TWO CHURCHES

TWO CHURCHES

                There will be two churches in the world when all is said and done. One will be the church of the antichrist and one will be the church of the firstborn,(Heb. 12:23) otherwise known as the church of the Remnant. (Rev. 12:17)

                The church of the antichrist will have a forced membership, although many will join it voluntarily. The wicked will rush to it and embrace it. They will think of themselves as the church of the free, for there will be no restrictions. Every sin and every perversion known to mankind will be welcomed and the members of this church will be more than glad to silence the voices of those who represent truth and righteousness.

                We see them today in the LGBT parades. We see them in the pagan celebrations of hedonism. We see them in the compromising churches that are already selling their souls for the sake of unity and favor. We see them in the crowds of seeker friendly churches that can no longer endure sound doctrine, whose preachers no longer take a stand against the evils of this world. We see them in the formal and dead churches that have long since rejected the Holy Spirit in favor of tradition. We see them in the great cathedrals of pagan/Christianity. We see them in the hordes of the uncommitted.

                All of these will either gladly or sadly take the Mark of the Beast rather than to suffer with the people of God.

                On a brighter side, there is the other church, the faithful Bride of Christ. She will be hated by the church of the antichrist. She will be marginalized and ridiculed. She will in time be hunted down; for the antichrist will require one hundred percent compliance and he will declare open season upon those who dare to resist his rule.

                There is a great deal of disagreement concerning when this church of the Remnant will be taken from the earth. Some believe that we will remain on earth to bring in the final harvest. We do know that there will be a huge harvest even if the Bride of Christ is taken away. Millions of people, having been left behind will come to the Lord when the issues have been made clear. Even in face of the loss of their lives they will take their stand and be faithful unto death.

                I will not try to settle the argument as to when the Bride will be taken from the earth, but it’s interesting that when Jesus is talking about the end of the age, He says: “And the enemy who sowed them (the tares) is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels. Therefore just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He, who has an ear, let him hear.” Mt. 13:39-43. (The reapers are the angels?)

                So in other words, the true church does not have to be here in order to bring in the final harvest. But there will indeed be a Remnant of her seed during that time who keep the commandments and who have the testimony of Jesus. They will face great persecution.

                To add to the debate, we have Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish virgins. All ten of them were believers. They were all watching for the return of the Bridegroom. They all fell asleep. But when the Bridegroom came five of them had the oil of the Holy Spirit and five of them did not. The wise virgins entered into the marriage supper of the Lamb, while five of them had to go out to buy oil from those that sell.

                Concerning the foolish virgins, some say that they are totally lost at that time because when they come knocking at the door, the Bridegroom says “I do not know you.” But this can be taken several different ways. For instance, why would they be told to buy oil if there was no chance of salvation for them? We must remember that we are talking about a wedding here. The Bridegroom could easily have been saying that since the foolish virgins had not established an intimate relationship with Him through the Holy Spirit, they would not be a part of the Bride.

                This does not indicate eternal loss in hell, but merely a disqualification to be part of the Bride of Christ that will rule and reign with Him on His throne. They may become friends of the Bride who, having found oil, end up in heaven, not as the Bride, but as friends of the Bride in the kingdom.

                It is this parable that makes me think that there will be a rapture of the Bride at some point prior to the general reaping and it is this Bride that we see in Revelation 19 returning with Jesus at the second coming. Whatever that crowd is, they are said to be a great multitude and their millions of voices sound like many waters and the sound of mighty peals of thunder.  They shout, Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready. And it is 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.

                Then the very next scene is of Jesus along with His Bride riding white horses and returning to earth to destroy the kings of the earth and to set up His millennial kingdom. Then in chapter 20 we see a group of tribulation saints that have been beheaded for their faith and they come to life and reign with Christ for one thousand years. Notice if you will that these are not caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. That rapture has already taken place. These are saints who came to Christ after the rapture. They will come to life and reign with Christ during His millennial reign of 1000 years.

                The Bible makes a point of letting us know that this final harvest in Revelation 20:4 is included in the first resurrection. Then it goes on to say that the 2^nd death will happen after the 1000 years are completed.

                I can’t help but wonder if there are not multiple raptures going on in the book of Revelation. We always tend to try to cram everything into one event, but in the Jewish economy there are actually 3 reaping events spoken of. They are the Barley harvest of the first fruits, which would correspond to the wise virgins. Then there is the Wheat harvest that came later, which would correspond to the foolish virgins and then there is a grape harvest that is reaped and cast into the winepress of God’s wrath as seen in Revelation 14.

                Now, let us back up and talk once again about the two churches that will exist in the last days. One of them is the Philadelphia church and one is the church of Laodicea. The Philadelphia church has an open door set before it and they are said to be exempt from the testing that will come upon the whole earth. These would represent the Bride that was ready to go into the wedding.

                Then there was the church of Laodicea. They are lukewarm and about to be spit out of the mouth of Jesus, but they are counselled to buy eye salve to open their blind eyes, and gold tried in the fire, and they must buy white garments as well, because unlike the Bride in Revelation 19, they have not washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. They have not made themselves ready and so they must be purified as by fire.

                This speaks of purification by tribulation and testing. Gold tried by fire certainly speaks of refining with great heat. Many of them will be saved because it is said of them that if they will repent they will sit down with Him on His throne.

                As always these parables leave our heads spinning because they never give definitive proof of any of our theories concerning the rapture. However they give us enough information to know that we don’t want to take the Mark of the Beast. We don’t want to belong to the church of the antichrist. We do what to be filled with the Holy Spirit and walking with Yeshua as one who is planning to marry Him. We will have cast off any other suiters.

                I try to be honest about these things, simply because pre, mid and post tribulation raptures can all be verified in scripture. People tend to pick the texts that fit their own beliefs, but in truth, this is not how the Bible should be used. We must rather take all that the Bible says on a subject and come up with a consensus that is faithful to the whole Word rather than to one denomination or the other.

                The Lord has told us that many sealed prophecies will be unsealed in these last days. A big unsealing took place when Israel came back into their own land in 1948. This brought into question replacement theology and many scholars went back to the Bible to see where they had missed it.

                So, reformation theology may have been a good start on our trek out of pagan Christianity, but now in these last days, we must continue that trip in our return to the original church’s beginnings as a Judeo/Christian church, with the New Testament being built upon the foundations of the Old Testament. Remember, the early church had mostly the Old Testament to preach from along with a few letters that got passed around that eventually became the body of the New Testament.  Jesus Himself taught His disciples all things concerning Himself beginning with Moses and all the prophets.

                It is interesting that those churches that reject the Old Testament as being foundational today, are rejecting our Judeo/Christian roots and many of them are returning to the Mother Church, to embrace pagan Christianity and that means that unless they change directions, they will end up in the global church of the antichrist. Some of them actually teach that it will be okay to take the Mark of the Beast and God will understand. Evidently they missed God’s memo in Rev. 14:11 that those who take the mark will be in the flames of hell forever and ever.

                Well, that is not such a bright note to end on, but listen my friends; we have choices to make, one of them being that if we want to be a part of the Bride of Christ then we need to have eyes only for Him and we need to be growing in our love for Him and we should be attending His dress rehearsals, called the feasts of the Lord. The Bride must make herself ready and she must certainly be filled with the oil of the Holy Spirit and faithful to His Word.

                Everything about the second coming and the catching away of the Bride is given in the language of a Jewish Wedding and it should be no small thing to us that immediately after the wedding, the Bride and groom spend seven days celebrating with the guests. Could this seven days represent the 7 years of the tribulation as the bride and groom are seen celebrating in heaven just prior to their ret urn in Revelation 19?

                Like I said, we all tend to pick the texts that fit our particular doctrine and ignore the rest, but we are now living in the time of revelation and the unsealing of Daniel and the Minor prophets. Should we not study these things out with renewed vigor rather than stubbornly clinging to the past? We are very near the end and now we are living out many of these prophecies in real time. Jesus said that many of the prophecies would not be fully understood until they come to pass.

                This is not a time for tradition, but for an explosion of knowledge and understanding. The guidelines have been set for us clearly enough so that we can know which of the two churches we want to belong to. So let’s get ready for the marriage. If we have been faithful servants and we have oil in our lamps, then we will be ready no matter when He returns.