THE HOME STRETCH

THE HOME STRETCH

                If we build our interpretations of Bible Prophecy with brick and mortar, it becomes exceedingly difficult to expand our understanding of last day events as they unfold.

                Right now, my understanding of last day events is being stretched and expanded in ways that I never would have suspected. Right now I am getting an inside look at the nature of the coming kingdom of the antichrist  and what I am seeing is shocking. No wonder Jesus said first off,” Let no man deceive you.”  Mt. 24:4.

                We need to understand that in Mt. 24 Jesus was answering 2 questions and not just one. The disciples said: “Tell us when will these things be and what will be the sign of Your coming and the end of the age.

                So the two questions were these:

1.       When will this temple be destroyed so that one stone is not left upon another?

2.       And what signs should we look for in connection with your return and the end of the age.

                I listened to a Preterist preacher this last week who stated emphatically that neither Mt 24 nor the book of Revelation had anything whatsoever to do with our day… that all of these prophecies came to pass in A.D. 70 and the persecutions of the early church.

                Evidently he didn’t get the memo that Jesus was answering two questions and not just one and since Jesus has not yet returned, we must know that most of Mt. 24 and the book of Revelation actually deal with the end times much more so than the falling of the temple in A.D. 70. A.D 70 was a pattern of things to come.

                The question is this: Were these prophecies fulfilled in A.D. 70. Well, yes… at least in part, with the exception that Jesus did not return then. But this is where a right understanding of bible prophecy comes in. Just because a prophecy was fulfilled at some point in history doesn’t mean that it is the final fulfillment of that prophecy. And here we must lay down a cardinal rule:

PROPHECY IS PATTERN

1.       Babylon became a pattern or type showing us the state of a nation that is ripe for judgment. It is in moral and spiritual collapse and is thus in line for the judgements of God.

2.       Jesus gave the days of Noah as a pattern of a world that was ripe for judgment.

3.       He also gave us Sodom as a sign that a nation is at its last end and about to be destroyed.

4.       The tower of Babel becomes a pattern of false religion and this pattern is being directly fulfilled in our world today as mankind through science and technology in connection with the occult is trying to usurp the throne of God and to rule the earth in the place of Christ.

5.       Many of the experiences shared with us throughout the Bible provide types and shadows of either the right way of doing things or the wrong way… thus warning us of things that bring God’s judgments.

6.       Paul’s great battle against the judaizers of His day that threatened to take the church back into bondage, is happening again as many Protestant denominations give up their protest and fall back to mother Rome, which in turn is placing the church back under Cabbalistic rule. In other words, the church is once again being invaded by the Judaizers that Paul fought so hard to expose and to refute. Do we understand what we are doing? We are coming back under Law. We are setting ourselves up for judgment, because in coming back under Law, we are denying Jesus Christ who set us free from the Law and filled us instead with His Holy Spirit.

                If we fail to understand the patterns of history, then we are doomed to repeat them. But we can’t afford to repeat them again because this time we are facing the final battle between Christ and Satan and to take the wrong side in this battle will have eternal consequences.

                Paul tells us 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.” 1 Cor. 10:11

                Are we actually learning from the Bible or are we treating it as dead tradition even as we repeat the same mistakes in our day?

                Bible prophecy is not static. We cannot build our interpretations into a brick and mortal building. Jesus said that He gave us these things so that when they come to pass we will understand them. So if I ever tell you that I have it all figured out… stop reading my writings because you will know that I have settled into yesterday’s truth and have stopped watching and waiting and praying for understanding.

                Some of what I am learning right now is very upsetting to me, because it requires some course corrections… or at the very least a massive expansion in my understanding and it is a message that I faint at giving to the world for it is bound to step on everyone’s toes on every side of the issues and I want to make darn sure that I understand it right before I say too much.

                The last days are days of deception in which Jesus warned us that if possible even the very elect would be deceived. I can now see how this could be and yet I can also see that to give the message will come with a price. It has to do with the actual components that will make up the coming kingdom of the antichrist. Now I can see what Revelation 13:8, 9 means when it says: “And all who dwell on the earth will worship him,(The antichrist)  every one whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain. If any man has an ear let him hear.”

                Being a watchman bears eternal consequences and while I started this out years ago as merely an outlet for creative writing and to share my journey along the way, it has morphed into something more than that and I tremble before God for answers and for right thinking and Holy Spirit understanding. Actually none of us can take lightly the fact that we are ambassadors for Christ in this world and everything we say and do and even what we don’t say and don’t do preaches a sermon to the world.

                Let us unite our prayers for one another as we take a more serious look at what it means to be Christ’s ambassadors in a world that is plunging into the great abyss we call the last days… the end of the age.

                We are indeed in the home stretch. The finish line is in sight… but it is becoming increasingly important as to how we run the race.