PSALM 1
The Way of the Righteous and the End of the Ungodly
“Blessed is the man
Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper.
The ungodly are not so,
But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.
Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment,
Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
But the way of the ungodly shall perish.”
WHERE WE STAND:
What emptiness there is when God is not in and centered to the very core of our lives. We look for treasures and find only the vain-glorious things of the world. They taste to the lips like honey; truly nectar: yet the moment they pass the throat and settle to the stomach, they sour, poisoning the palate and burning the gullet.
THE ‘ME’
In the very essence of the soul without God, its owner lies adrift and purposeless, washed endlessly upon the empty sea of this fallen world. Most do not know it, let alone would they admit the truth of it.
Without hope or purpose, the world (filled with Satan’s blandishments) satiates your stomach with fullness for a time. However, it forever replaces itself with an abyss. A great, pervading emptiness stretches before you and within you. And a gulf now exists between you and the many things, which, in times long past, may have lovingly embraced you.
I speak of the warmth of family, a sense of belonging, and over and above all, a real relationship with Jesus.
Or maybe you never in your whole life experienced selfless love from anyone, not even your own parents. How easily upon that sad foundation Satan builds. He fills you with resentment, burning anger, and then provides you with foci for these emotions.
Today, I am speaking to those who have become lost and know it not.
Satan possesses all the acumen and intellect found within this world. He is a masterful teacher and patiently takes the time to teach those who have come to him that ‘education, science, technology, career and choice of lifestyle can fill us with the riches of abundance.’ He flatters and cajoles, even suggesting alternative faiths and symbols of idolatry for you to follow.
After the 40 days and nights of his retreat in the wilderness, Jesus was weak from hunger. Satan tempted Jesus to use his divine powers to provide himself with bread. Then he offered him the world itself.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%204%3A1-11&version=NKJV
Satan’s bag of ‘goodies’ are such as to appeal to our every instinct. He provides the means to indulge our bodies and minds in the warm, sweet-smelling bath of temptation.
Alternatively, he can, at will, tempt the soul to contest goodness and decency at every turn; hardening it within the red armor of hatred to overcome the wrongs that are perceived to have beset it throughout life.
There are those raised in poverty and exposed to families broken through addiction and crime. Often, they are not sustained with the abundance of that we call ‘a good life,’ but instead, they become filled with feelings that the world ‘owes them.’ As I write, the cry on the streets of anarchy is ‘reparation!’
‘You have what should rightfully have been mine but – by the accident of birth, you have stolen it, and now I want it back!’
Whatever the situation, even if the world seems to fill your heart’s desire, you are almost dead, for your soul, the core of your life-being itself, is withering within you.
You are become ‘a dead man walking!’
In this clip from The Green Mile, the condemned alleged murderer, John Coffey, now convicted, is conveyed to Death Row to await execution. The young prison officer, to intimidate the greater prison population, loudly announces the fate that awaits him as he is taken to his cell across the Yard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv-OwFBHKjI&ab_channel=ChrisCraddock
THE REBUILT SOUL:
We of Christ are taught that having received the gift of Grace, the Holy Spirit commences to rebuild us from the inside out.
THE SOUL IN TREVAIL:
I hold that a similar process ensues when a soul is besieged by and gradually gives itself over to Satan.
It slowly begins to change.
Mortifying with the rot of the process that leads to damnation, the soul crossing to Satan morphs into Godlessness. And ultimately, even though redemption may have been offered (if rejected), it surely becomes lost.
Free will is fully involved here. The surrender to Satan and the rejection of Grace through Jesus is always a voluntary action.
Satan offers, but the soul must accept its new master.
If the soul rejects the treasured gift of Grace through denial, it will be prepared for the damnation of eternal death. However, Scripture teaches that it can be restored up until the moment of earthly death if that same soul begs for redemption. And repenting all that is past, it calls upon the name of Jesus, the Christ King, Savior and Redeemer, to save it.
The mercy of God, given us through Jesus, is boundless. Praise be to God!
THE SOUL HAVING PASSED INTO THE VALE OF DEATH:
Alas, at last, the lost soul has now, through denial, become devoid of the life-force of righteousness that God grants, only through faith in the Grace of Jesus.
What is left?
All that is left is the condemnation at the seat of judgment. The exercise of free will led this soul to this place of waiting. It lies within the vale until it is called before the Great White Throne.
Let me say this again. Free will (personal choice) brought it here. Grace would have spared it eternal damnation. Grace is freely offered to all. You have the right to refuse it. Many do.
The eternity of death (that scripturally speaking, will never end) is awful (dreadful) in terms of the well-described consequence that awaits the lost soul, following its judgment.
And I emphasize that in this life (before our physical death), these very consequences are utterly denied by most dying souls.
Each soul will know its fate exactly (and immediately) as it passes from the temple of its owner’s now mortifying flesh in which, hitherto, it has been housed.
How dreadfully awful when that soul is your own child, and turning away in rejection of Grace, he/she has never returned home to Jesus. Either the soul choses to come ‘home’ to God through Jesus, or rejecting Him, is lost forever within the unpardonable sin of denial, following earthly death.
THE STATE OF ‘PLAY’:
I look at those, consumed with hatred, now roaming the streets, fueling
anarchy and with murder in their hearts.
Believing that their cause is epitomized by the tenets of ‘social justice,’ they have become a self-fulfilling prophecy just as described in many of the Psalms and certainly by the prophets themselves. False priests/pastors led some of them here.
Their name has become ‘Legion.’ Soon, swept away, they will be forever lost.
And what of the rich and powerful?
Living in denial, counting their ‘treasures,’ they rest, full of arrogance and pride in their achievements even as their bellies have soured. Nothing sustains within them, a sense of the well-being and abundant life. That can only come through faith in Jesus. We know them in their shameless infamy. They flaunt both their wicked designs and dying souls.
As the frustration of their rebellion continues to grow, its flame is constantly re-fueled with anger.
They direct anger toward the world: surely, it has failed them? No matter, they are ‘hell-bent’ in their imaginings that they will build a ‘better’ new one. And, of course, occupy a seat at its ruling table. For, are they not the elite…the ‘chosen ones’?
And the only thing that gives them purpose is the moment of hell that they wilfully inflict on other human beings. Having achieved this, like an addict (for sin is above all, addictive), their sin must be repeated over and over as they seek more victims for Moloch’s insatiable appetite.
Above all, they are possessed by anger, burning resentment and hatred. It is focused upon anyone and everything that they perceive has a sense of purpose that they objectify as evil. And particularly if they perceive that their victim/s possess an apparent sense of the wellbeing or lifestyle that they consider must be overthrown to bring in their ‘brave new world.’
And ‘that’ world is deliberately designed to be devoid of Christ.
When a soul is being breached by Satan, it invariably seeks direction and obsessive focus. Satan, of course, has a great portfolio of ‘appealing’ blandishments that he can offer, and there is no restriction upon him in this regard. We remember well how he offered Jesus rulership of the world if only he would worship him.
TWO DIRECTIONS FROM WHICH A SOUL MAY CHOSE:
It can bring to itself the illogic of self-annihilation. And so suicide becomes seen as an obvious end to the pain of persevering with a life in which there is ‘no abundance,’ only poverty of spirit.
or;
It can choose to direct its angst upon people who appear to be experiencing lives of quiet satisfaction and relative contentment with their lot or station in life centered upon Jesus. More-so is this possible if that soul is already given fully over to Satan. If owned by Satan, the soul instinctively attacks people it knows or assumes to be followers of Christ Jesus.
This, incidentally, is why Satan has worked so diligently to discredit the Word of God. Through false pastoring/allegory/deliberate misinterpretation/replacement theology and such other, Satan works tirelessly to totally discredit the Word and prove it false. And who better to do that than the very clerics oath-taken to defend the Faith!
Satan is failing, of course. His final ploy will be to recreate some sort of ‘Kristallnacht.’ Undoubtedly, he will attempt to destroy all copies of the Word, making it a criminal offence to possess and read the Bible, or evangelize it to others.
Christians know it for what it is and call it out, calmly but positively. To us, the works of Har-Shatan, (Satan) cannot be hidden. We know precisely how his attacks will come.
In his constant effort to destroy mankind (which, from the beginning, he has perceived as a loathsome usurpation of his own position before God), Satan must first destroy every vestige of the Father’s ultimate reconciliation of fallen man through His Christ-King.
To achieve this, Satan has, throughout the ages of man (and particularly in this, the final hour), gathered and trained a vast army of ‘foot soldiers.’
We deal with a master General and tactician, an ‘Alexander,’ par excellente. The army of Satan is trained in every aspect of the fight, and it is deviously adept at every imaginable weapon of war. Such weapons are used to prosecute the ongoing battle.
THE REACTION OF MANY WHO CALL THEMSELVES ‘BELIEVERS’
Through sloth, many believers have let down their guard; it has permitted the Word of God to become manipulated and tainted by an infiltrated vanguard of Satan’s foot soldiers.
Occupying not only the pulpit itself but also high clerical office, much of the church now speaks the foulness of blasphemy and heresy. And it proclaims (through the medium of duplicitous half-truths) that which corrupts and distorts the literacy of God’s Holy Word. In doing so, they commit ‘murder most foul’ as they lead multitudes of now sleeping congregations to the edge of the Pit of Hell.
These poisonous vipers use the same words as uttered by their satanic master to the ‘woman in the Garden.’
New King James Bible:
The Temptation and Fall of Man
“Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, ‘Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’”
“And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
“Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’”
Nothing has changed. The same ploy of words that worked so effectively on Eve is still used with massive effect and impact against the sleeping church.
How clearly this was brought home to me last evening as I watched several YouTube clips of Christian street preachers being attacked both verbally and physically by an antichrist.
A woman in full clerical cloth turned up on the side of the rabble. She then smugly announced herself as an Anglican priest whose church was located nearby. And going on, refutes that the Bible condemns us from sexually coupling with people of the same sex. Going further, she sides with those nearby, who are celebrating, ‘gay love.’ Worse, she overtly suggests that the street preacher is ‘unloving’ and that those publicizing their sin are the true Christians because they are ‘loving.’
“Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’” (Can you not hear Satan speaking through this self-presumed ‘pastor’ of God?) I suggest she pastors alright…but for the opposition.
I found the clip helped re-affirm my commitment to come out of my baptismal church. Such is the ultimate price of allegory and the creeping palsy of ‘social justice.’
For those who feel that they can face the pithy language used by some in the clip, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxHQdHMy0fY&ab_channel=TorchofChristMinistries
There are many street evangelists fighting the ‘good fight,’ but they come under extreme duress nowadays, and in some cities, will be arrested for ‘inciting a breach of the peace.’ And it’s important that you appreciate that the fight still goes on between the people of God and the Godless, both in and outside the church.
Believers ‘Awake!’
We have a job to do.
God (speaking through His holy Word) has tasked us for this fight. Our own souls implore us to lift up the sword of the Spirit, and taking the shield of Faith upon our arm, ascend the rampart of the watchtower and warn our brethren of that which is shortly to come.
The Armor of God (Paul to the Ephesians 6:16-18)
“In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray in the Spirit at all times, with every kind of prayer and petition. To this end, stay alert with all perseverance in your prayers for all the saints.…” Berean Study Bible
I type these words from the comparative refuge and safety of my own home, which is about as close as I get to the battlefield. Given the infirmity of age, my computer must suffice as my armor, my fingers the sword. Yet, I am prayerfully aware that these giants of faith and prayer warriors are physically engaged against the enemy. Consider them as martyrs. They presently face death every time they hit the streets.
PSALM 2
The Messiah’s Triumph and Kingdom
“Why do the nations rage,
And the people plot a vain thing?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying,
‘Let us break Their bonds in pieces
And cast away Their cords from us.’
He who sits in the heavens shall laugh;
The Lord shall hold them in derision.
Then He shall speak to them in His wrath,
And distress them in His deep displeasure.”
Here, at Rapture Ready, we reach out to many. We prayerfully try our utmost to feed readers meals of strong meat, through the provision of our copy to the editors. Our online access permits us to focus upon the battle that is now well and truly engaged. We take the fight to the enemies of Jesus, for they are our enemies and they are yours.
Pray for our brethren in the besieged States of America, where Satan is having a field day of success.
Satan has harnessed his most rich and powerful generals, both male and female and inclusive of those who, having lost the plot altogether, no longer identify as either. And literally billions of dollars are being poured into the fight to drive Christ from the conscious belief system of the Republic and certainly to have Him ‘cleansed’ from the nation’s institutions.
Many of our own will falter. Even now, many are falling away. Pray for them. Shortly, they will be taken into Tribulation.
Many souls are locked into a prison of hopelessness. It invariably leads to deep depression, usually well beyond the capacity of Godless psychology to mend. And its path leads directly to the recourse of suicide in far too many instances. Many of these souls belong to our kids. PRAY FOR THEM!
Many have simply done that which was prevalent upon ancient battlefields. As the tide of battle turned, or perceiving the battle order of the ‘enemy,’ part of the Army assumed that they would be overwhelmed, so they turned traitor. They deserted their own colors, parleyed with the ‘enemy,’ crossing over the field to join him, or deserting it altogether.
In our present situation, the foot soldiers of Satan increase manifold. They form allegiances with both the unGodly and those who profess themselves to be faith warriors, infiltrating their ranks with little apparent difficulty.
Yet the power given us in Christ Jesus overcomes all.
“Seek ye out that power from the depths of your own soul!”
Parley with our God and Savior King. Gird your loins for the battles and skirmishes that must presently be fought. Remember, their outcome is assured. The great war itself was won for us by Jesus 2,000 years ago as, hanging upon the cross, he finally gave up his spirit, his body no longer able to be self-supported by his brokenness. And he cried,
‘It is finished!’
Like the Battle Hymn of the Republic, my brethren, these great hymns were divinely inspired. They are the ‘battle cries’ of the King’s Army.
They call us to the ‘good fight’!
To fall in such a battle should carry no shame or even lasting sadness. You are soldiers of the Living God. And He goes forth with the Host. Who can withstand His Christ King? Don’t believe my rhetoric? Go online and look up the anecdotal evidence from both Israelis, Syrian officers and Jordanians who (attacking Israel) were suddenly confronted by the host of the Army of God and retreated in panicked disarray.
Soldiers of Christ, Arise!
Soldiers of Christ, arise,
And put your armor on,
Strong in the strength which God supplies,
Through His eternal Son;
Strong in the Lord of Hosts,
And in His mighty pow’r,
Who in the strength of Jesus trusts
Is more than conqueror.
Stand then in His great might,
With all His strength endued;
And take, to arm you for the fight,
The panoply of God,
That, having all things done,
And all your conflicts past,
Ye may o’ercome through Christ alone,
And stand complete at last.
Leave no unguarded place,
No weakness of the soul,
Take every virtue, every grace,
And fortify the whole.
To keep your armor bright
Attend with constant care,
Still walking in your Captain’s sight
And watching unto prayer
Pray, without ceasing pray,
Your Captain gives the word;
His summons cheerfully obey,
And call upon the Lord:
To God your every want
In instant prayer display;
Pray always; pray, and never faint;
Pray, without ceasing pray.
Maranatha.