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PROPHECY     FOR TODAY!

           PSALM 110, &
EVENTS PRECEEDING
THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.

HOW SHALL WE LIVE IN THESE DAYS?

You may be thinking
“I can’t cope, how we my family and I deal with these stupendous days in which we live?”
DO NOT FEAR, God is telling us, are you listening to Him?
“Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” (Isaiah 41:10).

IMPORTANT FACTS FROM SCRIPTURE.

1. The Bible tells us that Satan or evil men DO NOT control history, Jesus Christ our Friend and Lord controls history. Praise the Lord. There is CRISIS in history and our lives, but there are no tragedies for the children of God who are saved by Jesus Christ. See Romans 8:28; Ephesians 1:11; Colossians 1:17 and Revelation 22:12-13.
2. Every person has an allotted time to live on earth and a certain amount of trouble, decided ultimately by God. UNLESS, we sin and take things into our hands and forget the Lord. God has allotted a certain amount of trials, suffering, and crisis that cannot be solved without trusting God! He has also given us promises of deliverance from evil and trials so we will have faith in HIM. He can deliver us from every one of our problems. Job 5:7; Psalm 34:19,37. Read Exodus 4.
3. Every crisis always involves A CONTROLLED TESTING coming our way, allowed by God. The Lord will always limit what Satan and evil can do, evil and suffering cannot get past the fortifications that God has placed around us, UNLESS He allows it to happen. Genesis 22:1-19; Job chapters one and two; 1 Corinthians 10:13.
4. Every trial or emergency forces us to decide, for or against trusting the Lord. Every crisis shows us what we are spiritually, a dude or true blue. We always have the option of chooses good or evil, of trusting God or forgetting Him and trusting men or ourselves. Good choices today make it easier to make good choices tomorrow. Do not callous your soul by making bad decisions today. “Today we make our decisions, tomorrow our decisions make us.” (Gene Cunningham).
5. There are always two wills that will affect every circumstance or emergency – the unchangeable will of the Lord, and the will of man. Deuteronomy 8:1-20; Jeremiah 18:5-12; Ezekiel 18:20-29. God already knows every decision we will ever make, but He does not force us to make those decisions.

We are not in bondage to our environment or the world we live in, unless we choose to be. We are the product of our decisions. We all have a will, we can make decisions. Decisions make a pattern of life; make a new trend for your life right away! CHOOSE to trust God in all things in all ways. Don’t “go it alone.”
                                                               (Thanks to Gene Cunningham for his teachings on these matters).
 

THE RAPTURE OBJECTIONS.

Some Christians will tell you that the Rapture is unknown in Scripture and that it has no illustration in any other places to verify it. Now you may known already that ELIJAH and ENOCH were Raptured or “translated” without dying in the Old Testament, you can read about them in Genesis and 1 Kings. But in the New Testament as well there is a wealth of mention of HARPAZO, the Greek word we get the word “Rapture” from. In the earliest Latin translations of the Bible it was rendered “rapere”. It has also the meaning of being carried away by emotion, and “rape” which implies being seized and carried away by force!

If we look up where this word HARPAZO is used in the New Testament you will be amazed:
1. Acts 8:39 describes what happened to Philip the evangelist. The Holy Spirit just snatched Philip away. The word harpazo is used here. This will be like what will happen to Christians in the Rapture!

2. In 11 Corinthians 12: 2 Paul describes in the third person what actually happened to himself fourteen years earlier. This probably happened when he was stoned in Lystra and left for dead (Acts 14:19-20. Paul was “caught up to the third heaven.” Paradise, or the Jewish meaning of God’s abode. The word harpazo is used here.

3. Harpazo is used in Revelation 12:5 where a description scholars have found to represent the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is given. The “woman” or Israel gives birth, and the “child” or Jesus Christ is “caught up” to the throne of God.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 Paul tells us about the resurrection of Church Age believers. Jesus Christ will come down from Heaven with a shout. What shout? Well Revelation 4:1 actually tells us what shout! “Come up here!!!”

THE RAPTURE is our comfort, as far as 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 shows us. We can put up with anything for now, because a glorious time is coming in history when Christ will utterly defeat evil and Satan, and we ourselves may even escape physical death itself. Praise God.
 
 

PSALM 110.

Psalm 110 was a major prophetic passage in the Early Church. It is a neglected gem today. It allows us to see right into the Mind of God as He has a conversation with the Son, Jesus Christ. His enemies had seemingly defeated Jesus Christ, but God Almighty, the Heavenly Father, invites Him to ascend on high and sit in the honour seat at His Right Hand. These evil men had followed Satan, and had given a guilty verdict to God’s own Son, but God reverses this verdict.

The Psalm is PROPHECY at its most thrilling. “Sit Thou at my right hand until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.” Here we see that Jesus Christ has an official position, at God’s right hand in Heaven, right through the present Church Age until He comes back at the Second Advent. The Heavenly Father Himself is going to put down all the enemies of Christ and evil on this earth, by His own power and might. It will not happen because of culture, or civilization working to gain “peace”, or by international politics. Satan and evil will only be put down by GOD’S judgement.  Psalm 110 is about God giving DOMINION to Christ Jesus.

 Verse 5 tells us that Jesus Christ will take away the power of kings; it will be a day of wrath. And verse 6 tells us that Jesus Christ will break the power of the leaders of the nations on earth. READ PSALM 110.
 

The Bible gives us a great deal of prophecy about the present age we are living in. There is no reason whatsoever to go to false “prophets” who get their messages out of the atmosphere in those hyper-faith churches. God has already spoken to us in His Word, we must take heed. NOTE in the following scripture that the Biblical prophecy has not been given by “private interpretation” i.e. no man has merely dreamed it up. The Holy Spirit gave us the Bible’s prophecy, not mere men. Prophecy does not sit “privately” in the Body of God’s Word either. All prophecies in the Word line up together and are a whole. If we want to understand prophecy we go to the Bible itself, for God’s Word interprets His prophecy for us.
“Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” (11 Peter 1:20,21).

MATTHEW 13.
The general character of the Age of Grace is presented in Matthew chapter 13. These prophecies are happening to us right now, as the Age of Grace comes to a close. We will deal with these in brief:
1. Matthew 13:1-9; 18-23. There is a varied reception to God’s Truth. Truth falls on the hard beaten path and it is ready to be eaten by the “fowls.” How true today.
 

Other seeds of the Truth fall on shallow ground and it is stony and has no roots. Even on good ground there are thorn infestations, and lies and counterfeit doctrines choke out the Truth. Only a small portion of seed, or the Word of God, falls on good ground and brings forth a crop. How true, how many today are believing Truth and leading others to accept the Truth? Hardly any.

2. The parable of the tares sown amongst the wheat shows that FALSE TEACHERS and TEACHINGS will not be judged fully until the harvest (or when God Himself deals with this). (vv 24-30, 36-43). God, however, has called us all to expose false teachers and stay in the Truth of God’s Word. 11 Peter 2:1-3; 11 Timothy 4:2,3.

3. The parable of the mustard seed shows the rapid growth of Christendom from a small beginning. It is a large movement today, but there is difference between the True Church and Christendom. (vv 31,32). The parable of the leaven speaks about evil mixing with the good meal until the whole is permeated with the evil!!!! (vv. 33-35). Leaven is always a symbol of evil in Scripture. “Fermenting” is a symbol of evil.1 Corinthians 5:8; Matthew 16:11,12.

4. The hidden treasure of Matthew 13:44 refers to Israel hidden as to its national identity in God, during the Church Age. Israel was nevertheless bought by Christ at His death. The pearl of great price is the Church for which Christ died. This is a major feature of our present age, the Universal Invisible Church, not Christendom. (vv 45-46).

5. The final parable tells us prophetically of the dragnet (vv 47-51) and this shows the horrible separation of the unsaved from the saved at the end of the age. How important to win your loved ones for Christ, and to witness to those around you about His saving Grace and shed Blood.

The prophecy of Matthew 13 has been continuing for two thousand years. It has been shown to be accurate in every way. Seed on good and bad ground, thorns of evil, wheat amongst the tares, good fish and bad fish. Evil permeating the bread of God’s truth.
 

MATTHEW 24.

There are NINE SIGNS in this chapter alone of the end of the age.

Verses 4-14 contains these signs: false christs, wars and rumours of wars, famines, pestilences (or disastrous infections and illnesses), earthquakes, martyrs (people being killed for their faith in Christ Jesus), false prophets, growing and exploding wickedness and sin and people growing cold in their love and commitment to the True Christ and His Truth, the gospel to be preached to all the world. The Greek word oikoumene is the word for world here. It means the civilized world, or inhabited world. We do not have to wait for this sign, the Gospel has already been preached to the entire “civilized” world – most people have rejected it! The Gospel will also be preached in the Tribulation by 144,000 Jewish evangelists.
(See Revelation chapter 7).
 

11 PETER 2-3.

THERE WILL BE GROWING APOSTASY WITHIN THE CHURCHES.

This is a sign of our present age, one that has been prophesied by God’s Word. Do not be alarmed unduly by this. 11 Peter shows us the unsaved within the churches taking over the professing “Christian” churches. (They are “professing” but not “possessing” Christ in reality). What will these apostates teach and believe? They are doing this right now, and the prophecy is being fulfilled:
1. Denial of the person and deity of Christ (2:1). That the “Christ” is an impersonal energy is a doctrine on the move. That He is not God but just another wonderful teacher, like Allah or Buddha or Moses or Maitreya, is another belief growing steadily.
2. Denial of the sacrifice of Christ when He died to save us from our sin (2:1).
Works for salvation not faith in the shed blood of Christ is a hallmark of the denominations today. Even the Catholic Church, which believes Christ died as a sacrifice, teaches salvation by religious works, moral behaviour and the mass. They deny the Blood of Christ in doing so.
3. Moral apostasy coming about by departure from moral beliefs taught in the Bible.         (2:2-22).  We are encountering this now to a ghastly extent. Abortion, pre-marital sex, homosexuality accepted as normal (even leaders of churches can be homosexuals or lesbians), immorality taught in schools and colleges, films and television shows as filthy as hell itself! “Christian” countries endorsing and supporting evil morals and wickedness, and the churches often being “tolerant” about what God calls abomination. I will never be “tolerant” to what God calls abomination.
4. Departure from belief in the Second Coming of Christ Jesus and the Rapture is running rife! People laugh and ridicule about such matters in many churches. They do not want the judgement related to the Second Coming and prefer instead the doctrines of the world that declare that the people of Mother Earth can create peace by uniting all nations, creeds, races and tongues.
 
Other parts of Scripture in the New Testament that relate to the doctrine of growing apostasy, and of the falling away are 1 Timothy 4:1-3; 11 Timothy 3:1-9; Jude 3-19. There is no “latter Rain” revival coming people, there is already vast apostasy and “falling away.” 11 Thessalonians 2:3. What is the “Latter Rain” mentioned in the book of Joel? It had to do with the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter two, and it will also have to do with ISRAEL being revived in the Tribulation period. Joel 2:28-32.
It is NOT about a vast revival in the churches that will result in The Kingdom of God being brought in by the denominations and ecumenism.

The Rapture will end this Church Age, but the apostasy of Christendom will grow vastly worse in the Tribulation, after God has removed the True Church. The harlot of Revelation 17 symbolizes the professing church after the Rapture. “She” will become filled with Babylonian doctrines and evil practices, drunk with the blood of the martyrs of the Trib. The greatest apostasy will be to accept the Anti-Christ as the real Christ and Messiah.