19. August 2002
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Liebe Freunde in Christus,

MAY GOD BLESS AND PRESERVE YOU IN ALL YOUR WAYS.

While writing this letter, I look out my window to a field of brown, dying grass and trees withering in the hot sun. We are in a drought here in the northeast. Yesterday, it was reported that one third of our nation is suffering drought conditions. Add to these concerns the fires burning in many states, and it sounds like the prophetic warning of the prophet Joel who called these disasters signs or evidence of judgment upon his nation.

"The field is wasted...the harvest of the field is perished. The vine is dried up...even all the trees of the field are withered...The seed is rotten under their clods...the corn is withered...herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture...fire hath devoured the pastures...rivers are drying up" (Joel 1:10-20)

When Joel saw these disasters, including invasions of locusts and other devouring insects, he called the nation and the people of God to a fast. "Call a solemn assembly...for the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the almighty shall it come" (Joel 1:14-15).

Where do these disasters come from, according to Joel? "...As a destruction from the almighty." It was God who sent fire on Sodom and Gomorrah. It was God who sent the flood to avenge violence and wickedness in Noah's time. All through the Old Testament, God sent famines on nations to avenge his holy people. "Moreover he [God] called for a famine upon the land: he brake the whole staff of bread" (Psalm 105:16).

Jesus warned, "Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places" (Matthew 24:7).

I tell you, all these things coming upon our nation and the world simultaneously are not nature "taking its course." It is God, pleading, warning, increasing his call to repentance with each new disaster. Have we forgotten the fall of the Twin Towers? Is America beyond hearing God's prophetic warnings?

God has a holy remnant who fully understands what is happening. They know none of this is normal, that it is not accidental or happenstance. It is God, calling us to fall on our knees and turn from our sins, our blood shedding of innocents, our sexual madness. God help us.

Thank God for those who pray, who hear, who fear the Lord and who plead for God's mercy on our land and an awakening in the church.

Your help is needed - both in prayer and in finances. God bless you.

Sein Diener,
David Wilkerson

DW:bbm:19. August 2002