TRAGEDY AND HOPE

TRAGEDY AND HOPE

                The book of Isaiah is a book of contrasts. On one hand it speaks of a future glory when Messiah will reign over all the earth and Jerusalem will be the center of worship. Isaiah 2 for instance, says: IN the last days the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem will become the most important place on earth. People from all over the world will go there to worship. Many nations will come and say “Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Israel. There he will teach us his ways so that we may obey him. For in those days the Lord’s teaching and his word will go out from Jerusalem.” Isaiah 2:2-3.

                In chapter 35 Isaiah describes a glorious time when the deserts will bloom a time when the Lord will display His glory. The wilderness will bloom and be full of flowers and singing. There will be a main road through that once deserted land. It will be named the Highway of Holiness. Nothing evil will be there.

                Isaiah speaks of a Branch that will grow out of David’s family and the Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him- the Spirit of wisdom and understanding. It speaks of a time when the carnivores and the herbivores will lie down together and children will be safe even among the snakes. The remnant of God’s people will flock back into the land from afar.

                All of these glories of Israel are reserved for a future time when their Messiah will reign as King. And it is not just Isaiah. All of the prophets spoke in terms of glory and tragedy, sin and righteousness, of reward and of judgment. So there are drastic parallels going on concerning Israel. It has a grand and glorious future, but before that glorious time, therewill come horrible judgment. It is described as a time when the leaders of Israel will crawl into caverns and hide among the jagged rocks at the top of cliffs. In this way they will try to escape the terror of the Lord and the glory of his majesty as he rises to shake the earth.

                The book of Hebrews speaks of a time yet to come when the Lord will shake not only the earth, but the heavens also.  Isaiah chapter 3 describes the people of Jerusalem saying, “They sin openly like the people of Sodom. They are not one bit ashamed. How terrible it will be for them! They have brought about their own destruction.

                This evil time is once again reflected in Revelation 11 when they kill off the two witnesses and leave them lying dead in the streets of Jerusalem, the city which is mystically called Sodom and Egypt.

                What is going on here? Israel seems to be the center of everything sinful and bad, as well as being the center from which the Lord will reign bringing restoration and life.

                What we see going on in Israel today is a godless Babylonian Cabal seeking to fulfill the glorious prophecies of the Old Testament while rejecting the God of both the Old and New Testament.. It is like the offering of Cain verses the offering of Abel… so it seems like the leaders of fallen Christianity have joined forces with the leaders of fallen Israel to fulfill the vision while rejecting Jesus as its rightful king. We are looking at the formation of the antichrist kingdom… the kingdom of the Beast… a manmade kingdom that is prophesied to arise just before the real kingdom comes and its results will be the time of Jacob’s trouble.

                The great deception in the last days will involve false movements both within Israel and in false Christianity. It is an attempt by mankind to fulfil the vision, the millennial reign of Christ without Christ.

                One of the big challenges that we face in these last days is to have discernment between that which is of God and that which is not. A great falling away from the faith is taking place both in Israel and in Christianity and just as Torah study has largely been replaced by the Babylonian Talmud and Kabbalah, so has the church begun to drift away from the foundations of our faith and the fundamental teachings of scripture and replacing them with the philosophies of men.

                There is a coming millennial reign of Christ when all of the glorious prophecies will indeed come to pass and we need to be in love with God’s messianic purposes for Israel, but we should not be fooled by the imposter that is currently seeking to build a global kingdom and to fake the millennial reign of Christ.

                It seems that both the false church and false Israel have openly embraced the sins of Sodom. In this they are fulfilling prophecy of course and so we can do a personal check of our values once in a while to see if we are aligned with what God’s word says, or what the world says.

                The good news in all of this is that we literally have a choice to stand upon the Word of God, no matter how crazy the world thinks we are. We have the choice to become the remnant people of God, the manifested sons for whom all of creation waits.

                Jesus has paved the way for us through His cross and resurrection. We may die to this present kingdom of darkness and to be born again into the kingdom of God’s dear Son. We don’t have to be a part of this fallen kingdom. We don’t have to partake of her sins, or drink of the wine of her fornication. We don’t have to walk in darkness, because Jesus is the Light of the world. His truth will never fail and His Holy Spirit will never leave us or forsake us.

                Every one of God’s promises was written to Jesus so that when we have Jesus we have it all. We must center our faith in Him. And in spite of the fact that we deal with many complex issues, it all boils down to something very simple.

                “Salvation that comes from trusting Christ- which is the message we preach- is already within easy reach. In fact the Scriptures say, ”The message is close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart. For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that  you are made right with God and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved. As the Scriptures tell us; “Anyone who believes in Him will not be disappointed. Jews and Gentiles are the same in this respect. They all have the same Lord, who generously gives His riches to all who ask for them. For anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.  Romans 10:8-14