Last-Days Invasion :: By Terry James

Author’s note: This article was first published on Monday, June 12, 2006. Considering we are, I believe, in the time that’s “as it was in the days of Noah” foretold by Jesus (Luke 17:26), I believe it’s good to again think a bit on the obvious invasion from the evil dimension the world faces.

We know of the violence taking place in the world today. It might even be equal to the violence of those antediluvian times. However, the other primary evil of Noah’s day is a bit harder to equate to this day and time.

The other “evil” I refer to is the corruption that had infected the entire world and caused God, following the death of Methuselah, to destroy everyone on earth except Noah and his immediate family.

Most who study the Genesis record–myself included—believe the genetic contamination that had corrupted all flesh came from the fallen angels who had sexual relations with human women, producing the Nephilim. That “corruption” doesn’t seem to be the tack of Satan in this day and age. I, at least, haven’t heard of such corruptive intermingling (except within the fiction coming from the entertainment industry).

But we can be sure Satan’s intention remains the same: He wants to corrupt God’s order of things, especially the order of things related to humanity.

The devil continues to do his worst in this regard. We see this effort at every turn. You don’t have to be either a male or female; you can now be whatever you wish. More than one hundred genders are possible, I’ve heard.

The AI phenomenon is now experimentally employed to meld in some way with human flesh–particularly with the brain—to create superintelligent beings that, some scientist types claim, are beyond human. Hormone infusion and surgical invasions are used to attempt to recreate humans in bizarre ways that confound rationale.

So, the corruption of the order God created is under assault. We know this from Ephesians 6:12 and the struggle against the principalities and powers in high places the Apostle Paul described.

This all tells us God is about to again intervene into the affairs of humankind and all the evil corruption like He did in Noah and Lot’s day. I therefore present this article again, written long ago, but more relevant than ever as we “look up” for our Lord’s call to “come up here!”      

Last-Days Invasion

We just observed D-Day in honor of the Allied forces who invaded parts of Europe, the action that began in earnest the drive toward victory over Hitler’s Nazi military in 1944. Last week, I wrote about how June 6, 2006, was honored by much of the media to hype a movie, The Omen, which was released that day.

The “D” seemed to stand for “Devil-Day” in that 6/6/06 instance, rather than for the D-Day celebration in remembrance of sacrifices made by Allied troops invading Normandy and the other beaches on June 6, 1944.

I would like to continue dealing with thoughts about the present invasion taking place. This contemporary assault is infinitely more deadly than the dangers faced in that long-ago invasion of France. It is infinitely more dangerous because it is–in truth—supernatural. In other words, it involves eternal matters. It involves the spiritual world rather than the physical. I should say it involves the spiritual world MORE than the physical world, because the two are intricately intertwined.

Again, I see two primary areas of Holy Scripture involved in this warfare. Both emphasize the supernatural dangers and spiritual nature of the warfare:

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

So, Satan is the general leading this end-time assault. He leads some quite terrifying forces in his stalking back and forth upon the earth:

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12).

With but a modicum of effort in searching through the Word of God about end-times things, we can see how the contemporary assault by Satan and his forces of evil links to the devil’s past efforts. And, we can see where it is all leading in this wind-up of human history.

These last-days things are fresh in my mind while I promote my novel, The Rapture Dialogues. The subtitle, Dark Dimension, says it all. The end-time warfare is with extradimensional, not extraterrestrial, beings. We can identify these supposedly unidentified flying objects if we open our minds and hearts through spiritual discernment written about in 1 Corinthians 2:14.

The link between the human, fleshly elements of this conflict and the supernatural or spiritual elements is undeniable if we properly analyze and dissect the matters involved.

Jesus–the Greatest of all Prophets (because He is God), said the following:

“And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Luke 17:26-30).

Jesus said history would repeat itself. Things will happen almost precisely like they did in Noah’s day before the Flood and in the days of Lot and the destruction of Lot’s hometown, Sodom, and nearby Gomorrah. What happened that was so grievous to the Lord that He determined to erase these societies from the earth’s surface?

I believe it was sin, of course, speaking in general terms. Sin always ultimately brings God’s wrath and judgment. The wages of sin is death, Scripture tells us. But I see a much more specific sin that lies at the heart of the civilizations mentioned in those judgments of the antediluvian world and ancient Sodom and Gomorrah.

The link is strong between the fleshly, or physical, realm and the spiritual, or supernatural, realm in these cases. That is made clear in the following:

“And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities” (Jude 1:6-8).

Do you see that linkage? It is the phrase “going after strange flesh” that connects the human to the supernatural in considering the matter of this end-time invasion Jesus said will be a recurrence of soul/flesh-corrupting things that happened in antediluvian and ancient times.

In the matter of the supernatural realm, we see in Genesis 6:1-3 that the “sons of God” went after “strange flesh.” That is, a number of angels who fell with Lucifer in the great rebellion and were cast out of Heaven saw the “daughters of men” (human women) and came down and cohabitated with them—producing hybrid offspring of the natural and the supernatural. Going after “strange flesh,” then, means doing something that is against the order God established.

These offspring were “men of renown,” the Scriptures tell us. These were doubtless the creatures from which Greek, Norse, and Roman mythologies derive, to some extent.

Genesis 19 tells the full story of the “strange flesh” Jude alludes to in verses 6–8. This is expounded upon by Paul the apostle in Romans 1. The “strange flesh” is men going after men and women after women in the sexual sense–burning in their lusts one toward the other, and receiving in themselves the payment for their sin, which, God’s Word says, is a fitting punishment.

The end-time invasion Jesus prophesied is, I’m convinced, well underway. Key among the elements of Satan’s assault is a return of the dark, spiritual beings in high places–the extradimensional, not extraterrestrial, beings, again trying to corrupt the “seed” of humankind through the sightings, encounters, abductions, ghostly appearances, visitations, stigmata phenomena, and all of the rest of these strange things reported even by documentaries like those on the Discovery and History channels every week. The prime-time invasion will, I’m equally convinced, take place in the Tribulation era (Daniel’s seventieth week), as outlined in the “strong delusion” of 2 Thessalonians 2.

On the human level, the corruption is taking place through “going after strange flesh”—doing a thing totally against God’s established order. Men, again, are lusting after men, and women after women on a scale like in those ancient times, while Hollywood and many in government and media promote this lifestyle that’s deadly to the continuation of the human race.

All of this indicates just how near this generation must be to the time Christ will step out on the clouds of Glory and shout, “Come up here!” The final war called Armageddon that will result from this satanic invasion approaches rapidly. The rapture of those who have accepted Jesus Christ as Savior cannot be far distant.

The Passage That Connects October and November :: By Paul J. Scharf

Happy Reformation Day!

October 31 is a glorious day to remember and celebrate salvation by grace alone, by faith alone, in Christ alone, through Scripture alone, for the glory of God alone.

The passage that transformed the Western world on this date more than 500 years ago makes the whole issue plain:

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith’” (Rom. 1:16-17).

The only path to arriving at a right standing before God takes our footsteps straight to this text. It assures us that we can be counted righteous in God’s sight purely by faith alone—when we place our faith in Christ alone.

In dying on Calvary, Jesus took our sins upon Himself and provided His righteousness to be placed into the account of everyone who would believe that He died for them—in their place, for their sins, in order that they might receive the forgiveness of sin and the certainty of eternal life in heaven.

This signal passage in the New Testament on the issue of justification by faith also became the central passage of all church history when it released priest and professor Dr. Martin Luther from the terror that had gripped his heart from his earliest days.

Luther began to understand several things from this most fundamental text. First, he came to see that “the righteousness of God” referenced here is not a description of the holy character of God—before Whom each of us stands hopeless, eternally condemned. Rather, the passage speaks of God declaring the believer to be righteous based on the righteousness of Christ—justification by faith. Drawing on 2 Cor. 5:21, Luther called this The Great Exchange.

Luther also realized that this declaration of righteousness refers to a change in God’s records—not a change in our lives. The Roman Catholic Church had taught him that God infuses the believer with grace, allowing him to perform works that merit God’s favor. But Luther recognized the hopelessness inherent in such a doctrine, and came to see that the key to the gospel is not Christ in us, but rather Christ for us. He alone has done the only work that can ever accomplish our salvation. And His work will only be of benefit to us when we trust in Him “from faith to faith” (v. 17)—that is, by faith alone.

Paul was quoting Hab. 2:4 in verse 17. The words of the prophet are repeated three times in the New Testament, with a different emphasis in each place: “The just (Rom. 1:17) shall live (Gal. 3:11) by faith (Heb. 10:38).”

Following such a famous section of verses, Paul immediately launches into another one. This is the most important passage in the New Testament dealing with the nature of judgment during this age of the church, which is marked primarily by “the manifold grace of God” (1 Pet. 4:10). Yet, Paul tells us, God still displays His wrath—even during this dispensation:

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness … because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Rom. 1:18, 21).

Paul shows us in verse 21 that ingratitude is far from an innocent omission and is actually a critical step in man’s downfall into degradation. The picture Paul paints is one of a society which is one step away from plunging into gross, godless immorality—with the tread of that broken step being thanklessness.

Paul had stated several years earlier, “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thess. 5:18). Failing to keep this command, lost humanity plummets—as if pushing down on a rotten board—into ghastly exaggerations of iniquity, and finally into the lake of fire itself.

When we toured Germany in 2017, we got to see the Heidelberg Castle, which Luther visited in April of 1518. One part of the amazing structure of that castle that intrigued me was an ancient spiral staircase. It looked to me like it could form the basis for an opening scene in a horror movie. I could see a person starting to descend that staircase when they hit a fractured step—and begin their free fall into the abyss. Such a picture illustrates the treacherous and pernicious nature of ungratefulness.

So here we see the passage that links the Scriptural emphases of the months of October and November. May it remind us to trust solely in the grace of God, and to be thankful for this, and for all that God bestows and allows.

We will conclude this two-part series by thinking about an English Bible version that connects these two months, by their themes, in the history of the church.

For now, may I be the last to wish you Happy Reformation Day! And may I be the first to wish you Happy Thanksgiving!

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Paul J. Scharf (M.A., M.Div., Faith Baptist Theological Seminary) is a church ministries representative for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, based in Wisconsin, and serving in the Midwest. For more information on his ministry, visit sermonaudio.com/pscharf or foi.org/scharf, or email pscharf@foi.org.

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Scripture taken from the New King James Version