JUST WHO IS HE?

JUST WHO IS HE?

                “And the word of the Lord came to me saying, “What do you see Jeremiah?”  And I said. “I see a rod of an almond tree.” Then the Lord said to me, “You have seen well, for I am watching over My word to perform it.” Jer. 1:11, 12

                Because the almond is shaped like an eye, it became a symbol of God’s watchful eye in ancient Israel. And so God used that very symbol to tell young Jeremiah that He keeps a watchful eye over His Word to perform it.

                Jeremiah was young and intimidated by the many august leaders of Israel to whom he must bring God’s messages of judgment. So God assured him that He would see to it that Jeremiah’s words would be fulfilled, for they would be the words of God. So after thusly bolstering the young man’s courage God said to Jeremiah:

                “Now, gird up your loins and arise and speak to them all which I command you. Do not be dismayed before them, lest I dismay you before them. Now behold, I have made you today as a fortified city and as a pillar of iron and as walls of bronze against the whole land, to the kings of Judah, to its princes, to its priests and to the people of the land. And they will fight against you, but they will not overcome you, for I am with you to deliver you,” declares the Lord.” Jeremiah 1:17-19

                Listen friends, God is still watching over His Word to perform it and we who would call ourselves His last day remnant and His reapers in the coming harvest must know and understand this.

1.       First of all we must stand on the Word. And with 30,000 denominations in this world, we, God’s Remnant people, had better pray that we get His Word right by the Holy Spirit rather than simply following the party line.

2.       God only pours out His power in support of His Truth and so a whole lot of the pitiful doctrines that we have used to divide ourselves with must go and we must begin to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom exactly as Jesus demonstrated it. Jesus preached the Gospel of the kingdom and He demonstrated its power and He didn’t preach doctrine at all. He taught to principle and shared with us the earth changing secrets of His kingdom.

3.       In other words, we have become like a bunch of Pharisees, preaching our brand, promoting our interpretations and our intellectual arguments while all the time denying the power and the Person whom we are to preach.

4.       Jesus gave us our biggest clue in saying: “And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all nations and then the end shall come.” Which Gospel is Jesus talking about? It is the Gospel of the Kingdom that He preached, that He also demonstrated with the powers of the age to come.

                Now you may think that I am about to make a giant leap into another subject here, but hang on. My original title question was “JUST WHO IS HE?” And I was asking the question about Donald Trump.

                This question Christians and non-Christians alike are asking about Trump. Who is he? Some say He is a king Cyrus having come to deliver America from certain destruction. Some actually think he might be a Messiah of sorts, while others say he may well be the antichrist.

                But the one issue that we often fail to consider is that God’s watches over His Word to perform it. GOD IS WATCHING OVER HIS WORD TO PERFORM IT and for this reason, we can generally understand a few things:

1.       In order for last day’s prophecies to be fulfilled, Jerusalem must be the capital of Israel and the center of the entire world’s focus in the last days. Zechariah says concerning these days: “Behold I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the peoples around; and when the siege is against Jerusalem it will also be against Judah. And it will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it.” Zech. 12:2, 3.

2.       So, Jerusalem will be a central issue in these last days and what better way to make it the center of the earth’s focus than to make it the long awaited capital of Israel? But there is another piece of the puzzle that must be put into place and that is, a third temple must be built so that the prophecy of Jesus concerning the last days can be fulfilled.

                It says: “Therefore when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION which is spoken of by Daniel the prophet, STANDING IN THE HOLY PLACE (Let the reader understand) then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.”

                 So let’s get our heads screwed on straight concerning this event. This is talking about a literal last day’s temple in literal Jerusalem and it is literally the Jews in Judea that will have to flee when the literal antichrist commits the literal ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION in the literal temple… and this is the reason that the temple will have to be cleansed after 2300 literal evening and morning sacrifices, which Gabriel told Daniel would occur at the very end of time.

                But I made this prophetic point just to say that we don’t know who Donald Trump is. We don’t know if what he does will turn out for evil or for good. But we do know that God keeps a watchful eye to make sure that His every word comes to pass. We know that judgment is coming to the church and to the nations. We know that there will be a great shaking and a great falling away from the faith just prior to the arrival of the antichrist. 2 Thess. 2:3, 4, Hebrews 12:26-29.

                We generally tend to think that everything is about us, largely due to the false doctrine of replacement theology and so we attribute all end time events to ourselves, when in fact, Jerusalem is going to be center stage in earth’s final events and the nations are going to be judged by how they relate to Israel and the church will be judged in the same way.

                The reason for this as I have stated so many times, is that Israel is a pattern, a paradigm, a literal physical picture of what is going on spiritually I the rest of the world. If we want to know where we are in time, we must look at Jerusalem. It is a cup of trembling and the focus of the world’s attention. A covenant with the many is in the works… the temple is ready to be built. Israel is surrounded by the world’s armies and it has become the one bone over which every dog fights.

                So if we want to know who Donald Trump is, we firstly need to remember that God watches over His word to perform it. Hillary would not have made Jerusalem the capital of Israel and this tells us something. For better or for worse, God has set the stage for the last days and judgement will come to the house of God first. God in His mercy gave us one last breathing space to repent before judgment falls and more than asking who Donald Trump is, we should be asking ourselves if America has repented or if the church has repented anyways close to the kind of repentance the Lord is looking for.

                It has been prophesied that Donald Trump will serve two terms and yet such prophecies are conditional upon our response to God’s warnings. So we are sitting back and presuming that God is going to carry the church and America on to victory and a wonderful harvest… but if we refuse to repent and return to the Lord in times of relative ease, we will have to do it amidst blood and fire and columns of smoke. We are living in a very critical time of decision in which people and churches and nations are being weighed in the balances.

                Trump may turn out to be good, or he may turn out to be evil. If he was a type of king Cyrus of Persia, then Cyrus was designated by God as the King who would issue the decree to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and to rebuild the temple and God left no question about that saying:

                “It is I who says of Cyrus, He is My shepherd! And he will perform all My desire. And he declares of Jerusalem, ‘She will be built’ and of the temple, “Your foundation will be laid.”

                Why is it that most Bible scholars totally ignore what God said here and go on to attribute these things to Artaxerxes?  (Just Asking) But the point is that other than doing these two things, Cyrus was not known for much else. But God put him in the right place at the right time to fulfill His Word and that is what he did, whether Trump fully understands it or not.

                So, rather than joining the world in its hatred or love of a man, let us turn our attention to God and to His Word, for it is His word that God is watching intently to perform and God will use any pawn or king or knight to set the stage for earth’s final show down.

                “Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker- an earthen vessel among the vessels of earth! Will the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing? “Isaiah 45:9    

                I invite you to read Isaiah 47:1- 7 concerning Cyrus from God’s point of view. Notice in verses 6 and 7 where God says:  “I am the Lord and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these.” (And strangely enough, God said this in connection with Cyrus)

                We are a people who have created a God in our own image. We have created a cotton candy god who never judges, who never presides over the rise and fall of nations, who winks at evil and ignores our sins. We even ignore the true meaning of the cross, where God Himself had to die in order to rescue us from our infinite fall into oblivion. Instead we seek to judge God according to His actions which we calculate according to our own limited knowledge. Instead we should honor and worship Him as our infinite and sovereign King.

                But instead of studying Bible prophecy, which we are told to do, we argue politics and thus remain clueless as to the real issues we face in these last days. It’s time to put our faith in God and in His Word and to stop being tossed this way and that by every wind of doctrine and change.

                “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus the Author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:1, 2.

                In the long run it doesn’t matter whether Trump is good or evil, messiah or antichrist. God is watching over His Word to perform it and we are in the last days. We need to read what God says about that.

                If we are looking for things to be thankful for during this Thanksgiving season, let us be thankful that God is absolutely in control and that everything will take place exactly as His Word says it will. Selah.