Troubling times are all around us, disasters abounding worldwide, wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes in divers places, the love of people growing cold toward one another, and it shows us something very clearly; THE WORLD NEEDS GOD.  Where is He?
   God has not moved, nor has He changed in any way.  But mankind is bound and determined to do things their way, just as they have in every generation since the Garden of Eden.  We can see over and over again how God has blessed mankind and prospered him, and they have gotten so tied up in their material goods or the quest for them, that their pursuit of God has fallen by the wayside.  Today our troubles throughout the world are clearly the result of forsaking God.  It is written in Deuteronomy 4:24-31
Deu 4:24  For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.
Deu 4:25  When thou shalt beget children, and children’s children, and ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD thy God, to provoke him to anger:
Deu 4:26  I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed.
Deu 4:27  And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the LORD shall lead you.
Deu 4:28  And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
Deu 4:29  But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
Deu 4:30  When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the LORD thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice;
Deu 4:31  (For the LORD thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.
    Now there are other Biblical examples to choose from, but this one says it so clearly that it seems the best one to use.  Ok, God said when we corrupt ourselves, bad stuff happens.  But He did give some real good news there as well, and that is in verse 29:   But IF from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him.  Friend, that’s REAL GOOD NEWS, for it is not God’s will that we be out of fellowship with Him, or out of His blessings.
 Notice too, that God said in verse 30, WHEN you are in tribulation, not IF you are in tribulation, for the devil will see to it that you will face tribulation one way or another, that the LORD will not forsake you IF you turn to the LORD.  Get this: you MUST turn to the LORD, otherwise, you will face tribulation without His help.  Maybe you’re already in that situation, and if so, the solution is as obvious as the nose on your face.  No amount of grumbling or complaining “Why ME?” is going to help your situation.  Troubles come to everyone, but what they DO about those troubles makes all the difference.
   I don’t know anyone who has led a trouble-free life and never faced problems.  Now, there are many “self-help” books out there that you can buy that offer advice on solving issues, but the ONLY solution for whatever you are facing right now is from the LORD, and He is as near as your commitment to obey Him.  Yes, you read that right, God requires your obedience.  Sorry, but I am required from my Sponsor (GOD) to disclose that little item.
    The problem is, many I have spoken to have expressed their desire for Jesus to save them, but all they want is a Savior or a Healer or to be blessed and prospered, as they are well satisfied to be Lord of their own life.  But it doesn’t work that way, for either Jesus is Lord of ALL your life, or He isn’t Lord of ANY of it.  Over and over again, history shows us that as a person, family, city, or nation has truly turned to God, He blesses them with peace and plenty.  But just like after a huge Thanksgiving dinner, we tend to get full and quickly forget the source of our blessings and go our way.  You would think after seeing this happen so many times in the past we would learn a lesson from it and avoid doing that, wouldn’t you?  Sadly, we don’t for the most part.
    Being we live in an “age of grace”, people think they can live any old way they please and God will be pleased with it.  We can easily see how society is changing, calling evil good, and good evil.  Things that would have put people in prison a generation ago is now not only called acceptable, it is being taught to our children as good, and let me tell you, GOD IS NOT PLEASED! 
    All these disasters we are seeing is not the result of Global Warming, it is the result of turning from God, and He is sending us warning after warning to repent of our evil ways and return to Him.  God is not trying to destroy us, but our sins have separated us from Him, and the devil is having a heyday with it, and the saddest part is WE CAN PUT A STOP TO IT, BUT WE JUST HAVEN’T DONE IT!!!
    You know how I love to teach about healing and blessing, and all this may sound out of character with that, but unless we deal with the root of the problem, it will remain the same old thing, like mowing down dandelions in your yard.  You can keep mowing the dandelions down, but they just keep coming back and multiplying until you start removing them by the root, then it stops.  If you have “dandelions” in your life, you’d better deal with them now, and root them out before GOD does.
   The Bible says in Proverbs 14:34, Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.  God wanted Sodom and Gomorrah to be righteous places, but they refused to repent of their wicked ways, so God took care of the problem FOR them, didn’t He?  Is that what we want to happen today?  There is an easy way, and a hard way to do things.  We all want the EASY way, but we want it so easy that we don’t even want to deal with it.  The time for all that is at an end.  God is Righteous, Holy and True, and one way or the other, He WILL have His way, and whether it’s the easy way or the hard way for us is entirely up to us.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t want what I’ve worked for my whole life to be destroyed because of sin, so I’ve opted to take care of my own sin problem by asking Jesus to be Lord of my life, and being obedient to Him.  Hopefully, everyone else will do the same.  While I’ve seen destruction all around me at times, and me spared, I still hate to see others suffer loss, especially when I know it can be prevented by repentance from sin and obedience to God.
   All sin is rebellion against God, plain and simple.  Sickness, poverty, and every other bad thing is the result of sin, which is the result of rebellion against God.  Does it mean if you’re poor or sick that you’re rebelling against God?  What if you’re still sick or poor after repenting of your sins and you are being obedient to God, what then?  Remember Sodom and Gomorrah?  God sent angels to escort Lot and his family out before fire and brimstone fell and consumed the place.  Even though Lot hated the sin going on around him, he really didn’t want to leave the place, though he actually could have left way before then, so that tells me there was a degree of compromise going on in his life that he was refusing to deal with.  And his wife was destroyed because she looked back after being told not to.  See how close destruction came to them?  Only the grace of God spared Lot and his daughters, and that was barely by the skin of their teeth.  Sin and blessing cannot coexist, regardless of what special interest groups tell you.
   If we’re not careful to obey God, we may find ourselves in the same situation Lot was in, and that wasn’t the best of life living in a cave.  God is long-suffering and kind, but He IS warning us not to be destroyed with this wicked generation.  Just pick up a newspaper and read about all the troubles going on around our nation and around the world.  It’s a warning from God to repent from sin and return to Him, both individually and corporately.  He is reaching out to us and bidding us come to Him.  Is anyone paying attention?
   Are we going to continue to mow down dandelions, or are we finally ready to uproot them and be rid of them for good?