THE COMING ANNOUNCEMENT

THE COMING ANNOUNCEMENT

                “But if some of the branches were broken off and you, being a wild olive were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the rot, but the root supports you. For I do not want you, brethren, to be misinformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and thus all Israel will be saved… for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.        Romans 11:17, 18, 25, 29.

                The false doctrine, of replacement theology that I grew up with, teaches that God’s promises to Israel were conditional… that upon their rejection and crucifixion of Christ, the Jews were cut off from God’s promises and replaced by the church. But here in Romans 11 such a doctrine is emphatically denied. Instead some of the Jewish branches were temporarily cut off so that the church could be grafted in. We inherit the promises not by replacing the Jews, but by becoming part of them and thus through Christ, (who was also born into the Jewish race) we become Abraham’s seed and heirs along with the Jews according to promise.

                According to Romans 11 and elsewhere, the blindness of the unbelieving Jews is temporary and God will begin to work with them again when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in putting the pieces of the puzzle together, we surmise that God will begin His program with the Jews in what we know to be the “Time of Jacob’s Trouble.” (A time that I believe reflects either the last 3 ½ or 7 years of the 70^th week of Daniel 9:24-27. (Some believe that Jesus fulfilled the first 3 ½ years at His first coming while the last 3 ½ years (1260 days )will be fulfilled just bfore His second coming.)

                So much of Protestant and Catholic theology has been based upon replacement theology that most of the church doesn’t know which promises apply to Jews and which promises apply to the church and which belong to both Jews and the church.  The truth is in the end we will all inherit the promises together, but each in our own time and way.

                 For nearly 2000 years the false church has been trying to gain control of Jerusalem, but so far God has prevented it because it is all wrapped up in earth’s final events when the third temple is built and the antichrist steps into the holy place and declares that He is God. This is going to happen folks and we need to adjust our thinking to fit reality. But we live in very scary times because I also believe that Satan will use this very event as a part of his grand delusion.

                He is going to use false Jews (Who say they are Jews and are not, but are of the synagogue of Satan Rev. 3:9) And false Christians, the false church that has been with us since Constantine helped the Church to separate from and to persecute the Jews… to pull off a fake millennial reign.

                This is a part of Jesus’ warning concerning the very end time when He said in Mt. 24:15, 16: “Therefore when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, (let the reader understand) then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains…”

                In our foolishness in replacing Israel with the church, we have had to make Judea to be the entire world and thus, Christians in America flee to the mountains, even though this prophecy is written as a warning to Jews living in Israel in that specific portion of the land of Israel in which Jerusalem resides called Judea. Can you not see these events shaping up in Israel today?

                NOW…I have laid this background in order to tell you about the COMING ANNOUNCEMENT. Drs. Jack and Rexella van Impe have been ministering the Gospel for 70 years now, much of it on radio and TV. Jack van Impe is like a walking Bible. He knows by heart 18,000 verses in the Bible including chapter and verse.

                Being almost 90 years old, Jack recently went through an illness that nearly cost him his life. He was at death’s door on numerous occasions and finally lapsed into a coma for 60 days. Rexella sat by his side praying for him throughout the entire episode until after 60 days, he became conscious again. The problem was he couldn’t even remember his own name, let alone those 18,000 Bible texts. His ministry was seemingly over with, but God has been miraculously restoring his health and his memory to the point where he is back on You Tube with Rexella and they are doing their ministry as in times past.

                However, this time around, he has had a visitation from the Holy Spirit, who told him that he would be the first person in history to officially announce the soon coming of the Lord. The Lord gave him the information which he has recorded ahead of time so that in case he was to die before the date given for the announcement, it will go forth with or without him. But the date for the announcement will be May 14, 2018.

                Most of us may know by now that May 14^th will be the 70^th birthday of Israel, a nation born in a day on May 14^th 1948. It was a date when all replacement theology people should have gone back to the drawing board of prophecy to find their mistake and many did, but many others were stubborn and unwilling to change their doctrine.

                I don’t know what Jack van Impe is going to announce exactly. I don’t think it would be an exact date of Christ’s return. Dr. van Impe believes in a pre-tribulation rapture… and with the 70^th year of Israel coming up, it brings sharply into mind the statement of Jesus in Mt. 24:36 saying: “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” Well which generation? It would be the generation that sees the fig tree come to life and the fig tree represents Israel. See Mt.24:32-34

                Now during the same program where Jack told us that He was going to make his announcement on May 14 of this year, he also began to sound warnings against anti-Semitism and replacement theology. And he said a few things that I had not known before.

                He said that in the King James Bible and most subsequent translations, the name of Jerusalem has been replaced 814 times by the word heaven. This, of course was done to divert attention away from God’s continuing purposes for the Jews and to center it on the church. But even more shocking than that he says that the word “Israel” has been replaced by the word “Church” 2600 times.

                So if this is the case, then the church has been led astray and blinded to God’s end time purposes for the Jews. We have been led down a path of replacement theology since the beginning, and it has only been the event of Israel’s actually coming back into their land as promised that that has prompted a new study of God’s plans and purposes in the end times. Some have criticized this new messianic information as having been concocted to throw the church off track, but think about it. Did the return of the nation of Israel as promised change everything or did it not? It absolutely did.

                Dr. van Impe went on to remind us that of our 66 books of the Bible, 64 of them were written by Jews, that Jesus Himself was sent as the promised Jewish Messiah, born of the Jews and the only 2 books of the Bible written by a Gentile were the books of Luke and Acts, both written by Dr. Luke.

                We need to remind ourselves of a very pointed statement by Jesus when He said: “You worship that which you do not know; we worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews.” Luke 4:22.

                Think about it: The Bible came from them and the Messiah came from them. Without those two things there would be no church and there would be no Gospel and no hope in the world. We need to give credit where credit is due, for just as in the story of Joseph; the brothers first tried to kill him and then sold him to traders so that he ended up a slave in Egypt; Joseph eventually rose to the second highest position in Egypt and he informed his brother saying: “What you meant for evil, God meant for good. Likewise God’s people meant the death of Jesus for evil, but with that death He brought salvation to the whole world, even as Joseph, brought salvation to Israel during the famine.

                Don’t let these Bible stories be lost on you. This is a story of Jesus and the Jews. The Jews no longer recognize Yeshua because He has been made to look like a Gentile even as they didn’t recognize Joseph because he looked like an Egyptian. And that is why in the end “They will look upon Him whom they have pierced and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son and they will weep bitterly over Him, like the bitter weeping over a first-born.” Zech. 12:10.

                So I await Dr. van Impe’s announcement on May 14^th of this year, but I do so with fear and trepidation. I hope and pray that he has truly heard from God and not from another. After all, there is going to be a fine line between the coming millennial reign of Christ and the coming false millennial reign of the antichrist and therein will be the great delusion that will fool even the very elect if possible.

                There are those who say they are Jews and are not and there are those who say they are Christians and they are not. These forces are rallying even now to create a religious, political and financial New World Order, by which they will control the buying and selling of the whole world. Many will be deceived because much of the church no longer studies Bible Prophecy and even among those that do study prophecy many have it wrong or at the very least incomplete, because they don’t understand God’s separate and unique roles in the end times for Jews and Christians.

                We fancy that the Time of Jacob’s Trouble is for us when in fact it may not be. Romans 11:25 informs us that there will be a time when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in and God will turn once again to save Israel. These are not my ideas. They are stated clearly in Romans 11 exactly what God’s purposes are. We have been grafted in to the Fig tree through Yeshua, but we have also been promised that if we receive Yeshua as our Savior, we will not have to endure the wrath of God. (Rom.5:9, 1 Thess. 1:10, 1Thess 5:9, Rev. 3:10)

                I don’t profess to know and to understand all these things, and I am certainly not trying to convince anyone of my point of view. All I am saying is that we are entering into precarious times and we need to study and pray like never before that God will give us understanding and discernment, because, one way or the other, I believe we are entering into the greatest time of upheaval the world has ever seen and I believe that it may begin in 2018 following the 70^th birthday of Israel.

                This is why God has been flashing blood moons and total eclipses and signs in the sun, moon and stars, (all on His appointed times) along with perplexity the sea and the waves roaring and men’s hearts failing them for fear. God is about to shake the heavens and not only the heavens but the earth also so that everything that doesn’t belong to Him will be shaken out. We need to learn how to dwell in the secret place of the Most High.

                As for the pre-trib rapture, I can’t say. All I know is that according to 2 Thess. 2:3, 4, that day cannot come until there is a great apostasy (Falling away) so that the man of sin, the son of perdition can be revealed. I believe the apostasy is well under way and I also believe that the antichrist is waiting in the wings for the “restrainer” or “preventer” to be removed. Is it the church? Is it the Holy Spirit? Is it the four angels that hold back the winds of strife?

                Nobody knows for sure. And even some of the best prophetic outlines of the coming great controversy, may be distorted because of replacement theology. They were written at a time before Israel came back into their own land to fulfill end time Bible prophecy just as God promised… and that really does change everything.

                This is why we must study Bible prophecy with fresh eyes and with much prayer. It is also why we need more than technical understanding of these things. We need to walk and talk with God so that we will know Him and He will know us. If we truly know Him, then we will be able to discern the wrong spirits as they seek to usurp the place of Christ. Information is not enough, but neither can it be ignored, for as Jesus said, “Those who worship Him must worship both in Spirit and in Truth. John 4:23.

                So we should not come out with guns blazing to defend our own particular traditions or points of view, rather let us humble ourselves before God and ask Him to teach us and to guide us through the perilous days ahead.

                Even in the event of an announcement by Dr. van Impe, who knows 18,000 Bible verses by heart and has through his 70 years of ministry won 5 million people to Christ, I will test what he says against scripture and I will pray for God to either confirm or deny his message according to His Word. This is not to denigrate the ministry of Jack van Impe. He is a faithful servant of God. But even the Apostle Paul admonished his listeners to search the scriptures to see if the things he said were so.

                We are all fallible human beings who see through a glass darkly. None of us will see with perfect clarity until the day when we meet Him face to face. Bible prophecy has been purposely written in a way that is impossible to fully understand intellectually. God will not tip His hand to Satan, for even at His first coming it says that if the principalities had understood God’s plan, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory. (1 Cor. 2:8) What they meant for victory became their ultimate defeat.

                This is why we need more than intellectual truth: “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” Romans 8:14.

                I often deal with subjects that are controversial to one group or another and you need to realize that I write to people of many different persuasions. So I deal with controversial subjects to give people the opportunity to think outside the box and even to discuss things that they dare not question in their own churches.

                Let’s face it. With 30,000 denominations out there and many of them believing that they have THE TRUTH to which everyone else must come, we need to get back to the Bible.