We live in ‘interesting times’ but the last twenty years of the 1700s were a lot more so. In 1770, Australia was claimed for Britain by Captain Cook and in 1778 the First Fleet arrived on its eastern coast. In 1776, just two years earlier, America had become a nation. The French Revolution took place in 1789. All these in the same decade!
If one lived in that decade and had the means to travel, it would have been possible to have been on board Captain Cook’s ship when Australia was first ‘discovered’; and to have taken part in the American Revolution; and then in the French one; and finally to have sailed on a ship in the First Fleet and entered what would become known as Sydney Harbour.
However, the likelihood of surviving the problem of scurvy in the first, a British musket ball in the second, the guillotine in the third, and then to have sailed 16,000km in seven months at sea would have been near to impossible. I’ve often wondered why a novel has not been written that included all four. What a world-changing decade that was in world history!
With this in mind, the decade we are now halfway through is even more challenging given that changes are not just taking place nationally but globally, and we are not just hearing about them but viewing them on handheld devices while they are taking place. Not just “rumors of wars” but actual wars live in real time. No wonder the nerves of people are on edge! Jesus prophesied that men’s hearts would fail them for fear of things that would come upon the earth.
However, I don’t think that prepping a well-stocked bunker in an isolated location is the answer. Far better to put yourself and your loved ones into the hands of Jesus Christ, who will guide you through the coming terrors and beyond into eternity.
The only really safe place is the will of God. Ask God to guide you and when you discover His will remain there. Matthew 11:28 is a safe shelter for you to find and then to stay in as the dark clouds of danger roll in as Jesus said they would. Psalm 91 was written for the protection of God’s people in times such as this, so pray it over your city or town. your suburb, your street, and especially your home and your family.
Those members of the First Fleet who landed in Port Jackson in 1778 saw all but one of the ships that brought them depart for Great Britain, leaving them among creatures unknown in the world from which they had come that had not existed in their imaginations, much less . They were attacked by natives, bitten by snakes, and suffered through long droughts and severe food shortages.
Some of the 1,600 soldiers, prisoners, settlers and sailors died from diseases or succumbed to expulsion, rejection and deep despair. A second supply fleet was damaged en route and turned back, leaving them alone for years on the distant shore of a vast, unknown land until a third fleet arrived.
Tough men — convicts and soldiers alike — wept openly with relief as its sails were sighted, its ships dropped anchor, and its welcome stores were unloaded and safely stored.
Now think of a promised relief coming which is beyond description: the return of Jesus Christ for his church and the snatching away from earth to heaven of true believers from a world hopelessly hostile to the name of Jesus Christ the Son of God and to those who hold his name dear and confess their faith in him as their crucified, risen, ascended and glorified Lord.
As the United States of America celebrates its 250th year as a nation, Australia is in its 248th year since the First Fleet sailed between the heads into Port Jackson (now Sydney Heads), discharged its passengers and unloaded its freight. Those left — stranded, they later thought — got to work and built railways and highways that now span the world’s largest island continent. We are ‘over’ the expulsion, rejection and deep despair (though not the stubborn reaction to those problems, as seen in the individual and national attitude of “I will do what others may think impossible, regardless”).
Australia is as safe a place as can be found anywhere else in the world. But those of us who are “in the know” in regard to the warnings of Jesus know better than to put their trust in politicians and other national leaders. Our trust, indeed, our Great Hope is in the return of Jesus for his Church and our catching away to him as revealed to Paul the Apostle and can be read in I Thessalonians 4:13-18.
But that’s not all: soon after, we who have been caught away to be with him in the clouds will return with him and then under him rule over the nations. Might it be possible that we may rule over those in our own area on earth who rejected — and in many cases killed — those Christians who had testified to Jesus as their Lord and Saviour? Time will tell — and that time is running out fast! Australians are aware of the great harvests that are reaped throughout their wide land, So, we should not be surprised when the Lord of the Harvest reaps our nation prior to his return. That harvest has begun, so pray for it to take place in your locality!