THE SECRET PLACE

THE SECRET PLACE

                Everyone wants to claim Psalm 91, but few want to enter into the battle that it describes. Psalm 91 is a description of the coming tribulation. It is a time when a thousand may fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand but it shall not approach you.

                We have learned to trust our Lord Yeshua during times of peace and prosperity, but how will we trust Him in the coming storm?

                While we have been promised in numerous places that we will not be here to face the wrath of God, there is no such promise concerning tribulation. And while the tribulation will be a place of victory and harvest for those who have learned to dwell in the secret place of the Most High, it will be a time of terror for two groups of people… the wicked… and those Christians that have never made the Lord their dwelling place.

                The truth concerning the coming tribulation is brutal. Only half of the bridal party was ready to go in to the wedding feast. The rest had to go out and buy oil from those who sell. And I have said it before that the two churches of Philadelphia and Laodicea run parallel to the wise and foolish virgins. Philadelphia was given an open door and promised to be kept from the hour of testing that will come upon the whole earth… while the Laodiceans were counselled to buy gold tried in the fire. This speaks of the tribulation.

                In nearly every place in the book of Revelation where it describes the saints in heaven or on the sea of glass, it is said of them that they have “Come out of the great tribulation.” Rev. 7:14 “Come off victorious over the beast and his image and from the number of his name.” (666) Rev 15:2. “Beheaded because of the testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God and those who have not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand…” Rev. 20:4

                In Rev. 19, there is a great multitude (most likely the multitudefrom Revelation 7 saying: “Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready. And it was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. And he said to me, Write, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb…” Rev 19:7-9a.

                Here again we have the parable of the wise and foolish virgins and the angel was telling John, Blessed are the ones who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. From Daniel to Revelation the language is the same. We are to be refined and purified through trials and tribulations. We are given escape from these things, not by being absent from them but by abiding in the secret place of the Most High. It is a place of intimacy with our Lord and Savior.

                David confirms this in Psalm 91:8-10 saying: You will only look on with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked for you have made the Lord, my refuge even the Most High, your dwelling place. No evil will befall you, nor will any plague come near your tent.”

                The real Bride of Christ is not going to get beat up in the coming tribulation. She will go through it unscathed and she will do great exploits and she will rescue many and she will bring in the greatest harvest of all time even amidst blood and fire and columns of smoke.

                Countless millions have died for their faith including all but one of Yeshua’s disciples. Did they talk about Jesus beating up the bride or did thy not say that we come off as more than conquerors through Jesus Christ our Lord?

                We are in many ways a spoiled generation. We want to live in eternity, but we have not set our minds and hearts on eternal things. We don’t like to think in terms of overcoming. We only want to think in terms of escape. We want to be the bride, but we don’t want to make ourselves ready. We have adopted a false grace. We want to smear the blood of the Lamb on our doorposts, but we don’t want to eat the whole Lamb. We like to talk about what Jesus did for us, but we don’t like to talk about what Jesus wants to do in us and through us.

                We want to dwell in the secret place of the Most High even as we choose to live in Babylon. We are casual… Christians in name only… seeking for the minimum requirements… we don’t know the passion of the bride. We are usually too busy to spend real time with our Lover. He wakes us up in the night and we roll over and tell Him to come back in the morning. We say, “I have already gone to bed. I don’t want to get up and put on my robe or to get my feet dirty.

                Jesus replies that He has travelled far and the dew of the night is upon Him, but you roll over and go back to sleep. Then suddenly you wake up in a panic and run to the door, but your lover has gone.

                We no longer have faith to believe that Yeshua will keep us through the storm. We do not have the faith of Paul who said that: “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. “ We forget Christ’s words that those who try to save their lives will lose them, while those who are willing to lose their lives for My sake will find them. We have invented for ourselves a “Christianity Lite.”

                Truly the church needs the Refiner’s Fire. We think that we are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing, and we don’t know that we are poor and miserable and blind and naked.

                I believe with all of my heart that we may be looking down the gun barrels of the tribulation. God has been shouting His warnings across the sky for 3 years now with blood moons and eclipses, with erratic weather and harbingers of the apocalypse on every side. Millions of animals die each year and crops are failing even in America right now so that we have to import food. We used to share with the world of our abundance, but now we don’t even have enough for ourselves… and all of this because millions of acres of farm land is being used to put fuel in our cars instead of feeding people.

                We are now looking at a total eclipse of the sun as it blazes a trail of darkness across America. The hour of our judgment has come. In September we will see the sign of Revelation 12… which may prove to be a doorway into earth’s final events. And here again we see hints of the wise and foolish virgins. The man child is caught up to heaven while the Remnant of her seed flee into the wilderness.   What exactly does that mean? Will there be a catching away of those who are ready for the marriage while the rest have to go through the Tribulation? If so, have we become fully engaged to our Bridegroom? This is why I don’t make a hard and fast doctrine out of my beliefs. Some truths will only unfold in their proper time.

                I believe that the first half of the tribulation is made up of that which mankind has brought upon himself. These are not punishments of God, but a reaping of that which we have sown. Satan is in the process of building his final global government and half of the church is now joining forces with the Pope to become the antichrist’s global religion. This is why Paul says in 2 Thess. 2:4 that the rapture cannot come until there comes a great falling away first so that the man of sin might be revealed. We WILL see the rise of the antichrist and we WILL have to choose whether or not to take the Mark of the Beast.

                Here is where differences of opinion make a huge difference. Some believe that the entire tribulation is the wrath of God, but I see the wrath of man in the first half and the wrath of God in the second half. This of course changes when the rapture might be, but on this note, Paul says that we will see the falling away and the man of sin revealed… so I go for the wrath of God being after that in the second half.

                The first half of the tribulation is all man’s doing, not God’s. But there will come a time around the middle or last half of the tribulation when Jesus will take His people out of here (as in the sickle harvest of Revelation 14) and then He will pour out His wrath upon this rebellious world. He will bring Satan and his kingdom to an end.

                Believe me, I would like for there to be a pre-tribulation rapture as much as the next guy, but I just can’t see it in scripture.

                Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 10: 11-13 that everything that happened to Israel in days of old happened to them as an example and they were written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide a way of escape also that you may be able to endure it.“ Notice He didn’t say to escape it, but to endure it. We are to be overcomers and conquerors through Jesus Christ our Lord.

                Jesus has given His Bride authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and on all  of the power of our enemies… and now back to Psalm 91:11-13: “ and He will give His angels charge concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. They will bear you up in their hands lest you strike your foot against a stone. You will tread upon the lion and cobra. The young lion and the serpent you will trample down.”

                Everyone wants to claim Psalm 91, but no one wants to go through the battle. At the very least, we as Christians need to learn how to dwell in the secret place of the Most High and to abide under the shadow of the Almighty. For it is He who delivers us from the snare of the trapper and from the deadly pestilence, because He has become our refuge and our fortress.              

                I do not make a practice of forming doctrines over which to argue. Much more important than dwelling in doctrines is to dwell in the secret place of the Most High. It is a place of intimacy with Yeshua that we are pressing into day by day. Doctrines and prophetic interpretations are at best fleeting… but finding our place in the secret place of the Most High is eternal and loving our Lord and loving each other is eternal. Selah.