me of an article I wrote in 2010. It was called
“Leaving Sodom Amidst the Shakings” amazingly enough and I really feel in my
heart that I need to share this with you this morning. I’m going to go through
it again, although it was written almost 5 and a half years ago.
The Lord
spoke to me very strongly through a dream in January of 2010 and I had some more
revelation after that, so I would like to share that with you this morning.
Jesus said to His Disciples, describing that day on when He would be revealed,
he said: “As it was in the days of Lot, they ate, they drank, they baught, they
sold, they planted, they built, but the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained
fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so it shall be in
the day when the Son of Man is revealed. In that day, he who shall be on the
house top and his goods in the house, let him not come down to take them away
and likewise, he who is in the field, let him not return to the things behind.
Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it and
whoever shall lose his life, shall preserve it” and here we see that agáin the
wording that was used for describing what would happen in the days of Noah:
“eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage”. BUT when Jesus was
referring to Lot, He said: “eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting
and building” was taking place and I want to say to you that the Church is a
building built by the hands of God, but in these days so much uncleanness has
come into the Church and there’s a lot of eating and drinking going on in the
Church and there’s a lot of buying and selling. The tables of the Moneychangers
are very busy in the Church in these days and there’s a lot of planting. There’s
a lot of Church planting and there’s a lot of building; building of
Congregations, building of Kingdoms, building of Churches, all done in the name
of the Lord and yet, so much of what goes on in the Church of today, makes it
unclean, because the world and the spirit of this age and the spirit of the
world has come into the Church, as she has had love affairs with the things of
this world and has been in adultery. Lot had Messengers sent to him, Angelic
Messengers, to thrust him out of Sodom, even as a baby is thrust out of a womb
and those Angels spoke very urgently and had a very pressing message and it was
an overnight change.
Lot had been living in Sodom for many years. He had
been grieved at what had gone on there, at the extreme wickedness of the men and
women of Sodom and Gomorrah and he was a righteous man, but he was living in
that place. I don’t know why he didn’t move out of that place, when it was so
distressing to his soul day after day, but he was there and he even married his
daughters off to men of Sodom! And so we see that there was a lot of compromise
in Lot’s life, even though he was a child of God. The atmosphere that was in
Sodom had come into his own home and into his own family, almost the same as
when a non-smoker spends a lot of time in a room filled with smokers. Your
clothing and your garments and even your under-garments become completely
saturated with cigarette smoke and it seems that for Lot, even though he was a
righteous man and he didn’t partake in the sin of Sodom, it had permeated the
atmosphere in his own home and his daughters had become betrothed to men from
Sodom. And so God sent His angelic messengers to Lot, because of His covenant
with Abraham. In the same way, Beloved, because of God’s covenant with Abraham,
He is sending messengers to the nephews of Abraham, to the Lots, that are living
and daily conducting life in the Church System that has become like
Sodom. The Supreme Court Justice’s decision, in America, to legalise gay
marriage in all 50 States, is a grievous decision and I just want to say that
it’s a reflection, for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, of the state
of the Church. So many so-called Spiritual Leaders, who call themselves leaders
in the Body of Christ, have declared that what God calls an abomination, is not
an abomination and that it is welcome in the Church and this is the thing that
brings God’s judgement on nations and on Church Systems and we must remember
that judgement begins with the House of God, because we have the light. We
should know better. We have the Word of God; we have the truth and before God
judges a nation’s sin, He deals with the Church in that nation, because they
have allowed the smoke and the sin and the atmosphere of the sinful nation to
permeate the Church. Instead being a city set on a hill, instead of being the
light of the world in a place where there is darkness, the Church has allowed
their light to become dim and the darkness to permeate the Church in many
areas.
And so, I want to talk about Lot in a sense of him being someone
who is a Believer who is grieved by the things that are going on in the Church
and calling out to God to change them, but there comes a time when the level of
sin is so great, that God sends judgement and so it’s time for Lot to leave
Sodom. It’s time for Lot to leave Sodom and even as Jesus described so
eloquently: “In that day”. In the day when Lot is urged to leave Sodom, those
Angelic Messengers arrived as the darkness fell on that evening and before the
dawn of the next morning, Lot was out of Sodom and in the same way there’s an
urgency. There’s an urgency to come out from among that which is unclean and to
be separate. What fellowship can light have with darkness and so Jesus says:
“Those who are on the house top and their goods are in the house, let them not
come down to take them away”. If you are in a Fellowship that is condoning that
which God calls an abomination and if you are a Watchman in that Fellowship, if
you are on the house top watching and you see a thing like what has been passed
recently by the Supreme Court; if you hear certain sections of the Church
Leadership of a Congregation that you’re in declaring that evil is good and good
is evil; if you’ve got investment in the Church; if your goods are in that
house, don’t come down to take them away. Leave, flee, separate yourself from
that place! Come out from among them and be separate and you can be the sons and
daughters of God, because judgement is coming on the House of God, that calls
what is unclean, clean. You must come out. Don’t worry about what you’re going
to lose by separating yourself from those things.
It’s time for Lot to
leave Sodom. It’s time for him to be thrust out, because judgement is at the
door. It is appointed. It’s already in motion from the heavenly realms and Jesus
said: “And likewise, him who is in the field let him not return to the things
behind”. Those who are out in the fields bringing in the harvest, press forward!
Forget what lies behind and press forward to lay hold of that for which the
Bridegroom laid hold of you! Be set-apart and holy unto the Lord. Don’t return
to an unclean system. Don’t return to unclean associations. You followed the
Spirit of the Lord leading you into the harvest field, now let Him lead you on
further. Trust in Him. Don’t return to the things behind and don’t look back.
Remember Lot’s wife. If you seek to save your life, you will lose it. If you
seek to save your comfort and your reputation in the Church, if you seek to save
your comfortable lifestyle, thinking: well, I’ll just not agree with what’s been
said from the pulpit, but I’ll sit in the pew. You must understand that if you
seek to save your life, you will lose it, but if you lose your life for the sake
of Christ and for the sake of holiness and for the sake of being set-apart from
what is unclean, you will save it.
I just have such an urgency.
Everything was carrying on as usual in Sodom, just as it is within most of the
Church today and suddenly the day of judgement arrived. Just as a judgement was
passed in the Supreme Court and the White House was lit up with rainbow colours;
note it’s called the White House. When white light is divided into the colours
of the rainbow, it’s declaring something in the spirit. When the house that was
called the White House becomes the rainbow house, you need to understand that it
has become the habitation of every unclean thing and every abomination and you
need to understand the writing on the wall. My heart is heavily burdened for the
Church in the United States at this time and for all of us who live in nations
where our governments are calling what is evil good and bringing compromise and
change into the Legal System, in order to force those who want to live as
children of the light, to compromise and bend their knee at the altars of
darkness. Jesus strongly warned His disciples that when the fire started
falling, they were not to look for belongings to take with them from inside the
house. The Watchmen on the rooftop is warned to flee, just like Noah is warned
to get into the ark, because the rain of judgement is coming. The one in the
field; the hard working farmer tending his crops unto harvest, is about the
Father’s business, but he must flee so that the godly are separated from the
ungodly in the midst of the judgement by fire. In 2 Peter 2:6-9 it says:
“Turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes He condemned them with an
overthrow, setting an example to men intending to live ungodly and he delivered
just Lot, vexed with the filthy lifestyle of the wicked. For that righteous one
living among them, in seeing and hearing, his righteous soul was tormented from
day to day with their unlawful deeds. The Lord knows how to deliver the Godly
out of temptation and to reserve the unjust for the Day of Judgement to be
punished”. But how did the Lord, how did God Almighty deliver Lot? He sent His
angels, His angelic messengers to thrust Lot and his daughters out of that
unclean place. There was overnight change. There was overnight change and they
had to leave everything behind, everything they’d built up; every part of the
lifestyle that they had built for themselves. They had to flee with the clothes
upon their backs.
Lot was distraught at the behaviour he saw around him
day after day, just as some people are when they view the behaviour in many
parts of the Church, but he didn’t move out of Sodom by himself. Lot left Sodom
at the last moment and he was separated from his sons-in-law, who were unmoved
by the warnings of eminent judgement. There will always be scoffers, Beloved,
and you find them in the Church pews. There will always be a scoffer. You find
them on the porch, watching the unfolding judgements and the darkness in the
world increase and they scoff, but they do not get up and leave and Lot’s
son’s-in-law’s had to be left behind. Birds of a feather are flocking together
in these last days.
God knows how to deliver the Godly out of adversity
and appointed discipline and He does it by sending messengers to urge, warn and
finally thrust that godly out of the unclean place, appointed for judgement by
fire. There is súch an urgency to separate yourselves unto the Bridegroom and
separate yourselves from all compromise, lukewarmness and
worldliness.
For those of you interceding for backslidden friends and
family, intensify your efforts as you urge and thrust them, like a woman in
labour, out of the place of uncleanness and into the place of safety. Time is
extremely short. God is coming as a refiner’s fire and He will deal with both
the Prophet and the Priest. Jeremiah 23 from verse 11 has an incredibly sobering
passage. God says through Jeremiah: “’Both the Priest and the Prophet are
profane. In My house I’ve found their wickedness’ says the Lord. ‘Therefore
their way shall be unto them as slippery ways; In the darkness they shall be
driven on and fall in them; For I will bring evil upon them, even the year of
their visitation’, says the Lord ‘and I have seen folly in the Prophets of
Samaria. They prophesied by Baal and caused My people Israel to err. I have seen
also in the Prophets of Jerusalem a horrible thing. They commit adultery and
walk in lies; They strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none returns
from its wickedness and they are all of them unto me as Sodom and the
inhabitants thereof, as Gomorrah. Therefore’ says the Lord of Hosts concerning
the Prophets: ‘I will feed them with wormwood and make them drink the water of
gall; for from the Prophets of Jerusalem has profaneness gone forth into all the
land’. Thus says the Lord of Hosts: ‘Listen not unto the words of the Prophets
that prophesied to you. They make you vain; They speak a vision of their own
heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord. They say still to them that despise
me: the Lord has said you shall have peace and they say to everyone who walks
after the imagination of his own heart: no evil shall come upon
you’”.
Now Beloved, there are Church Leaders in this day that are
condoning this legalising of gay marriage. They are saying: “No evil shall come
upon you”. They are not standing and aligning themselves with the light. They
are aligning themselves with darkness and the Lord says: “Have nothing to do
with them. Listen not to them”. Jeremiah 23:18 continues: “For who has stood in
the counsel of the Lord and who has perceived and heard His Word? Who has marked
His Word and heard it? Behold, a whirlwind of the Lord has gone forth in fury- A
grievous whirlwind! And it shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked.
The anger of the Lord shall not return until He has executed and performed all
the thaughts of His heart and in the latter days you will understand this
perfectly. ‘I have not sent these Prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to
them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in My counsel and caused My
people to hear My words, then they should have turned them from their evil way
and from the evil of their doings.’
‘Am I a God at hand’, says the Lord
‘and not a God far off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places that I not see
him? Do I not fill heaven and earth? I have heard what the Prophets said that
prophesy lies in My name saying: I have dreamed, I have dreamed! How long will
this be in the hearts of the Prophets that prophesy lies? They are the Prophets
of the deceit of their own heart, which think to cause My people to forget My
name by their dreams, which they tell every man to his neighbour. The Prophet
that has a dream, let him tell a dream and he that have My word, let him speak
My word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat?’ says the Lord. ‘Is My word
not like a fire?’ says the Lord ‘and a hammer that breaks the rock in
pieces?’
Beloved, for too long the Church has been flooded with
prophecies that stroke the flesh instead of releasing a true word of the Lord
that will convict and bring repentance. It is a sure sign that those who call
themselves Prophets, have in fact not stood in the Lord’s counsel, but
prophesied out of the deception of their own hearts and thís leaves the Church
unaware, indolent and unprepared for what or who is at the door. It is time to
speak the truth in love as never before. A true word from the Lord will turn a
man from His evil way, not convince him that all will be well with him if he
continues in his sin. Enough of shallow, fleshly, pseudo-prophetic words and New
Age Witchcraft masquerading as messages from the Lord.
The Body of
Christ is appointed a cleansing at the Bridegroom’s threshing floor. The Lord of
the Harvest will in the days ahead, be releasing a fiery word to those He loves;
a word that rebukes and chastens in order to prepare a people who are fit to
rule and reign with Him. At the threshing floor the wheat is struck and shaken
with the winnowing fan in order to separate the chaff from the wheat and the
wind helps with the process as the wheat is tossed in the air. The process
continues until there is no more chaff clinging to the wheat. This speaks of
shaking, shaking, shaking and wind blowing. Then the wheat is stored in the barn
and the chaff appointed for the fire. The Lord of the Harvest is focused and
intent on providing bread from Heaven for the nations and at His threshing
floor, He unleashes a work that separates and cleanses.
Hebrews 12:25
says: “See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape
those who refused Him that spoke on earth, how much more we shall not escape if
we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, who’s voice then shook the earth,
but now He has promised saying: ‘Yet once more I will not only shake the earth,
but also the heavens’ and thís word ‘yet once more’ signifies the removing of
those things that are shaken as of things that had been made, so the things that
cannot be shaken may remain. Since we are receiving a Kingdom that cannot be
shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence
and Godly fear for our God is a consuming fire”.
The only thing Beloved
that cannot be shaken within us, is the Kingdom of God and all that is
counterfeit and fleshly is removed at the threshing floor. Thank God for His
winnowing process. I want you to think right back to the days in 2010, when
Haiti was struck with an earthquake. For the Church in Haiti there was no more
time for preparation. With the first tremblings of that earthquake, it had
begun. Their lives would never be the same again and what they had at that
moment stored within them, would be what they had to draw on in the coming
hours, days, months and years.
Beloved, the same thing applies for the
Church in America. The shaking and the earthquake has begun. With that Supreme
Court judgement the shaking has begun and there is no more time for preparation.
Your lives are never gonna be the same. You’re going to have to decide: are you
going to stand up for the truth and enjoy the persecution that comes with that
decision or are you going to compromise to save your life? You have to realise
that there’s a price to be paid for serving the Lord Jesus Christ. There’s a
price to be paid as a Believer for holiness and being set apart.
Jesus
prayed in John:17 “I pray that You do not take them out of the world, but
protect them from the evil one”. Now God works in a specific way, when we
separate ourselves from that which is darkness - He doesn’t take us out of the
world, but He hides us in the secret place of His presence. He hides us in the
secret place of the Most High. We are in the world, but not of the world, but we
have to make sure that there is no darkness inside of us, because the darkness
on the outside can only affect us if there is darkness on the
inside.
It’s time, Beloved, to shut the windows of your soul and stop
looking at the darkness. When Noah built that ark, there was a window built very
high up. He didn’t have a window low down where he could look out and see what
was happening with the wicked and watch the drowning and the flooding taking
place. The window was high up to look towards the heavens and I want to say as
an eminent warning: the television is a place that floods your home with
darkness to a very large extent. Almost every television programme these days
has some form of gay agenda inserted into it. Darkness and violence and
bloodshed and uncleanness and the things that God calls an abomination are now
portrayed as normal and funny and likeable and a thing to be embraced, by the
programmes that are being released by Hollywood in these days.
I want to
say to you: you need to print yourself out a sign and stick it above your
television. It comes out of Psalms. David said: “I will set before my eyes no
vile thing” and we need to learn to have the self-control to switch off the
television when there is uncleanness being spewed from it. In fact, your
television will be switched off most of the time. We have to close our windows
to stop the stench of what is unclean, coming in and your eyes and your ears are
the windows to your soul. If you continually allow your mind and your heart to
be penetrated by darkness, you will find that you do not have the strength or
the power to withstand what darkness is doing in the earth in these
days.
Part of holiness and being set-apart is purity; purity within.
Whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is beautiful, think on these
things, the Lord urges us. It’s not acceptable any more to watch a comedian
spewing forth filthy jokes and glorifying and declaring lovely that which God
calls filthy and an abomination. It’s not acceptable, Church of Jesus Christ.
It’s not acceptable, Bride of Christ and we need to examine our hearts and we
need to repent before the Lord for the extent to which we’ve allowed ourselves
to be contaminated and made unclean by our love affairs and our dancing with the
spirit of this age.
You know, recently in South Africa, an American
woman tourist was in a Game Park and she was killed by a lion, because she had
her window open and she was taking photographs of the wild animals. It was a
really shocking thing and a tragic way to die, but I want to say this to you:
she ignored 40 signs which said “Do not open your windows in the Game Park”. She
ignored those signs and she continued to roll down her window and to take
photographs.
Now, Beloved, there is such a lesson in that. The Word says
that Satan goes around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Now you
might have your window rolled down and open and taking prophetic pictures of
what is going on amongst the beasts outside. You might feel that you’re getting
a message that you can later relay to others and that the Lord is going to speak
to you through that, but I’m saying to you there have been more than 40 signs
saying: “Do not let your windows roll down in the Game Park”. Do not allow the
windows of your soul to look upon and hear that which is filthy and unclean,
because your enemy is going round like a roaring lion and he wants to devour
you! And I want to say, as a significant warning to God’s prophetic people in
these days: “Shut your window! Shut your window!” You cannot, I repeat, you
cannot keep looking out upon that which is unclean and thinking that you can get
a message for the Church from what is unclean! There’s been message after
message after message from God’s messengers about holiness; about coming out
from among them and being separate.
When you hide in the secret place of
the Most High, your windows must be shut. You can’t have your head hanging out
the window looking at the uncleanness that’s going on and expect to not be
devoured; it’s foolishness! It’s foolishness and you will pay the price for it!
David said: “My eyes will look upon no unclean thing”. He said: “Oneness have I
desired of the Lord. That will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of
the Lord all the days of my life to behold His beauty”. Your eyes should be
beholding the beauty of the Lord in these days like never before, people of God.
Your ears should be listening to the Word of God or to edifying worship music.
Don’t listen to music that is full of profanity and unclean things and talking
about things that are not fit for the Body of Christ to listen to. The world has
become a very unclean place. There’s wickedness and if you want to survive in
these days, you’re going to have to come out from among them and be separate.
You may be in the world, but you cannot be of the world in any way, if you want
to survive.
Jesus said to the Church of Philadelphia in Revelation that
He would protect them from the things that were coming on the earth and we are
urged to pray that we may be found worthy to escape the things that are coming
on the earth, but the only way you’re going to escape the things coming on the
earth, is if you are in a place of holiness, set-apart and holy for your
Bridegroom with your face veiled, not available to the seducing spirits that are
knocking at your door.
Do you know that when the angel messengers went
to Lot in Sodom, those men of Sodom hammered on the door and said: “Give us your
visitors that we may sleep with them”. Can you imagine that? How despicable! You
need to understand that when the message of God comes to you, calling you to
holiness, you need to embrace it, you need to listen to it, you need to do
whatever it takes to leave the place of uncleanness that you’ve been dwelling in
for a long time. There’s no time left for compromise. There’s no time left for
procrastination. We only have to look at what’s happening to the Church in Iraq
and Syria and what ISIS is doing to them, to understand that destruction can
come upon one overnight. We have to seek the face of God and the Spirit of the
Living God and pray that we may be counted worthy to escape the things that are
coming on the earth.
The ark that is built for us has a window high up.
It’s not a window that looks out to view all the uncleanness that’s outside.
There was such wickedness in Noah’s day. God didn’t want him to look out on that
any more. Do you know that when God said in Genesis 6:16 “You shall make a
window for the Ark and finish it to a cubit above and the door of the Ark you
shall put on the side”, do you know that that word translated ‘window’ there,
it’s the only time in the whole Bible that it’s translated ‘window’. Every time
in the rest of the Word, where it speaks of a window, it’s a different Hebrew
word. So this word where God said: “You shall put a window in the Ark”, we have
to look into that word. That word actually means ‘double light’, and it comes
from a root word meaning ‘to press out oil’. So that window that was high up in
the Ark was for seeing in the spirit. It was set above. During the flood, Noah
could not look out at what was going on. He could look up into the heavens and
seek God’s face.
Don’t be like that poor woman that ignored the 40
warning signs and continued to take pictures out of her window, thinking she had
everything under control. You know, she was so busy focusing on the picture she
was taking, that she didn’t see the lion sneaking up from the side on her and
people in other cars hooted to try and get her attention, but she didn’t hear
them and that lion grabbed her by the throat. Remember the warning from the Lord
about wearing the shoes of the Gospel of Peace and drinking from the river
within. Don’t drink from the river of filth that is being spewed out from hell
in these days.
Why is it that Believers are still open to and exposing
themselves to the playing field of the enemy, putting themselves in danger of
being devoured? I speak to you urgently about these things. Remember: we are the
light of the world. God is light and there is no darkness in Him. There’s no
shadow of turning. We must be children of light. Where our feet have strayed
back into the kingdom of darkness and we have had our head hanging out of the
window, breathing in the air on the playing field of the enemy, we need to
repent! We need to repent and come back into the secret place of the Most High
and close our windows!
The Word also says, “Who is he who will dwell on
the heights? He who shuts his eyes to avoid looking on evil and closes his ears
to the hearing of bloodshed. Such a man will dwell on the heights. His water
will be given to him and food will be sure and his eyes will behold the King in
His glory”. We have to believe what the Word says in these days and more than
that, we have to build our lives on the Rock of the Word, because the shaking is
not only coming, the shaking is here, Church of the living God. The shaking is
here. Root yourselves in the Word of God. Root yourselves in the cross of
Christ. Hide yourselves in the secret place of the Most High. Be ín the world,
but so completely dífferent to the world, that you can be the light in an
increasing darkness and the glory of the Lord will be upon you.
God
bless you. May the Spirit continue to úrge you to come out of Sodom in évery way
that is applicable in your lives, in every area where the atmosphere of Sodom
has permeated. Come out! Leave the goods in the house. If you’re in the field,
press forward, don’t go back! In the name of Jesus I implore you.
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