THE CHURCH DOESEN'T KNOW IT YET BUT...

THE CHURCH DOESN’T KNOW IT YET BUT…

                We are entering into a new season… a turning of the tide… a new reformation of true holiness and godliness… and with it… persecution.

                We could call it the time of the “great shaking” as in Hebrews 12:25-29, or we could call it the “great falling away, or apostasy” as in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4, or we can call it the “final harvest” as described in Joel 2:28-32. Some might even call this the latter rain, as described in James 5:7. It is all of these coming at once.

                It is interesting that Peter quoted Joel 2:28-32 at the event of the first Pentecost as recorded in Acts chapter 2, and I have mentioned this numerous times but it bears repeating that Peter quoted that entire passage even though parts of it didn’t fit the first day of Pentecost at all. To my knowledge there were no blood moons or solar eclipses, no blood and fire and columns of smoke and yet Peter said: “This is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel.

                Pentecost was the early rain. It was the initial outpouring of the Holy Spirit by which the church was implanted with the seed of promise and equipped to bring in the continuing harvest over the next 2000 years. But there is coming a latter rain that will bring the crop to maturity.

                We often speak of the harvest in glowing terms of glory and it will be, but we must also remember that harvest time is threshing time when the chaff is separated from the wheat and it is also a time when the tares are harvested and thrown into the fire.

                We keep waiting for the rapture, as if it could come with no further signs, but Jesus said that the harvest of the tares would come first.  Jesus explained this in Matthew 13:30 saying: “Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.”

                Paul concurs with this by telling us that the Day of the Lord cannot come unless there come a great falling away (apostasy) first. There must be a great falling away first that will purify the church… and then a harvest. I contend that this falling away is happening right now and is increasing rapidly.

                So any way you look at it, this era that we are now entering, represents both a harvest of the tares as they separate themselves from God’s Remnant people and a purifying of the body of Christ as we are called into a new level of holiness and righteousness so that we can handle rightly the power that God will pour upon us for the harvest.

                Jesus said that those who would follow Him must deny self and take up their cross and follow after Him. America’s pampered, overfed, ease loving people have lost their way. They no longer know what true holiness is. They no longer seek for it. Truth has been reduced to flesh pleasing sound bites in which there is no cross, no repentance… no sense of destiny, but only the pampering of the soul.

                Where are God’s spiritual warriors? Where are the battle hardened troops of the Gospel of the Kingdom? Where are the soldiers of the cross that once blazed a flaming path across Satan’s enemy territory?

                Now is the time to gear up spiritually for the harvest for it will not be carried out by a complacent and half-committed church. This is why the great shaking and the falling away must come first before the harvest of the wheat...

                In speaking about this great shaking God says, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven. Both the physical realm and the spiritual realm will be shaken together. So notice if you will the increase in major weather disasters, earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes, along with mass animal deaths and disease pandemics and famines, floods, droughts and such. Nature has gone crazy and in it we see the beginnings of the shaking of the physical realm. But just as surely we see also the shaking of the spiritual realm.

                Even in the church there has been a departure from the Word of God. Repentance, self-denial, New birth through the death and resurrection of the cross, dependence upon the precious blood of the Lamb… these things are now being despised throughout large parts of Christianity and of course, the hatred of the world is now turning against us. We are entering into a time of persecution and we see the walls closing in all around us… our freedoms being shut down at a rapid rate.

                Much of the church remains blissfully unaware of these things because the study of Bible Prophecy has long ago been abandoned. We got burned by people setting dates that did not pan out,  and so Pastors and people like have shied away from prophetic scenarios just at the very time when we need understanding the most.

                Paul warns us in 1 Thess. 5:2-6 saying: “For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night, while they are saying “Peace and Safety” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like birth pangs upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But you brethren are not in darkness that the day should overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We are not of the night, nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober.”

                Now, Christians who think we have nothing to do and nothing to wait for but the rapture, presume that the “Day of the Lord” is the Rapture. However, if you will do a Bible wide study of the “Day of the Lord”, you will find that it is referring to a day of vengeance, a day of wrath, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of judgment.

                Isaiah describes this coming time as a time of gross darkness when God will call His purified remnant to arise and shine for the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. Then the nations of the world will come to our light and kings to the brightness of our rising. In verse 4 he says: “Lift up your eyes all around and see; they all gather together, they come to you and your sons shall come from afar.

                A great deal of the Bible’s discussion about the Day of the Lord, applies to the Jews of course and the time of Jacob’s trouble when the remnant church may or may not be here, but what we don’t know is how much of the harvest we will be involved in and how much of the persecution and war and violent upheavals of the earth we must endure before that time. In reality we are only promised escape from the wrath of God, for we are not destined for wrath. (Romans 5:9, 1 Thess. 1:10, 1 Thess. 5:9, Rev. 3:10, Luke 21:36) But Christians in other countries are being persecuted and even beheaded now.

                Some may argue that we don’t need to be purified. After all, our sins are covered by the blood of the Lamb and we have on the robe of Christ’s righteousness, but in this we are much too cavalier. We only truly enter into the kingdom of God through death and rebirth, through denying self and the flesh and living by His Spirit. If we are not surrendering to the work of the blood and we are not actually wearing the robed of Christ’s righteousness in a way that transforms us into His image, we are only fooling ourselves.

                Salvation takes us out of Egypt. It takes us out of Sodom. It takes us out of Babylon. We die to those kingdoms and we are born into the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ where we are learning how to live by the powers of the age to come.

                If the Law could have delivered Israel from Egypt then God would have offered the Law first instead of 50 days after Passover. No, it was the blood of the Lamb that delivered them from death and it was in the eating of the flesh of the Lamb that they gained strength for the journey. They were all baptized in the Red Sea and then God gathered them at Sinai to show them His will and His ways.

                But in this we must understand that the Law, written on stone, was given at the first Pentecost while the Law, written upon our hearts, was given at the second Pentecost. God did not change His mind about His will and His ways, but He did want it to come from our hearts as His children, rather than being imposed upon us from an exterior source. So He planted it in our hearts by His Holy Spirit.

                The only way to please God in the New Covenant is to live by the Spirit and not by the flesh.         “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” Rom. 8:14. Well, we talk about the Holy Spirit a lot, but to what extent are we actually living by the Spirit and what would it look like if we were indeed living by the Spirit? Are we bearing the fruit of the Spirit, or do we just talk about it? Are we operating in the gifts of the Spirit, or do they seem strangely out of our reach?

                Could it be that God needs pure vessels through which to pour out His Spirit? Could it be that we have become so much like the world that we are no longer stone pitchers in which He can turn water into wine? Are we really sanctified and set apart? Have we taken up our cross and followed Him? Have we matured enough in our walk with the Lord that we could rightly handle the kind of power that the disciples handled in the first century? Have we attained to the unity that brings the presence of God?

                We pray for the harvest but at this point God’s barns are mostly full of wood, hay and stubble. They are overflowing with chaff. We are living mostly by the flesh and not by the Spirit as we claim.

                This is why there must be a great shaking and a great falling away as the tares are pulled out of the field before the harvest can be reaped. The tares must be pulled out first.

                In His parable of the 10 virgins, only half of them were ready. Only half of them had oil in their lamps. And sadly many who call themselves Christians will either be shaken out or they will find themselves in the tribulation trying to buy oil form those who sell.

                So the Titanic sails on through the night and the band plays and the people eat and drink and dance, and the Pastors no longer warn of the dangers ahead, or study the charts to see if they are on course with God’s agenda and many people have lost their sense of urgency or purpose other than to  keep the party going.

                Some may say, “Well, Rick, Why do you have to talk like this? Why don’t you say encouraging and happy things?” But the Lord has called me as a watchman… and, like prophets; watchmen aren’t worth their salt if they don’t warn the people of approaching danger.  All is not well. What the church has done is to pick out all of the Bible texts that please us, and ignored the ones that don’t and so only a few are really ready… and fewer still understand where we are in time. For these the Day of the Lord will come like a thief… and many will be taken out with the tares instead of the wheat.

                Salvation is really very simple. Call on the name of the Lord and you will be saved. But if you ask Him to save you, then you must allow Him to do for you and in you that which will indeed take you out of Egypt, out of Babylon, out of the world system and place you in His kingdom and that way is through the cross and resurrection of Christ.

                If you were drowning in the ocean and someone floated by in a ship and shouted out that you were now saved, would that word comfort you or would you not also want to be pulled from the water?

                Therefore the message for today is found in Revelation 14. Babylon is fallen. It is time to come out of it and to live by My Spirit saith the Lord.