One in Three Million One Hundred Forty Thousand

“For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”  — Genesis 18:32

I love this dramatic conversation between The Lord and Abraham.  The Lord told Abraham that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were about to be destroyed because of their wickedness.  Abraham immediately went to work.  He said “Lord, if there are 50 righteous will you spare it?”  The Lord said “yes.”  Abraham proceeded to press his luck and went to 45, then 40, then 30, then 20, then finally stopped at 10.  The Lord said “for the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”

Surely, there would be 10 righteous people that feared the Lord in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah…right?  Wrong!  Turns out there were only 3…there should have been 4, but Lot’s wife just couldn’t let go of the place in her heart.  She was turned into a pillar of salt for “looking back.”  This makes me absolutely thank the Lord because there were a few years that I felt like I got ripped off trying to live this new Christian life and looked back at my old group of friends and longed to go back to that group.  I should have been turned into salt during that time, but now it just makes me love Him all the more.  Luke 17:32 says “Remember Lot’s wife.”  Every once in a while, I do remember her.  I think of what God brought me out of and the new life He gave me.  What else can I do but say “I love you, Lord!”

Now, I looked up the population of those two ancient cities.  The population appears to have been between 600 and 1200 people.  For the sake of easy math, I’m going to say the population was 1,000 people.  This means that when Abraham started his negotiations with God, he started with 50 out of 1,000 people, or 5% of the population.  “Lord, if 5% of the population is righteous, will you destroy it?”  Then, it went to 4.5%, then 4%, then 3%, then 2%, then all the way down to 1%.  Think about that.  God said that He would not destroy the land if ONE PERCENT of the population is righteous.

It is no secret that America is at a critical point in history.  We recently celebrated our 236^th birthday as a nation.  There is very little doubt that we are under the preliminary stages of judgment.  The majority of the population is greedy, selfish, violent, lazy, and highly immoral…at least according to the Bible’s standard of morality.    We are approaching a 16 trillion dollar national debt.  To get just a little perspective on that…16 trillion seconds ago was 507, 356 YEARS ago!!! So, if someone would just be willing to give a dollar per second to the government, the debt will be paid off in about a half a million years…except for the fact we are continuously racking up even more debt.  The point is…there will be a breaking point.  God’s judgment has come and is coming to a nation that has forsaken Him.  (for an UNBELIEVABLE read on this, read “The Harbinger” by Jonathan Cahn)

In the school that I teach, I asked some kids “How many people in this school REALLY live out Christianity? Not just say they are Christians…but DO Christianity?”  The average answer was 6 people.  That means in our little school about 6 out of 300 really live out the Christian life.  Now, there might be more…but if other people do not perceive you as being a Christian, does it really matter?  I dare you to ask someone fairly close to you this question:  “What do you see in me that would make you think I don’t actually believe what I say I believe?”  Let me tell you about a time that I did it.

I had a kid in my class that gave me the hardest time.  He was ridiculously lazy, was constantly getting into trouble, constantly making excuses…you know the deal.  I talked to him after school one day.  For whatever reason, even though it had nothing to do with our conversation, he just blurted out of nowhere “people say they are Christians…but they ain’t.”  This caught me off guard, but I went ahead and took this opportunity.  I said “well, I’m a Christian…do you think I am?”  He quickly said “No!”  Yes…this stung quite a bit.  I said “What have I done, or what do I do?”  He told me “You told us at the beginning of the year that you would start over brand new with us every single school day.  You said you wouldn’t hold the things we did the previous day over our heads.”  (I did say that)  He went on to say “but ever since I said (something that would make this WMD ridiculously long if I explained it), you have continuously thrown it back in my face.”  I was absolutely bombed with conviction.  I did the only thing I knew to do.  I said “well, here is something else that real Christians do.  When they realize they are wrong…they apologize and try to make things right.  Dude…I’m sorry.  You are 100% correct and I will stop as of right now.  Will you forgive me?”  I’ll never forget the look on his face.  He couldn’t believe that a teacher was asking for his forgiveness.  To make a long story short, our relationship in class got much, much better, and he ended up giving his life to the Lord!

In the school that I teach, 6 out of 300 is 2% of the population.  We have such a small school that there is constant talk of us being shut down and moving our population to other schools.  I like to constantly remind God…If just 1%, if just 3 out of 300 in this school really love and serve you…will you spare it?

In my country, there are currently 314 million people.  Are there currently 3,140,000 people in love and on fire for the Lord Jesus Christ?  That would be 1 % of the population.  Now, there are well over this many people who say they are Christians.  But what is that actual number of people who have accepted God, and then taken that ridiculously hard step of actually following Him?

Are you one of the 3,140,000?

Later

Adam