Scanning a Fearful Future XI :: By Terry James

“Scanning a Fearful Future Part 10” (the conclusion of the series) was completed early in 2011. We’ve revisited that series of articles on two additional occasions, I believe. I am convicted that here, in September 2022, it’s time again to look ahead—”scan”—into the ever-deepening march of humanity toward the consummation of this Genesis 6-like age.

Many prophecy watchers won’t agree with my take on the matters I present in this addendum because it’s not scripturally provable. But I don’t claim it is; admittedly, the thoughts I put forward are conjecture rather than necessarily Holy Spirit-prompted.

I do believe, however, that my thinking is legitimately evidence-based, considering my long-time Bible-centered observation and dissection of these wicked times.

My only reluctance in dealing with these matters stems from the frequently expressed realization that my thinking—like that of many of my colleagues—is too often—Amero-centric. That is, we too often consider our nation to be at the center of everything when we look at prophetic progression.

With all that as a preface, I nonetheless must once again say I see America as perhaps key to the wrap-up of the Church Age (Age of Grace).

Is America in Bible prophecy? That, of course, is among the questions often asked. Always, my answer is: No—not by name.

Is America the Babylon prophesied in Revelation chapter 18? My answer to that has evolved over much study to be “perhaps.” But, again, it can’t be proved to be that condemned city/system of evil that has afflicted all the world with sin. However, America is, almost undoubtedly, a part of that commercial and cultural system.

My belief that America fits within the final system of wickedness is confirmed with each news report. As stated on several occasions, considering the use and abuse of the most vulnerable among humanity is evidence of how far from the heart of God mankind has “progressed.”

The fact that such upside-down thinking and conduct are said to be “progressive” proves how culture in America has the “reprobate mind” of Romans 1:28. Those who claim to be “progressive” are, in fact, moving in the direction opposite of Heaven’s command to the human race. This mindset is inflicting on the very young the evil that can be churned only through minds attuned to the god of this world.

As stated before, history attests that every major civilization on record has come to its inglorious end while engaging in child sacrifice and unspeakable abuses by the adult generations during those times of collapse and demise.

Time and time again, we’ve looked at abortion in America today and have concluded that murder in the mothers’ wombs is, in the majority of cases, used as contraception to cover for sexual misconduct and/or irresponsibility. The practice can be likened to sacrifice upon the altar of convenience—like the pagans, and even Israel, once sacrificed infants upon the white-hot, stone hands of Moloch.

And now parents are dressing children as young as age 4 as transvestites and parading them in honor of LBTQ… etc., etc., rainbow, Genesis 6-like activities.

We have reports of all that went on with the Jeffrey Epstein island evil involving under-aged girls, and even of pedophilia among younger children who were abused in horrendous ways by well-known people. Yet the national media has swept all such reports under the proverbial rug of forgetfulness. And America has been at the direct center of all this anti-God activity. The most blessed nation in history—in terms of material blessings and perhaps second (only to Israel) in spiritual blessings—has become perhaps the most debauched, lascivious, licentious nation ever.

This brings me to the crux of this subject.

As some know, I believe Jesus prophesied the time of the Rapture. I don’t mean, of course, that He told us the day or hour, as He Himself said only the Father knows that. But I’m more convinced than ever that He gave conditions precisely as they’ll be when He calls believers into His presence.

“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).

And here is where I know I’ll receive some degree of resistance regarding my Amero-centric perspective on Jesus’ words of Luke 17: 29-30.

“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 17:28-30).

Here Jesus likened the time He will next intervene into the affairs of mankind to the days when Lot lived and worked in Sodom. The very day Lot went out of that wicked city (out of which the angels led Lot and his family), judgment from God fell and totally destroyed both Sodom and its sister city, Gomorrah.

In this Luke passage, Jesus was referring to that moment–the Rapture. As we’ve looked at many times, He couldn’t be referring to the very end of the Tribulation, when as many as three-fourths of the earth’s population will have died during the seven years of God’s judgment and wrath. At that time—the time of His Second Coming (Genesis 19: 11)—it won’t be business as usual, as given in this prophecy. The few rebels left on the planet will be hiding in caves from God’s King who is coming through the scrolled-back blackness on the bright clouds of glory.

Now, to bring it down to our present closing hours of this age, I propose that the Lord might have had in mind a particular people and nation as He described how things will be at the moment of the Rapture.

Here goes my Amero-centricism again.

America today is the greatest nation in all of recorded world history in terms of spectacular advancements and achievements. It is the apex nation in this regard. No other has come close—that we know of…

We hear constantly that all the world is about to collapse in financial catastrophe, and even perhaps explode in nuclear war. These predictions have been around for years. Yet the world is buying, selling, marrying, planting, building—all the things Jesus prophesied for the time when, like in Lot’s time, God’s people will be removed from the earth.

While Europe is quickly dissolving in energy-crisis mode and the financial systems of the world seem about to collapse, Americans are still, like the folks of Sodom, living in ways Jesus described: we’re buying, selling, building, etc.

I maintain the Lord might well have had in mind this very nation we call America as the model for the future time of the removal of God’s people.

Our nation fits as the super-achieving, productive society and culture of Christ’s analogy. And, certainly, at the same time, our society and culture align with the wickedness of Lot’s day.

Scanning a fearful future, to the Christian, is really to be scanning a fantastic future! All of this points to the blessed hope of Titus 2:13: Believers are on the very cusp of coming into the joint heirship with the Son of God we are promised.

“But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

 

 

He Cannot Deny Himself :: By Gene Lawley

The passage from 2 Timothy 2:11-13 begins with “This is a faithful saying” and ends with this: “If we believe not, yet He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself” (KJV).

The previous verse says, “if we deny Him, He also will deny us.” Surprisingly, perhaps, is this truth that it is not our faith that is the true foundation of our relationship with the Lord, but it is His faithfulness! In other words, the strength of my faith is not the key, but the strength of His faithfulness is the key to my eternal security.

Note 1 Peter 1:5, which says we believers are “kept by the power of God for salvation through faith, ready to be revealed in the last time.” Our faith, then, links to His faithfulness. The writer of Hebrews 12:2 backs that up with this: “Looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith….”

Further establishing that truth is 1 Corinthians 3:11 where Paul writes, “For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” He goes on to discuss what we build on that foundation, what will endure, or what will not, like wood, straw and stubble. Even so, with fruitlessness, one is still saved because of that single foundation of Jesus Christ. And that seems to wrap it up tightly.

Consider again the article’s title, that He cannot deny Himself, as the verse above states. Simply put, it says God never changes. Jesus said, in Mark 13:31, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away!” He is the Creator of all things—all things.

When Paul wrote of Christ, the Creator, in Colossians 1:16-17, it was all-inclusive: “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.” It is truly breathtaking—He holds all things together!

It is clear that a false prophet is one who does not proclaim that Jesus, the Christ, has come in the flesh, just as John declares in 1 John 4:1-3: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.”

It is historical fact that Jesus Christ has been on the earth and is easily documented; just look at our calendar. But the issue is believing who He really is. He is the Christ, the promised One from God.

Let’s look even deeper into that very thing. He declares that He is one with God and tells Philip, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9b).

Now, look at Paul’s description of the Father to those philosophers at Mars Hill in Athens. He was identifying their “unknown god,” which was the label on one of their idols:

“Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.

“And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’

“Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:23b-31).

It is a long quotation that is filled with the knowledge of God. Think of that description of God, “In Him we live and move and have our being.” It leads us to another revelation about this God. Look what the psalmist David wrote of Him in Psalm 139. He is all-knowing, ever-present, and all-powerful:

“O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. You have hedged me behind and before and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain it” (Psalm 139:1-6).

This penetrating knowledge of a person is beyond our imagination. This God is truly God! May we carefully guard our thoughts, for purity is one of His attributes.

He is also everywhere at all times, in keeping with His description that “in Him we live and move and have our being,” as Psalm 139:7-12 makes Him known:

“Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall fall on me,’ even the night shall be light about me, indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You.”

God’s power is shown in His creative ability—to speak and it is done, whether it is a universe or the tiniest particle thereof. Or, more intricately conceived, such as mankind, made in His own image. This is revealed in Psalm 139:13-18:

“For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand. When I awake, I am still with You.”

We can only follow this grand acclaim with David’s prayer in 1 Chronicles 29:10b-13 to somehow approach this level of praise:

“Blessed are You, Lord God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power and the glory, the victory and the majesty, for all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and You are exalted as head over all. Both riches and honor come from You, and You reign over all. In Your hand is power and might; in Your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. Now therefore, our God, we thank You and praise Your glorious name.”

Finally, then, we come to acknowledge this that Paul declares in 1 Timothy 3:16: “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in glory.”

It leaves us with this reminder in John 4:24, “God is spirit, and we must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”

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