Nation's destiny in hands of believers
by Lynley Smith of Challenge Weekly, New Zealand
March 8, 2007
AUCKLAND, NZ (ANS) -- The destiny of this nation is in the hands of the believers, says noted American Bible teacher Chuck Missler.In a speaking tour in Auckland, Wellington and at a camp at Rotorua over the past week, Mr Missler has given, again and again, that message to New Zealand.
He is in this country encouraging people to take the Bible seriously and literally.
Believers must read, believe and obey 2 Chronicles 7:14 to see their sins forgiven and their nation healed, he said.
That passage - "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."
was not about what national leaders need to do.
"The sins in New Zealand referred to are not the sins of the pagan Left but the sins of the believers.
"There must be a core of true believers, or remnant. What happens here depends on how well they get together and pray, humble themselves and seek forgiveness."
The message of the Bible was so important that each believer needed to discover it for himself, he said.
"It's too important to trust to pastors. Each person must study the scriptures with diligence. God always rewards diligence."
Mr Missler said the Church in the United States had become a "spectator sport".
"It's not teaching the Bible and Christ crucified. It has lost sight of what it's about. The answer isn't in the Church, it's in Christ."
Believers in the United States, he said, would in the near future be forced "underground", harried and attacked, not by the secular community, but by the traditional churches that have lost their Christ focus.
Church history had moved into the age of the Laodicean Church, the apostate church.
Consequently the promise of Jesus in Revelation 3:21 - "To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with me on my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne" - was to the individual, not to the Church.
"The focus has been wrong," Mr Missler said. "It's not about religion but about relationship. It's not about how many people we convert but about the behaviour of the converted."
Mr Missler has been studying and teaching the Bible for 60 years, the past 17 of them full-time, and has spent 30 years working in the "strategic" community including on intelligence think tanks in the US.
During his visit to New Zealand Mr Missler promoted his Koinonia Institute, which was founded two years ago to train researchers and develop information networks internationally.
It is growing rapidly and already has 60,000 subscribers worldwide, enabling Mr Missler to keep up with developments in the Middle East and other significant locations.
"We are monitoring trends in China, the Middle East, Europe and elsewhere and engaging more and more people to do that," he said.
The burning issue was Iran, with the high likelihood of dramatic action there in the next month or so. But the Administration in Washington did not have a real grasp on who the enemy really was.
"It's not terrorism. It's about Islam versus Christianity," Mr Missler said.
While oil would continue to be a major factor in the political manoeuvrings of the Middle East, the centre of economic power was shifting from the US to Asia.
More than half the world's gross domestic product would come out of China and India within the next 20 years. Already the European economy was producing 30 to 40 per cent more than US.
"In terms of strategic trends, I see the economic power continuing to move west and ending up back in the Middle East," he said.
The former president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, had begun rebuilding Babylon, and that city would become a centre of power in the end times," Mr Missler said.
© 2007 ASSIST News Service, used with permission.
