UNITY AND THE HARVEST

UNITY AND THE HARVEST

                Dr. Jack van Impe is a man of God whom I have listened to over the years. He and His wife Rexella were pioneers of prophetic ministry. Rexella would read highlights from the current headlines and then Jack would quote volumes of scripture related to the subject at hand and so he has stood as a stalwart prophet against the downward plunge of our nation over the past 40 years or so.

                Dr. van Impe is known as a walking Bible. He knows a large portion of scripture by heart and he can quote word for word, around 18,000 texts. And he has not been shy about decrying the sins of our time. He is now 88 years old and for a few recent years he has battled with poor health, even having been in a coma for several months.

                But now God has raised him up and restored a measure of health to him and told him that he will take a major role in the final harvest and so at 88 years old, he is expanding his once a week Prophecy TV program to a daily ministry on the internet and all other forms of communication. He has said that he has a major announcement to make concerning his upcoming ministry and so Bonnie and I have sort of checked in on him once in a while to see what he has to say.

                So you can’t imagine my shock when we happened upon his show yesterday to hear him say that he is renouncing his protest. He will no longer call himself a Protestant because the church needs to come into unity, Catholics and Protestants must become one flock in order to finish the harvest. He stated that Catholics hold the five fundamentals of the true Gospel and that there are millions of born again Catholics who love the Lord just as we do and so we need to stop fighting and bring in the final harvest together.

                Dr. van Impe was also careful to warn us that Pope Francis is a devil and that many Cardinals and sincere Catholics are concerned that he is leading the church into ruin and with that I can agree.

                Well… on a certain level I understand what Dr. van Impe is saying. God’s stated goal for the church as mentioned in Ephesians 4:11-13 is that we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” And again in Ephesians 2:14 Paul says that: “He Himself (Jesus) is our peace who made both groups (Jews and Gentiles) into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, that in Himself He might make the two into one new man thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. (The Law contained in ordinances))

                Well, this statement by Paul is a shocker in itself for it appears to say that we find our unity in putting the Law to death, but this is where we must be careful to discern what Paul is actually saying. He is referring to the Law contained in ordinances, meaning that Jesus fulfilled the types and shadows and He became the true Lamb of God that all of the ordinances and sacrifices pointed forward to. These ordinances are therefore done away because Jesus as the real Lamb of God fulfilled them all. In all honesty you can’t do away with the 10 Commandments since even as a Christian, you are not now given permission to kill and steal and lie and commit adultery. So the Ten Commandment laws are fundamental laws common to all mankind and to break them is to create complete chaos in society. In fact the antichrist is identified as, “The Lawless One.”

                In 2 Thess. 2:3, Paul warns us not to be deceived for it (the coming of the Lord and the day of the Lord) will not come unless there is a great apostasy first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition.” (This is the antichrist) In other words neither the great tribulation nor the return of Christ can happen until the antichrist appears on the scene. And verse 7 tells us that this lawless one will be destroyed by the appearance of Jesus’ coming… that is at the battle of Armageddon where he is cast into the pit until the 1000 years are over.

                It is hard not to get tangled up in a complex array of thoughts here because as usual there are many important factors involved in any given issue and yet Christians have been so conditioned to 15 minute positive thinking sermons and “Christian” sound bites that most can no longer tolerate thinking a thing through.

                So what can we agree with in Dr. van Impe’s statements and what should raise red flags?

1.       We can agree that the church needs to come into unity

2.       We can agree that there are perhaps millions of                godly Catholics who love the Lord and are following Him to the best of their knowledge.

3.       We can agree that Pope Francis is a devil who is speaking abominations and destroying the Catholic faith. I believe that his form of unity, being brought about by joining all of the religions together equally is an abomination and that it is not the kind of unity that Paul is talking about. We CANNOT make Jesus equal with other gods who neither created nor saved the world.

                So what kind of things should raise red flags?

1.       I believe that the Bible shows our unity coming about not by our cozying up to Catholicism, but by God’s people coming out of that system. (Rev. 14:6-10) But in all fairness, people are going to have to come out of many other religions and denominations as well. Think about this for a minute: What prevented the Pharisees from recognizing Jesus at His first coming? Answer: It was their doctrine. It was not the Word of God that had misguided them, but their interpretation of that Word. Likewise there are many doctrines in the church today that are preventing Christians from recognizing the signs of His return.

2.       God’s Word will be absolutely fulfilled right down to the last jot and tittle, as Jesus told us. So it is not the Bible that is misleading us, but our interpretation of the Bible that is misleading many.

                But what is fundamentally wrong with Catholicism that people should come out of it?

1.       The pope as the stated Vicar of Christ means that a man has been set up in the place of Christ. That is the very definition of antichrist…. Man in the place of Christ.

2.       The Protestants protested because they identified the papal system as an antichrist system.

3.       The placement of Mary as our intercessor also flies in the face of the fact that Jesus Himself is our intercessor and High Priest. He alone is our Mediator for as it says in 1 Tim. 2: 5: “For there is one God and one mediator also between God and men, the man Jesus Christ.”

4.       Way back in the 4^th century the Christian church threw off its Jewish roots and instead married the pagans, thus turning Christianity into a pagan religion with a thin Christian veneer on it. They instituted pagan gods and gave them Jewish and Christian names. They changed times and laws as Daniel warned. (Dan. 7:25) They removed the Jewish calendar that contained God’s appointed feasts and replaced them with pagan holidays and pagan Sabbaths. So from stem to stern the Papacy is an antichrist religion and that is why the Protestants protested. So if Christian unity is to be achieved, it cannot be achieved through unity with the Papacy.

5.       So I believe that the final harvest is going to come about as the preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom draws all peoples from all religions and denominations into a unity in Christ heretofore unseen… that Jews and Gentiles will minister side by side, having Yeshua as common ground. That Protestants and Catholics will minister together by having come out of all of the false systems that have divided us thus far. I believe this will come about by the great shaking along with cataclysmic events that will break up and melt down our current institutional systems. Think for instance of an EMP that would render us powerless and devoid of money. Churches would no longer function based upon money, but on the pure outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Likewise if the money system should fail, or the Mark of the Beast system should silence all true Christian organizations. This would unite all who truly belong to Christ regardless of denomination or doctrine so that the Gospel of the kingdom would be preached.

6.       Our unity cannot come about through compromise, which is currently the basis for unity in the ecumenical movement and in the formation of the global religion that Pope Francis is building. That global religion that he is forming will become the global religion of the Beast from which all who receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord must flee, whether Jew, or Gentile or Catholic, or any of the other dead denominations that are currently controlled by false and dead doctrines.

7.       Jesus Christ and His infallible Word and the outpouring of His Holy Spirit in latter rain power, will be what unites and calls out all true Christians in the last days.

                So, I will watch to see what Dr. Jack van Impe has to say in his full statements about the upcoming harvest. I do not want to judge this man of God on a partial platform of his beliefs; but I thought it important to understand that there are 2 different kinds of unity forming in this world and I surely hope and pray that Dr. van Impe comes down on the right side of these issues.

                My friends in Israel are warning me that Pope Francis is literally gaining control of Israel and the whole world and setting up Jerusalem for the coming antichrist. They, as Jews, are devastated by what is happening to their beloved nation as it is being overtaken by the antichrist system. And it is disconcerting to them that most Christians are indiscriminately supporting everything that goes on in Israel, not realizing that they are supporting in many cases, the building of the antichrist system that will bring about the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION spoken of by both Daniel and Jesus. (Dan.8:27, 11:31, 12:11, Matthew 24:15, Mark 13:14, Luke 16:15, and Rev.13, whole chapter)

                This global system that is being built in Jerusalem and throughout the world is the same system that will bring on the Mark of the Beast spoken of in Revelation 13 and so it is highly important that we understand and discern the fine differences in unity. For as Jesus warns us in Mt. 24:24 saying:” For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead if possible even the elect.”

                There have been many antichrists and antichrist systems throughout Christian history, but there is one final antichrist coming that will rule the world globally for a short time. He will force everyone to worship him and to receive the Mark of the Beast. We currently see the global buildup of the antichrist system as the spirit of antichrist mobilizes the rebellious nations and peoples to throw off all restraints, to rebel against Jesus Christ, His Word and His people. There is a growing hatred for those who keep the commandments of God and who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Rev. 14:12.

                Let us not be deceived… and remember this… in some cases our doctrine may prove to be wrong. After all there are thousands of interpretations of last day events that are opposed to one another. More and more we must learn to cling to the Word of God directly, for God’s Word will be fulfilled precisely even if our interpretations of it may go by the wayside. Meanwhile, Jesus is looking for bondservants who will drop everything and come and follow Him.