ESCAPE OR POWER

ESCAPE OR POWER?

            On the eve of the 20^th of this month Rosh Hashanah begins and with it a Jewish new year. It will be the year 5778, the beginning of a new 7 year Shemitah cycle and a new 50 year Jubilee cycle. To ring in this cycle we have another wonder in the heavens.

            “And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars; and she was with child; and she cried out being in labor and in pain to give birth.”

            If you read all of Revelation chapter 12 you will see the following elements:

1.      A woman giving birth to a man child

2.      A dragon waiting to consume the man child

3.      This dragon has 7 heads and 10 horns. He is kicked out of heaven and his tail sweeps 1/3 of the angels with him.

4.      There has been a war in heaven and Michael and his angels have literally kicked Satan and his angels out, clipped their wings so that they can no longer function in either the 3^rd or the 2^nd heavens. He is suddenly limited to this earth.

5.      This victory over the dragon and his angels elicits a cry of victory in heaven. “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down who accuses them before our God day and night and they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony and they did not love their life even to death.” Rev. 12:10, 11.

6.      Woe is pronounced upon the earth because the devil has now come down to us having great wrath knowing that he has only a short time.

7.      The dragon, seeing that he is thrown down goes off to make war with the woman that gave birth to the man child.

8.      The woman is given wings to escape into the wilderness where she is nourished for 1260 days or 3 ½ years.

9.      The dragon is enraged because God has caused the earth to help the woman escape.

10.  Now the dragon goes off to make war with the rest of her offspring who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

            In the past, prophecy students wrote this chapter off as a throw back to ancient history. They did not connect it to the final time of tribulation that the book of Revelation is dealing with. Now we are beginning to understand that this is not a past event, but one that is just now about to happen. Just like the blood moons and the total eclipse of the sun over America, God is shouting from the sky, “Get ready. Put on your full armor. Set aside all of your prophetic parlor games and get real, for the hour of His judgment has come.

            For years now we have heard nothing but bold proclamations about a pre-trib rapture. Now, all of a sudden there is a great deal of talk about tribulation and a silent waiting with baited breath to see if the rapture will come first. God is about to sweep all of the false prophets out of the church and He is going to bring both the church and America to its knees.

            In just one week a new Jewish new year begins and the start of a new 7 year cycle. God has been warning the true prophets to prepare the church for unprecedented times of trouble and persecution, while the false prophets have kept on prophesying smooth sailing, prosperity and escape.

            Well, we are about to find out who is right, because God has spoken to the true prophets warning them that what we have seen in terms of signs and hurricanes and animal deaths and hatred of God’s true people and persecution and chaos are about to plunge us into a time of tribulation such as the world has never seen. We are witnessing the rise of the antichrist’s final kingdom.

            The Revelation 12 sign is a current event about to be witnessed in the heavens just as the text says, but it truly represents things that are about to take place on the earth. It is not about the past per se. This time it is about the final casting out of Satan as a legal representative of Earth. In other words, he was cast out of heaven before the creation of the earth, but he stole from Adam a seat on the council and so we see in Job that Satan still had access to heaven as a legal representative of the Earth. All of that is about to change. Yeshua is about to take up His role as both Judge and King. That is what the book Revelation is all about.

            What we are witnessing and are about to experience is the WRATH OF SATAN, (vs. 12) not the wrath of God. The events just ahead are being brought on by Satan and his Luciferian servants, the global leaders of the New World Order.

            Persecution is coming folks. It will come from the globalists. It will come from the fallen away church that is now conforming to the global religion of the Beast. It is coming from those who wish to control the world and its money. It is coming from those who planted their agenda on the Georgia Guide Stones. They intend to wipe out 90% of earth’s population with their agenda 2030. They talk about a sustainable plan for the earth and all of the fools who don’t know scripture are saying “Yay, Yay, Yay, a sustainable planet… not realizing that they are about to be slaughtered and poisoned, brainwashed and ID’d for control and annihilation.

            How gladly they will take the Mark so that they can buy and sell. How gladly they will seek to wipe out everyone who refuses to take the Mark. After all, a time of war and famine, pestilence and violence is coming upon us such as the world has never seen.

            Chapter 12 is immediately followed by chapter 13 in the book of Revelation. And though this may seem like a dumb thing to say, the world and its prophets have for 2000 years failed to properly place Revelation 12 in the sequence of events that make up our tribulation. The Dragon with its 7 heads and ten horns is seen again in chapter 13. In other words, this dragon with his 7 heads and 10 horns becomes the spiritual hand in the glove of the 7 headed, 10 horned beast kingdom of Revelation 13.

            The BIG QUESTION now is this. Who is the man child that is caught up to heaven and who is the woman that gives birth to him? It has long been thought to be Jesus and Israel, and this is true historically. In fact this could represent the rapture of a group of Christians that have overcome and now bear the image of Christ. They could be the sons of God mentioned in Romans 8:19-23. In fact verse 22-23 says: “For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit even we ourselves groan within ourselves waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

            Could this refer to the revealing and catching up of the man child spoken of in Revelation 12? Are these to be the first fruits of the resurrection in our day?  Is there a representative group of wise virgins who are ready for the marriage supper that is taken up prior to the wrath of Satan? (The wrath of God is generally understood to occur in the second half of the Tribulation and it is aimed at destroying the kingdom of the antichrist.) Over and over again in scripture it is said that we are not destined for the wrath of God, but what about this first part? What about the wrath of Satan?

            After all, the Remnant of her seed are said to keep the commandments, which could mean the Jewish people, but contrary to the Jewish people, they have the testimony of Jesus. So who is it that has the testimony of Jesus, but nevertheless goes through the time of trouble? Jews do not at this point have the testimony of Jesus. That event awaits the end of the tribulation at the coming of the Lord when they will look upon Him whom they have pierced.
            But this cannot happen until there is a great falling away that the man of sin can be revealed, the son of perdition. And the Jews will at first mistake him for their Messiah and he will help them build their temple and then will subsequently commit the abomination of desolation in that temple. These things will literally happen I believe.

            Many people balk at a new physical temple saying, that we are the temple of God. Yes, this is true, but God always lets us know by physical means in Israel, what is going on spiritually in the nations and what is going on is that a great portion of the world and even of the church, is receiving the spirit of Satan rather than the Spirit of Christ and they are indeed going to persecute those who have the true Spirit of Christ.

            We see this happening right before our eyes in the church today. For Instance, Dr. Michael Lake, in his new book “The Sheeriyth Imperative,” points out that much of the Charismatic church today is no longer able to discern between the spirit of Satan and the Spirit of Christ. They operate about as much in the psychic realm as they do in the Holy Spirit realm. And because they have abandoned the study of Bible prophecy and have begun preaching to tickle the ears and bring in big offerings, they are going astray. They are no longer able to endure sound doctrine. Therefore a great shaking is coming to shake out everything that is not of God.

            How can Jesus bring home a big family of worldly Christians that don’t really know Him, who don’t know His Word and still belong largely to the world? They keep saying that God will change us when we are raptured, but that is not the message of the Bible. The Bride must make herself ready. She must stop dating other gods. She must be purged of her sins through repentance and obedience. That is the message that is being left out today.

            God’s Remnant people keep His commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus, (not just any spirit that comes along.) In fact the Gospel message has changed so radically that the early church would not be able to recognize it as being Christian at all.

            Paul said in Gal. 4:19 “My children with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you-“ His definitive definition of a Christian is one who has been crucified with Christ who is now living a life empowered by Christ. Jesus spoke in the same language saying that if we will be His disciples, we must deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him.

            Jesus wants to empower us to live like Him and to do His works in these last days. But in order to do so, we must also bear His character. The church has largely made a mess of what little power they have had today and this “Christian “TV craziness that we often see, is not the same as what the Remnant people of God are going to display in these last days. In fact we are called upon not only to display the power of God, but the Character of God and that is exactly what the Remnant people of God are going to do.

            But He has to bring us to our knees first. We have to become totally dependent upon Him. We have to become dead to self and alive to God, so that the Spirit of Christ may operate unhindered in and through us. This is the revealing of the sons of God that Romans 8 is talking about.

            So, if there is to be a rapture on Rosh Hashanah, it will certainly be of the Bride that has made herself ready and not everyone that calls himself a Christian. It is time to get real with God.