THE GIFT OF PROPHECY

THE GIFT OF PROPHECY

                The gift of prophecy is not so much for predicting the future as it is the speaking forth of the Word of God with clarity, and those who are called to operate in the prophetic, are not generally called to predict future events, but to bring perspective and understanding of those things that God has already predicted for us in His Word.

                The gift of prophecy has been abused in the church in many ways… some by trying to predict the time of the Lord’s coming and even by those who try to chart the future out on a graph so that we get stuck with our linear ways of thinking. God deals in cycles and not in straight lines and any Jewish Scholar will tell you that prophecy is pattern and that whatever has happened before is certain to happen again.

                I tend to believe that a lot of what is called the prophetic gift in the church today is more in the realm of the psychic than it is in the true prophetic realm of God and we should not travel from place to place looking for a word from God from this prophet or that. This is very dangerous to say the least and we don’t need our fortunes told to us. What we really need is to understand what God has already given us as we apply His Word to our lives.

                Throughout time many a misguided person has sought to predict the coming of Christ, using one method or another or by calculations or the piecing together of scriptures or by some “special “understanding of the books of Daniel and Revelation, but these predictions have always failed and they will always fail because Jesus told us that no one knows the day or the hour when He will come.

                But we can most definitely know the seasons and one of those seasons is being manifested with unmistakable clarity right now as we see the formation of the coming global world order. The kingdom of the Beast.

                We need to understand that this New World Order that now looms before us is not a flash in the pan. It began when Satan declared war with God over the promised seed. We have seen Satan’s attempts at world government beginning with Nimrod, and on through Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome… through the British Empire, and on to the United Nations and finally through what I believe to be the final global kingdom of the Beast… The New World Order.

                But there is more. This coming global kingdom requires an unprecedented kind of technology to rule the world on a global scale with over 7 billion people on this planet. Massive new technologies were needed in order to fulfill last days Bible prophecy. So our present technologies began to take shape way back in 1840 with the birth of the industrial revolution. We needed to discover oil and how to make fuel out of it to provide the kind of transportation needed. We had to learn how to harness electricity… we needed to come into the computer age with global networks and instantaneous information. We needed worldwide communications in order for the whole world to witness the antichrist and to wonder after the Beast, or to see the two witnesses lying in the streets of Jerusalem. We needed a global news network to spread the propaganda… the lies that would deceive the whole world. We needed the great war machines that we have today to bring on the coming unprecedented human holocaust.

                This of course is just hitting a few of the things that have brought us to where we are today… but here we are and we are now poised for earth’s final battles. Each of us is called to be a watchman and like the sons of Issachar we need to understand the times.

                “And the sons of Issachar men who understood the times with knowledge of what Israel should do, their chiefs were two hundred and all their kinsmen were at their command.” 1 Chron. 12:32.

                When prophets prophesy smooth sailing and false peace, they are loved and adored by the masses, but when a true prophet, who usually stands alone, gives warnings from the Lord he or she is often persecuted hated and killed in various heinous ways.

                But if a prophet or a watchman is to be faithful to God, he must do the unpopular thing… the thing that might get him killed. He must warn the people at the risk of being rejected or worse. Even as Queen Esther went in before the king, she did so as a prophet, speaking words that would change history for her people. And she did so at great risk to her own life. In fact nearly every true prophet and apostle has ended up as a martyr including eleven of the 12 disciples and Paul.

                Right now in this grand flow of history I see the makings of some of the delusions that Jesus warned us about and yes, he was talking to us, but at the time He was speaking more specifically to His kinsmen the Jews and so Jews and Messianic Jews alike must now perk up their ears, because Satan is indeed building his final stronghold right in the center of God’s land and right in the place of Christ’s coming millennial reign and he is going to try to pull off a fake millennial reign with a fake Messiah.

                Everything that the Bible has predicted for the last days is now taking shape and coming together and converging upon the land of Israel and the world’s leaders and the world’s religions are joining forces to build a house of prayer for all nations, but it will end up being for the wrong Messiah. And when they are saying “Peace and safety” then will come sudden destruction.

                I ask you to use a bit of human logic here for a moment. Since the Jews have rejected Jesus as their Messiah and King and since the Jews still reject Jesus as their Messiah, does it not make sense that they are not building this temple for Jesus? And if they are not building it for Jesus, then why are we excited about it and why are we helping them? Are we not financing the antichrist’s kingdom?

                It is true of course that this coming temple is a part of end time Bible prophecy. The Abomination of Desolation is a very specific thing and it can only be done in the temple in Jerusalem. And while AD 70 was certainly an abomination and it resulted in desolation, it was not the Abomination of Desolation spoken of By Daniel, nor does it fit Jesus’ description of it in Mt. 24:15-21.

                We must be careful to notice the details of this prophecy of Jesus:

1.        He tells us straight out that that the Abomination of Desolation that He speaks about is from Daniel the prophet. This abomination is hinted at in Dan. 9:27 and spoken of in Dan. 11:31 and Dan 12:11.

2.         Jesus places this event as a last day’s event just prior to His return. It fits within the context of the final great Tribulation in fact the Abomination of Desolation brings on the worst time of trouble the world has ever seen. (The time of Jacob’s trouble)

3.       It involves Daniel’s people the Jews and it takes place in Jerusalem and when it occurs the Jews, the faithful Jews will flee from Jerusalem and from Judea.

4.       Replacement theology teachers have made these events into Gentile events in any random place in the world, but a careful reading of these texts tell us exactly where it takes place and which people it involves and we do the Scriptures a great injustice when we change the clear Word of God to fit our own ideas.

5.       So the point is that the Jews in the last days are going to build a temple which is not intended for their true Messiah Jesus, but a Messiah of their own choosing and that one they choose will turn out to be the cruel tyrant the antichrist, who will walk into the temple and claim to be God Almighty and when he does that, faithful Jews and especially Messianic Jews living in Israel are going to flee to the mountains.

                And so we are now watching everything coming into line including plans for the upcoming temple so that all of these prophecies may be fulfilled and from that standpoint we can all be excited because it points to the soon return of Jesus.

                But here is where the prophetic job and the job of the watchman become very hard to do, because we have to warn people of dangers that they may not want to hear. My case in point is that Jana (from Israeli News Live) recently sent me a video made by a panel of three Messianic Jews who made 13 proclamations concerning Israel. This panel was made up of three like I said and two of them I did not know, but one of them I did know. (Mark Biltz of Blood Moon fame.)

                Twelve of the declarations I can’t bring to mind off hand, but one of them shocked me and saddened me, especially since Mark was taking part in it. Their declaration was that anti-Zionism is the same as Anti-Semitism and that any talk against the Zionist movement is anti-Semitic.

                I wanted to shout at the TV screen saying”Are you kidding me Mark. Are we really supposed to treat the Babylonian mystical religion of the Cabbalists as equal to and the same as those true Remnant Jews who live by the Torah of Moses? Are we to treat the worshipers of Lucifer as equal to and indistinguishable from the worshipers of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? Perish the thought!

                There are literally hundreds of thousands of Jews that are diametrically opposed to Cabbalism and Zionism and what it is doing in Israel today. Some are even strongly against the building of the temple believing that it must be built by the Messiah when He comes and not by men before the fact. Are these Jews anti-Semites?

                And still, prophetically illiterate Christians and some Messianic Jews are celebrating this coming temple as if Jesus is going to show up and bless the antichrist and join with the false religions of the world. This is why many Zionist Christians are joining up with the pope and his coming global religion and this is why certain sectors of Christianity are weakening on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and embracing certain New Age teachings and practices over and above the blood and cross of Jesus. They are lining up to worship the Beast and his image.

                This is a message I don’t want to give, because of the very fact that they have combined anti-Cabbalism with anti-Semitism and that has to be the work of the devil himself, because he is making it illegal to discern between Christ and Satan… between Jesus the true Messiah and the antichrist. They are pulling out the race card to prevent us from distinguishing between truth and Satan’s last great delusions. (The ones that Jesus warned us about.)

                I love Mark Biltz and I don’t know why he would be party to such a thing. I have visited his congregation. I have had great conversations with him. It was his book on the blood moons that guided me to the Messianic movement. As a writer I like to learn things first hand and not just by hearsay, so Bonnie and I decided to attend a Messianic congregation to experience the Feasts first hand. We fell in love with the people there and I truly believe that they are a part of God’s true Remnant people… and that is why I don’t like it that this delusion is slipping into Christianity and Messianic Judaism as well. Tragically, their love of Israel could be their undoing if they don’t discern the difference between what Satan is doing in Israel and what God is doing there.

                It was my own Bible study and the discovery that Jesus perfectly fulfilled the spring feasts at His first coming that lead me to understand that He will perfectly fulfill the Fall Feasts at His second coming. End time Bible prophecy is somehow framed by the Fall Feasts. I don’t fully understand it even yet, but I will tell you that the book of Revelation is full of Fall Feast language and types and if we will keep that in mind, we will better understand the final harvest and what the various events mean. I believe that the Feast of Tabernacles is all about the coming millennial reign of Christ when He will once again tabernacle among men.

                But the Evangelical Christians, by joining forces with the Pope and His coming global religion, are failing to discern between Satan’s work and Christ’s work in Jerusalem and Israel. They are being caught up in the very delusions that Jesus warned about.

                Cabbalism goes directly back to Babylon and to the religion of Nimrod and to me that gives new meaning to what Revelation 14:8 and Rev. 18:8 says about Babylon being fallen. For in Rev. 18:4 the angel follows up with this message saying: “Come out of her My people” which reflects the Remnant of Israel having to flee when the Abomination of Desolation takes place in the temple.

                Should we not then set our hearts to understand the difference between Babylon’s future plans, verses what the Bible says about God’s future plans when Jerusalem once again becomes the City of the Great King? When Jesus returns with His saints at the second coming, He will defeat Satan’s kingdom and then take up His promised reign from Jerusalem and in that day He will rule the nations with a rod of iron. And He will establish truth and justice and He will restore all things. Zech. 14, Rev 20

                Remember if you will what the disciples asked Jesus just minutes before He returned to heaven saying:

                “Lord is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” Jesus did not refute their question, but instead pointed them to their mission to take the Gospel to the whole world promising He would soon pour out His Holy Spirit upon them giving them power to continue His work in the world.

                In the end Jesus will indeed fulfill all of His eternal promises… the ones He gave to Abraham by covenant. Those cannot be broken for they are not based on the Law of Moses, but on a covenant previously ratified which came 430 years before the Law. It was the promise of a New Covenant and a New Priesthood carried out by an eternal High Priest who would never die.

                It is into this Melchizedek Priesthood that we Gentile Christians have been grafted. By faith we are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to promise. So the truth comes out as it is exposed in Romans 11. We did not replace the Jews, but we have been grafted into their family tree by faith in their Messiah and that grafting makes us Abraham’s seed and heirs according to promise.

                Does this not then bring Ephesians 2:14-22 into focus? For it says:

                “For He Himself 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 Law of commandments contained in ordinances, that in Himself He might make the two (Jews and Gentiles) 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…”

                So the substance of all that came before the cross is found in Christ and in the cross, we all, Jews and Gentiles became one family. Today we are all Israel, not by replacing them but by embracing their Messiah, Jesus Christ who is Lord of all.

                I invite you to study these things carefully and prayerfully. Ephesians chapter 2 and Romans chapter 11 will put a whole lot of things into perspective if we will just come to believe the Bible over our own faulty traditions. But we need to understand that the Jews who have not accepted their true Messiah, but choose to wonder after the Beast have a horrendous holocaust yet ahead of them known as the time of Jacob’s trouble and Jesus warned that it would be like no other time in history for it will be a global event and yet centered in Jerusalem and it is called “the Time of Jacob’s Trouble. (Which, of course, meant that Israel would be back in its land in the last days and that it would indeed be a cup of trembling for all nations.) Zech. 12:1-3

                I also recommend studying Zechariah chapters 12 through 14 for we will soon witness these events leading up to the return of Christ. We should never allow the idea of a pre-trib rapture prevent us from understanding God’s prophetic outline for the last days. He gave us the details of these end time events and He gave them to us in the New Covenant as well as the Old. So He intends for us to understand these things regardless of when He comes.

                It was largely by their Cabbalistic traditions that the Jews missed Jesus’ coming the first time. And yet, here in our time Cabbalism is once again taking over the world and replacing our prophetic view with Babylonian traditions so that we are in danger of missing Jesus’ second coming as well. Should we not seek to understand the big picture and to cry out for divine insight so that we will not be deceived as Jesus warned? Prophecy is not a dead issue… in fact it is a core issue as we see the antichrist kingdom being built right before our eyes.