Bible Prophecy by Rick Lange

THE SMOLDERING FLAX                 `”Behold My Servant whom I uphold; My chosen One in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry out or raise His voice, nor make His voice heard in the street. A bruised reed He will not break and a dimly lit wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not be disheartened or crushed, until He has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands will wait expectantly for His law.”   Isa 42: 1-4.                 I write a lot these days about gearing up for the harvest… about what we should be aiming for spiritually. I speak about the great shaking that is coming in which everything that is not of God will be shaken out of the nations and out of the church. But now I want to deal with another aspect of this whole time of preparation.                 Every one of us has benefitted greatly from the gentleness and patience of our Lord. M

OUR RESIDENT KING                 “For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day. Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.” 2 Tim. 1:12-14                 “For God, who said, “Light shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves… always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.” 2 Cor. 4:6, 7, 10.                    “Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from oursel

THE CHURCH AS A LIVING ORGANISM                 So often we have a myopic view of church. There is a pastoral staff that does what they are supposed to do. We come, we listen and we leave.                 I spent many years being on stage in churches of all kinds and I want to tell you that there is no lonelier place in the entire world than being up front in a dead church. If there is to be a smile, you are going to have to provide it. If there is to be a positive atmosphere, you are going to have to provide it. IF there is to be any inspiration or excitement or conviction, you are going to have to produce it, even as the entire congregation sits glumly staring at their laps.                 In a living congregation, when you pray the congregations prays with you. When you sing, they sing along or clap their hands in time to the music or lift their hands in praise to God… whatever they do, they are alive and instead of a performance, your song or your preaching becomes a

THE SUPERNATURAL SEED                 Every one of us that lives on this planet was born here on this planet as natural flesh and blood children.   We are all from the seed of Adam, and since Adam is a fallen man, all of us are born into a fallen race.                 As people born into a fallen race, we share something in common with Satan. We belong to His kingdom and because we belong to his kingdom we also, by nature, share his destiny.                 In Matthew 25:41 Jesus talks about those who will share the devil’s fate saying: “Then He will also say to those on His left, “Depart from Me accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.”                 So we see from this text that Satan’s eternal destiny will be in the lake of fire. But since we are born as natural flesh and blood people into a kingdom that chose Satan from the beginning, we have a very natural problem. Paul stated this problem in 1 Cor. 15:50 saying:

THE TIME OF OPPORTUNITY                 I was happy being a dish washer in the house of the Lord. After all, we had a stream of people young and old coming by the kitchen for prayers and hugs and questions about Bible prophecy. We were in love with the people and we knew we were there by divine appointment. Life was good.                 So when the Lord spoke to me out in the garden and told me that my final assignment was to be a father and grandfather to my children and grandchildren, it was a wonderful thought but a terrifying one as well. It involved a 2600 mile move filled with unknowns. I had decided not to share this revelation with Bonnie, because she was so happy and was so involved in making quilts for holocaust survivors and more or less managing the kitchen and she had the dearest of friends, as did I at the Rehoboth Messianic congregation. Why would God want to move us?                 But as I have told you before, Bonnie woke the next morning and came strai

THE BOOK OF RUTH IS A PROPHETIC BOOK                 In this article I am going to draw heavily from Rabbi Mark Biltz who is a wonderful teacher when it comes to biblical signs and seasons. I want to share this with you now because I believe we can see these signs forming right before our eyes and the book of Ruth can add some clarity to what is happening.                 As the story goes, Elimelech and Naomi were Jews living in Bethlehem. They had two sons: Mahlon and Chilion. There was no bread in Bethlehem and so they left the country. They were exiled in the foreign land of Moab for almost ten years during which time Naomi’s husband died and her two sons married two Gentile young women; Ruth and Orpah. These two women represent Gentiles who are grafted into the covenant of Israel by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So Ruth and Orpah, in one sense, also represent the Church that is grafted into the Jewish Olive tree. (As seen in Romans 11)                 When Naom

TRIBULATION                 If one were to try to describe the complete chaos of the Tribulation, he might start with Panama City in north Florida. Hurricane Michael dealt a devastating blow to a 60 mile wide, several hundred mile long swath of Florida and Georgia that has left hundreds of thousands of people homeless. The banks are not yet functioning so people can’t get any money out. Gas is in short supply. Cell Phone service is non-existent at this time and since there is no electricity to recharge the phones anyway, they have become useless. Cars are abandoned along roads and freeways wherever they ran out of gas.                 If you add to this the miles and miles of rubble that used to be homes and businesses… one has to wonder how long it will take to recover from this one hurricane. Picture if you will, being a person whose house was totally destroyed and their place of employment ruined. Picture being without power, without a car, without cell phone service… with

THE LIVING CHURCH                 “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:8                 Jesus is talking to Nicodemus here and explaining to Him what it means to be born again. But as we look at this definition, we find ourselves wondering what kind of people these are that come and go like the wind. We picture them drifting in and out of church, as impossible to pin down as a wave on the sand and unpredictable. We ask ourselves, will he show up as promised? Will she do her part? Can we count on them for anything or will they just sort of blow in and blow out?                 We could look at a Spirit filled, spirit led person as being sort of an administrative nightmare when it comes to running a church. But in truth it isn’t like that at all, for as parts of the Body whose head is Jesus and whose functioning unity is in the Holy Spirit, t