URGENT AND PRESSING TIMES

URGENT AND PRESSING TIMES

                Why have I talked about the Law so much? Aren’t there more pressing matters to attend to? Well… yes and no.  But here’s what I am coming to believe. If we will honestly and diligently try to understand and believe what Paul is saying, we will have a new revelation of Jesus Christ, who He is and what He came to accomplish in this world.

                Apart from all of the stuff we already know, Jesus came into the world not only to forgive our sins, but to somehow fill us with His same Holy Spirit and to transform us into His genuine brothers and sisters so that we can reign upon the throne of the universe with Him.

                This is absolutely the most incredible thing that a person could ever imagine and we find ourselves asking why. Why God? Why do you want to take us, the weakest and most sinful creatures in all of your creation and adopt us into Your royal family and turn us into a kingdom of priests unto our God? Of all people, why me? Why us.

                For one thing, God loves doing the impossible. It was impossible for Him to save us, because like in our last article, we are 110 volt people and He is a 10,000 volt God. You can’t jump start a dead battery with 10,000 volts. The battery will simply blow up.

                God needed a Mediator, a conduit of His presence who could bring it to us on a human level and even though the Law of Ten Commandments was holy and righteous and good, it had no Spirit of God in it that could make us righteous. It could only point out that we are unrighteous.

                So “What the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did; sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” This then is Paul’s message… and what Paul is telling us is that we can’t possibly become what Jesus is calling us to be by reverting back to the lifeless Law. It was never the Law’s job to make us like Jesus. It could only tell us that we were not like Him.

                Think about this for a second. If the law had been sufficient to make us righteous, then Jesus need not have risen from the dead. He could have died for our sins and His sacrifice would have brought us forgiveness. He could have gone back to heaven in the spiritual state that He had been in before He became one of us. But Jesus had to rise physically from the dead because forgiveness was only one part of our salvation. The other part was to be restored to His image… and that is an even greater miracle than rising from the dead. So HE rose from the dead and took on the role of High Priest after the order of Melchizedek in order to mediate His Holy Spirit to us so that He can also transform us into His image.

                If we want to be transformed into His image, then we must receive and live by His Holy Spirit and by His Word. In other words, we are not doing away with the Law so we can do our own thing. We are not looking for an excuse to sin or to live in the flesh. The Law is still the Law. The Sabbath is still the Sabbath. Idolatry is still idolatry and murder is still murder. So we are not changing what the Law says about sin… we are changing the way it is fulfilled… not by observing the letter of the Law, but by living by the Spirit of Christ so that He can transform us into His brothers and sisters who can reign with Him on His throne.

                Living by the Spirit is infinitely more demanding than the Law could ever be. Like Jesus pointed out, now we must not only avoid committing adultery, but in our heart and soul and mind, we must not even desire to do so. Whaaaat?

                Yes… and this is impossible for man, but with God all things are possible. But a legalist may secretly lust after every pretty woman in the congregation and he is okay as long as he doesn’t follow through with it, but Jesus said, He has already committed adultery in his heart. As far as heaven is concerned, if we have done it in our mind, we have done it in realty.

                So we quickly join Paul in crying out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” And then Paul takes us right into Romans chapter 8 and tells us how it is done.

                Paul had dealt with this same thing in Romans chapter 3 saying: “But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is not distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

                We must absolutely live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. We do not chase after feelings or even miracles because Satan can do miracles too and by them he will deceive many. So the Holy Spirit is given to us when we are born again so that we can be conformed into the image of Christ by His Spirit and He is further poured out upon us as at Pentecost so that we may have power to do the works of Christ in the world. We are coming to a final showdown between Christ and Satan. We need His power to do His work in the world.

                This is why I have been talking about Paul’s treatise on the Law, for the Law cannot take us where Jesus is calling us. Only His Holy Spirit can transform us into His likeness. What this does then is it helps us to let go of the Law, by which we claimed holiness, and to grasp firmly onto Jesus and to make being filled with His Spirit priority number one. Jesus rose from the dead to send us His Holy Spirit so that we can be transformed into His image and no amount of obedience apart from His Spirit can accomplish this. But according to Paul, you can’t have both. You either live by the Law or you live by the Spirit and if you choose to live by the Law, even one of them, Christ is of no benefit to you. WOW!

                Now, having said all of that, I want to tell you what critical times we now live in. This renegade Pope of Rome has gone out to all of the religions of the world making covenant with them to create a one world government. At first we were able to sit back and say: “Well the falling away church is going there, but not us.” We can see many of the mega churches and their leaders making nice with the Pope and if we understand Bible prophecy, we understand that they are forming the final global religion of the Beast. (How many Christians even know this?

                But now we find that Charismatic and Pentecostal and even Adventist groups are aligning themselves with the Beast… protecting their 501c3 tax exempt status… seeking to comply with coming requirements… lining up to become informants for the FEMA organizations… thinking that they are protecting their people. How many of our church leaders are making their pilgrimage to Rome? I shudder to think about it.

                We have failed to study Bible Prophecy and so now we don’t understand the issues and we don’t recognize the warning signs and we don’t see the trends that are leading us into the gaping jaws of the Beast.

                So in contradistinction to all those who are flowing toward the Beast system, we see God’s Remnant people who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. Again I say “Whaaaaat? Rick, haven’t you been saying just the opposite lately as you try to tell us what Paul is saying about the Law? No, absolutely not, for as Jesus said to the people:

                “For I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Mt. 5:20. Friends, Jesus is saying the exact same thing as Paul is saying. After all, the Pharisees were sweeping ants off the sidewalk in order to keep from killing. But no matter how ridiculously complex they made this matter of keeping the Law, they were in no way gaining the righteousness of Christ. They needed something vastly different. They needed God Himself dwelling in them… and that is what Jesus came to bring.

                Did you know that it is very likely that all of the players that will rule the tribulation are alive right now and colluding together to build their global government? Did you know that Jerusalem will become a center of their activity and that they will seek to deceive the people in the world into believing that this is the kingdom of Christ? Did you know that the antichrist will occupy the coming 3^rd temple and claim to be God and that a vast majority of the people in this world including Christians will come to believe that this is the kingdom of Christ?

                Did you know that what many are calling the great revival and harvest will actually be made up of those who will wonder after the Beast? Projects like this “Seven Mountain Mandate” wherein they take over the world for Christ is just as likely to lead them into a false revival and align them with the antichrist as they think they are gaining the whole world when instead they are joining forces with the Beast.

                Jesus warned us that His coming will be in a specific manor? Like one Prophecy teacher said recently, “If He doesn’t come in the clouds and catch us up to meet Him in the air then it isn’t Jesus.

                But millions are being deceived today, because of dominion theology. They see the world getting better and better as the church takes over society, but that is not what the Bible says. The Bible says that things will get worse and worse and that Jesus will have to cut the time short or else no flesh will be saved.

                Jesus said, “But pray that your flight may not be in the winter or on the Sabbath; for then there will be a great tribulation such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall. And unless those days had been cut short no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect, those days shall be cut short.” Mt. 24:20-22.

                I have respect for all honest Bible prophecy teachers and I have learned from all of them, but I have to stick with Paul when he says that we will be here to see the great falling away or apostasy of the church as well as the arrival of the antichrist and I tend to believe that we will be here to see the Mark of the Beast system put in place. Why else would God warn us not to take the Mark? Just how this plays out with the timing of the tribulation, I don’t know. This may all take place even before the Tribulation takes place, but we will be here to see the rise of the antichrist and it is coming much sooner than most realize.

                But I don’t really want to argue about such things since we can’t really know until they come to pass as Jesus said. But what we do need to do as Christians is that we need to get serious about learning how to live by the Spirit of Christ, for it is only in living by the Spirit of Christ that the Law is fulfilled in us.

                So that little Remnant people identified in Rev. 14: 12 and 11:17 who are known to keep the Commandments of God, will, of necessity, be Spirit filled and Spirit baptized, for the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy. Rev. 19:10. So the Remnant people of God will be living by the Spirit and empowered by the Spirit and they will be a people of prophecy. They will understand the times and they will not fall for the deceptions of the enemy and they will remain true to the Word of God and the Spirit of God.

                The problem is that many Christians who would call themselves God’s Remnant people, keep the Holy Spirit at arm’s length, making Him conform to their programs… telling Him what He can and can’t do in their lives. WE have become firmly planted in our traditions and as such the Holy Spirit of Christ is of no benefit to us and we are not doing the works of Christ in the world.

                I want to be one of those people that is empowered by the Spirit of Christ and doing His work in the world…and even thought I am a little nobody in the grand scheme of things… I believe that God is calling every person who hungers and thirsts after Him, too be faithful to His Word and to live by His Holy Spirit. He is calling for His Bride to stand up and be counted. He is calling those who have eyes only for Him… with the promise that His Holy Spirit will indeed transform us into His image and empower us to do His work and He will lead us into all truth. John 16:13.

                I know there are some who think that because they belong to this denomination or that, they have it all… that there is nothing left to learn. But we don’t have it all yet, or we would be operating in the Spirt and power of Christ, we would be like Him and we would be humbly doing His works in the world.

                We live in such critical times right now that we should be fasting and praying for major breakthroughs. Our church is doing just that right now. We are on a 40 day period of fasting and praying for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit… not that we are better than anyone else, but simply because we know our great need of Him. We all need Him and we need Him in ways that have not been seen since Pentecost. We need Him even more than ever for the latter rain of the Holy Spirit will bring in the final harvest and we will yet face the onslaught of Satan’s greatest deceptions.

                Do you know Bible prophecy enough to see what is going on in the world right now? Can you see the massive formation of the Beast system? Do you understand that Israel is the focus of the devil’s attention and that He is going to use our love for Israel to deceive us? Have we been able to discern what is right and what is wrong as far as the building of the third temple is concerned? Do we see that many of our church leaders are joining forces with the Pope, the False Prophet to form the global religion of the beast?

                Jesus gives us an important clue in Revelation 3:9saying: “Behold, I will cause those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not but lie- behold I will make them come and bow down at your feet and to know that I have loved you.”

                What this tells us is that there is a Zionist movement in Israel that is very much a part of the New World Order. They are partners with the Pope and they are signing a covenant with the many to bring a false unity of religion. The Mekodeshet that has recently taken place in Israel is a part of that ecumenical movement that will help to usher in the religion of the Beast.

                The time is much later than we think. The kingdom of the Beast is much more advanced than we think. We need the Holy Spirit like never before and we need to revive the Spirit of prophecy in our churches so that we will not be taken in by the grand deceptions that are even now sweeping the planet. Selah