If you're asking me if He made a personal appearance (as in a vision) and told me about what would happen, then no, He didn't. However God does speak to our spirits in the person of His Spirit. When we are submitted to Jesus' "headship" He talks to us through His word, He reveals things to our hearts and to our minds. Some people, charismatics mostly, would say that the Holy Spirit gives us the unction to do things for the glory of Christ. The brother that lead me to the Lord was "told" to go ahead and share the gospel with me and then to pray with me, in spite of the fact that I argued with him for a number of years over the scriptures, seeking explanations to verses and passages that I didn't (and couldn't) understand or reconcile. The time was right for me to receive Jesus as my Lord, the years of my questioning and rebellion were over. I didn't know that, until that moment. Neither did my brother in Christ, Jerome, but He was faithful to do what the Lord "told" him to do, and I received Christ in the person of the Holy Spirit. That's the nature of divine appointments, but not something we can easily explain or understand.
I take the word of God very seriously, and know that I'm accountable for what I say and write, and probably more so than most. I was called to a "prophetic" office, which is something many cringe at because they know that the Revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ is complete. However, the office of the prophet is more about course correction for God's people than it ever was about revealing God. Prophets in our age are not here to reveal something new, but to point to that which God has revealed in the person of His Son, to remind God's people that they are His subjects and answer to His Word, both that which is written, and He who became flesh and blood for our sake. A faithful Pastor, at least one that is effective, is generally a prophet. God shows the Pastor things from the scripture that apply to the Pastor and to his congregation and the Pastor's job is to present an appropriate message to the congregation (usually in the context of biblical exegesis) to express what the Lord has taught (shown to) him. The effectiveness of the message is in part determined by the ability of the Pastor to communicate it, but if the Pastor is filled with the Holy Spirit, then Christ will be glorified, the words will be understood, and those who are meant to receive it most certainly will. Effective preaching is that in which the Lord puts His words into the mouth of the prophet. That gift isn't necessary to teach, but it is necessary to preach. Of course, some don't realize that they have it, and some are foolish enough to believe that their effectiveness comes from their own resources. However, we know from the scripture that God was able to make a donkey speak to Balaam, which tells us that our credentials are not that significant.
So in response to your query, "Did God Himself tell me this?" My answer would be, "absolutely." There have been times that I've said or written things a bit frivolously, sometimes jokingly, sometimes responding in "the flesh" to something non-spiritual, and looking back at such times I always have cause to regret it. The book of James has something to say about the tongue and it's power, if you're interested. Every Christian who considers teaching or preaching should spend some time studying what James had to say to the Church, but then every such person should spend some time studying the entire counsel of God.
When I preach, I approach the pulpit with some trembling and a sense of my own accountability, but that tends to disappear as soon as the Holy Spirit takes over. It was that way for me before I was saved as well, and then I found it frightening.(My understanding is that such experience is not typical, but I've met others who've had the same sense of it.) Now I find the Spirit of the Lord my greatest comfort and a reassurance of my salvation. I've "heard" other voices, as it were, and I've seen the source of many heresies in the course of my own studies, but His Spirit lets me know that those other voices aren't His and are untrustworthy. The Lord preserves His own and that's something we can rest in as well. There were many times in my life when I should have died, or I might have ended up in prison, or crippled, but the Lord has preserved me through all. This however, is not the amazing thing. The truly amazing thing, the marvelous thing, the thing beyond my comprehension, is that there was nothing in me that "deserved" to be preserved. It was solely the work of His grace, before I was saved and after. He knows His own, even when we don't know that we are His. How could someone not love God seeing all that He has done? I realize that in that sense, I've received more grace than many; some have been damaged physically beyond what is normal for despair, some have been saved in the midst of prison (at least one while hanging on a cross), but I suppose that I received more grace, because I had more sin in me. I'm sure that this will be clarified before His throne, but I'm not afraid to appear before Him empty handed, because I have a covering, the blood of Christ who died for me so that I might live for Him. Praise His name, even the name of our Savior, blessed forever, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Sounds nice, but universalism always does. God's judgment fell on Jesus at the cross for those who would receive Him. He experienced wrath in our place, but not for those who reject them. I recommend that you spend a little more time in the book and a little less time listening to those with no comprehension of God's holiness or the nature of divine judgment. If you're going to deny the scripture and make God out to be a liar, then I'd appreciate it if you didn't call yourself a "christian." if you really do know Him, then perhaps you need to know Him better. Those who believe HIm have passed out of judgment, but the world was purified once with water and will be purified again with fire. God said it and that finishes it.
I need to say a little more than I have with regard to 9/11 and the judgment of God. 9/11 was not "the" judgment of the USA, but it was a warning of sorts. The US started down the road to judgment at least as early as the removal of the scripture as an educational text book. The fear of God has a power to preserve even unregenerate men, and without it there is no source of faith short of God speaking directly to each one of us.
The wrath of God is expressed in many ways. The Apostle Paul tells us in the book of Romans that God's wrath is manifested in things which we now tend to culturally accept, such as homosexuality. Just writing the last could cast me in some eyes as "homophobic" or as a "hate monger," but according to the word of God, this expression of "human rights" is also an expression of His wrath.
The gospel according to Luke tells us that on one occasion some present with Jesus brought up a recent mass murder by Pilate of some Galileans and Jesus made this comment: [sup]2 [/sup]And Jesus answered and said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? [sup]3 [/sup]I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. [sup]4 [/sup]Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? [sup]5 [/sup]I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”Luke 13:2-5
Jesus knew that judgment was coming upon Jerusalem and expressed this during His "triumphal" entry into the city just prior to His arrest and execution: [sup]34 [/sup]“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing! [sup]35 [/sup]See! Your house is left to you desolate; and assuredly, I say to you, you shall not see Me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ”Luke 13:3
Those people who died on 9/11 are called innocent in that they were just ordinary people going about their lives and probably didn't deserve such awful deaths, but in the eyes of God, none of us are free of the guilt of sin and we all owe the Lord a life (the soul that sins shall die.) Jesus paid the price of our sin with His own blood, but not everyone receives Him or is freed from the wrath of God. We die when we die, because under sin we all die. For Christians physical death is just a transition from grace to greater grace, a purification in nature when we put off the old nature once and for all time, but until the Lord returns we all experience dying. The Christians who died on 9/11 just went home. For the rest, their troubles were really just starting. Were they worse sinners than anyone else? Of course not. Everyone is a creature under the wrath of God until God releases us from judgment through faith in Christ Jesus and the price that He paid for us, for our redemption.
Don't think for a moment that God only judged nations prior to the death and resurrection of our Lord. Many nations have been judged since AD 1, and many no longer exist. If you don't understand this, then you just don't understand (or believe) in the Sovereign reign of our Lord. We can't see God's sovereign hand in the death of an infant or in the murder of a young mother, a child with cancer, or something else that we can only see as unjust, yet we don't see things as God sees them or understand things as God understands them. We have no idea what one "innocent" persons death will mean to another person who is alive or what effect will come about in the larger scheme of things, but that doesn't mean that all things don't happen for some reason. Some mysteries are God's alone. We are left however, with the choice of believing Him and knowing that His character is entirely good, or disbelieving Him and suffering the eternal consequence, not annihilation, but eternal suffering and shame in our separation from Him. We make judgments based upon our experience and limited knowledge, but nothing we might suffer in this life carries the weight of eternal damnation. Life is short, like a vapor of breath on a cold morning, but everlasting life is eternal.
When we believe that we exist for our own purpose, God seems unjust or unfair, but when we understand that we exist for His purposes, the only thing that matters is pleasing Him. What pleases Him is our faith, and not that which we conjure up on our own, but what He gives us through His Spirit and the hearing of His word, to the belief and to the honor of His Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen
Some people think that things will go on and on just as they always have, or that men will survive here, or expand out into the universe to survive long after our own sun destroys itself in the slow cosmological cycle of destruction and creation. These things however disagree with scripture and with the revealed will and purpose of God. Modern man believes that he has all the answers, or that no one does, because the answers always change. God answers everything, but the rebellious will not hear His voice. However, everyone shall hear Him in judgment. There is no place where one can hide from Him (though Adam might have believed differently.) Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart as they did in the rebellion. The days are growing shorter (those who were in the military will appreciate that reference: time to go home is near and not far.) If you know Him, then all you really need do is keep your focus on Him, the source of true light, because the darkness is all around us.The Lord will allow the rebellion to take its full course, but then He will show Himself, All mighty, and be glorified in judgment for every eye to see. Amen.
I don't want to be perceived as a transgressor here. Its not that I'm looking forward in anticipation of God's judgment, but I am looking forward in anticipation of Christ's return and they go together. Consequently to the unregenerate, Christians appear as those anxious for death (and have that smell of death about them), but as Christians we have a longing to put off what remains of this dead life and to know the fullness of life that we can never experience outside of the fullness of Christ. "Whoever loves his life will lose it, but whoever hates his life will find it." We can experience a taste of eternal life in knowing the Lord, but we can't imagine the glories to come and the wonder of the fullness of His presence. How wonderful the day when we shall know Him as He is and be like Him. That's somewhat incomprehensible, yet it remains apprehendable by faith. How awesome is our God! Amen & Amen