Signs of the times

        In Old Testament days, God would withdraw His loving care and protection from Israel when the people rejected His truths and "walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart." (Jeremiah 7:24) Left to their own resources, they often faced pestilence, drought, famine and wars -- all of which would increase in end times. 

"You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against Me. For if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you." Exodus 23:32-33

 

These former warnings apply to us today, for 1 Corinthians 10: tells us

"Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud....  But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. And do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, 'The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.' Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents; nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer.

"Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.12 Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall."