While viewing is not necessary to follow along with the article, the brief 5.5-minute video below is a quick introduction to the topic and a way for me to connect with other like-minded believers.

https://youtu.be/9e7wXywyK9w

Accept Your Role: This Just Got Real

In the summer of 2020, movies often came to mind, blockbusters like Terminator and Transformers. Who could have known when we watched those movies all those years ago that we would someday be thrown into a similar plotline?

Characters in movies such as those are usually going along, just living their daily lives, when suddenly something life-altering happens that forces them to choose fight or flight. They usually begin with flight, trusting the instinct to run from the villain. Any good movie, however, brings us a main character who ultimately decides to turn and fight back. After a series of defeats, the pattern goes, a hero emerges, and a battle of good versus evil begins. There are usually lesser characters introduced throughout the story who choose flight, and we don’t tend to see much of them anymore.

Which are you? Will you accept the starring role of a lifetime, one written exclusively for you?

In the Enter (My) Mission article here on the Rapture Ready site, David was our primary example, an unlikely hero who stepped onto the scene and into a new role in a way that seemed coincidental. We know better than that. In preparation to someday call him to be a soldier, God had trained David up as a shepherd to defend his sheep against predators. When faced with his giant, David chose fight over flight. The same can’t be said of the seasoned soldiers who refused to stand against Goliath.

Most of us, if we’re honest with ourselves, want to run. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve considered selling our house in the ‘burbs and buying a cabin way out in the hills of Tennessee. I still wouldn’t mind it. What I do know about me now is that even if we did hightail it out of town, I would still serve in the battle. Other than me being totally censored or losing electricity to be online, I don’t plan on shutting up. If anything, I plan to grow louder.

In our present day, we each look at the world unfolding around us, the rising of an evil Goliath system, and must decide whether to fight or take flight. Ironically, there’s nowhere to hide from this, but believers all around us are burying their heads, trying to pretend life is some sort of normal. The fact that you’re here encourages me and tells me you’re not a shut-up believer either. Throughout this series, I hope to challenge and encourage and help you find ways to grow louder with me.

Back to an ever-vocal David. An interesting contrast to his personality has always intrigued me. His heart in the Psalms demonstrates such capacity for love, yet his conquests in battle depict him as a fierce soldier. Notice, after his transition from shepherd to soldier, David’s writings testify that he maintained his tender heart for His Shepherd and for the people. There’s a lesson in that for us now. What will be required of us will be a dual role of shepherd and soldier, a tender heart of an involved shepherd with the battle-ready arms of a soldier. The church is lacking both. What must motivate us in both areas is love: love for Jesus and love for people. Love doesn’t remain silent. Love doesn’t run. Love protects the flock.

If you’ve read Daybreak, you may remember Wyatt’s indictment, how silent shepherds are starving the sheep. That was a phrase that burdened my heart for many months before I even knew I would write the story. If your pastor is preaching and teaching about the last days, then consider yourself truly blessed and make it a point to commend and encourage him. In most churches, pastors aren’t saying a word. They aren’t teaching on Daniel or Revelation or any of the prophecies concerning our world today. If that’s your pastor, then you have a real challenge ahead of you. If he isn’t speaking truth, then several possibilities might explain it.

Today’s silent pastor may not believe in the pre-trib rapture. He may think the rapture will come mid or post tribulation. Even still, with any of the three views, he should be declaring the arrival of the season. Another possibility is that he may be intimidated by trying to unpack the complexities of the prophetic books. This quote is from an article at Lamb & Lion Ministries, a terrific source on all things rapture and end-times related. You can read the article in its entirety by clicking the link below.

“Some argue that it is just too complex: ‘You have to have a doctorate in hermeneutics to understand it.” That, of course, is not true. What you must have is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, a conviction that prophecy can be understood, and a willingness to study it.’” The Abuse of Prophecy – Dr. David R. Reagan

Many shepherds are silent at the will of the people. We’re told in 2 Timothy 4:3 that the time will come when people will not listen to sound doctrine, but instead, as the NASB translation says it, will want “to have their ears tickled.” Pastors are scared: scared of people opposing them, scared of people leaving, scared of creating rifts among people so varied in beliefs about the rapture and tribulation. Fear silences the truth and leaves the people in blissful ignorance of the last-days world around them. Most believers are dining on pre-2020 messages rather than a diet filled with urgency and warning.

We must rise from amongst the flock, those of us with a heart for our Shepherd and His sheep, and offer truth when our pastors ignore the signs of the season and leave the people unaware of the coming rescue for the saved and the tribulation for the lost. A verse in Jeremiah expresses imagery that should spur us on.

“Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you on knowledge and understanding” (Jeremiah 3:15).

This verse is directed to a someday-repentant Israel, but we can catch a glimpse of God’s desire for His people in our day as well. The weak and blind sheep among us need direction. Those of us whose eyes and understanding have been opened through the Spirit and the prophetic Word can pick up the staff of a shepherd and come alongside our brothers and sisters in the Lord. We can guide and encourage and help them to prepare.

This all sounds heroic and noble like David, doesn’t it? Yet, the actual walking out of us as laypeople shepherding the sheep won’t come without its challenges. That’s why you must prepare to step into your role and not just start screaming from the rooftops. You will need to learn how to present your case well. It’ll be a process, something you learn how to do over time. Your unique voice will emerge.

For now, you can be certain that most won’t want to listen to what you tell them; our verse in 2 Timothy prepares us for that. And those who humor you enough to listen won’t likely believe you right away. Not only will the material you present them seem absurd, but the fact that their own pastors aren’t speaking of the end times will only add another layer to their disbelief of what you’re saying. In their minds they will be thinking, if this were important, my pastor would be telling us. That’s the double harm done by our silent shepherds. First, they leave the people unaware and unequipped. And second, they set the stage for disbelief when a sheep under their care does hear the truth. When a sheep trusts his shepherd’s voice, a competing voice will likely drive the sheep away. I can’t express it enough; we have our work cut out for us.

Even with the stage set for a difficult, and at times impossible task ahead of us, we still must accept our role as shepherds after God’s own heart. I say must, but in actuality, to accept our role is an act of our own free will. God gives us a choice. Jesus’ words, “Follow Me,” were an invitation and not a demand. Love pleads with us to follow Him to where the sleeping sheep lie. We must wake the found as much as we warn the lost, else they sleep on. See the exponential possibilities in that: On our own and in our particular realm of friends and family, we can only reach so many lost. But the more found we wake, the greater the army grows as the awakened believers spread the warning to the lost people in their lives.

In the waking and the warning, we will have to expect that some, possibly most, will ignore and even belittle us for our message. Still, love speaks, knowing we will someday (soon, I hope) stand before the Lord Jesus, having answered the call to shepherd His blinded and dozing sheep. We, too, will have answered the watchman’s duty to warn of disaster coming, as recorded in Ezekiel 33.

So, what can we hang onto to keep us encouraged and engaged? We know the script, how this thing ends and who wins at the end of the day. There’s a reason the enemy does his best to keep pastors silent and people afraid to read and study prophecy for themselves.

“The bottom line is that Satan does not want anyone to read and understand Bible prophecy because it clearly reveals his ultimate defeat at the time of the triumphal return of Jesus. The message of Bible prophecy is “Believers win in the end!” That is a message that Satan does not want anyone to know.” The Abuse of Prophecy – Dr. David R. Reagan

Say it aloud: “Believers win in the end!” We win because Jesus has already won.

In keeping with our movie theme, I recently heard a pastor say that after omicron and a newly detected deltacron, he’s just waiting for Megatron (the evil leader of the Decepticons from Transformers) to appear. Seriously, this is truly like living on a movie set. Like it or not, you’re in the movie. You’ll be the hero or an extra who has a building fall on him in the background. Either way, you’re playing a role. Might as well go out with guns blazing.

Takeaway:

Let’s conclude with David. Read 1 Samuel 17: 1-30. I can encourage you and challenge you, but only time in the presence of the Lord and in His Word can empower you to accept your challenge, so don’t skip reading the passage, even if it’s a familiar one.

In the NASB translation, there is a header above Chapter 17: Goliath’s Challenge. What the army of Israel was facing then is exactly where we are now as believers, standing on a mountain, a challenge placed before us. We hear the taunts of a dark, spiritual Goliath from across the valley. Many around us, those whom we have respected and relied upon for teaching and leading us in Christian ministry, are not only silent about the days we are living in, but they are also suggesting we concede and become servants of the enemy rather than take a stand. Life-long Christians who’ve read the Book don’t see. But you do.

In verses five through seven, we find a parallel between our giant and Goliath, a soldier arrayed in battle attire so impressive that three full verses are used to describe it. By all accounts and based on the enemy before them, there was no hope for the Israelite army. What soldier could stand against such a warrior? We ask the same question today. Our enemy has been masterfully and strategically formulating his last-days plan over centuries. Evil rising tells us there is no hope other than for us to duck for cover and wait in silence for the coming of our Lord, our rescue.

Then a young shepherd leaves his flock to bring nourishment to his brothers. (That could be a topic in itself.) Upon his arrival and discovering Goliath’s challenge against the army, David asks two questions in verse 26: What will be done for the one who kills the giant, and who is this Philistine that he should taunt the armies of the living God?

Spend time with the Lord of Hosts, a term by the way that is used 235 times in the Bible and literally means Lord of armies, and ask those two questions of Him. I have pondered them today myself and will continue to in the days ahead. Here are my earliest conclusions:

1) What will be done for the one who kills the giant and takes away the reproach from Israel?

The offered prize was the hand of Saul’s daughter and a wedding in the victor’s future. Ours doesn’t differ too greatly. When we accept the challenge and take our stand, no matter the outcome, we will someday soon–very soon–attend the wedding of all weddings and stand before our Groom, knowing we went all in and held nothing back. That’s my plan: Go all in, get increasingly louder, and go out in a blaze of glory.

2) Who is this Philistine that he should taunt the armies of the living God?

We know from Scripture that no matter our best efforts prior to the rapture, it will appear our giant has won for a seven-year period called the tribulation. But we also know that after the glorious wedding supper of the Lamb, we will come back with Him and watch as Jesus, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, will be the ultimate and forever Victor. That reminds me that I can’t and won’t count out the living God, not now, not ever. I will serve as I’m able. I will slay and win smaller victories through the power of the Spirit. While I’m still here, I will be available and willing for the Restrainer to do as much restraining as He can through me. All that’s required of me is to be willing to step into my role. I pray this Accept Your Role session encourages you to do the same.

What’s Next:

In this section we have focused on our unexpected role as shepherd in place of those who’ve forfeited theirs. In future installments, we will explore elements of both the shepherd and soldier’s training and assignments. No matter your age, no matter your stage, you, as a shepherd and a soldier, have a place amidst the flock and on the battlefield. Your unique design and voice are exactly what God has shaped you to be for such a time as this. The enemy will tell you otherwise. How about we stop listening to him?

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Other Entries on This Topic: How Do I Share What I Know? Series

The Daybreak ebook is always offered for free here: Daybreak Free Download

 

 

 About Daybreak:

In this ripped-from-the-headlines action adventure, Paige discovers the world isn’t what she thinks it is. After an urgent phone call from her dad, she sets out on a mission to find the absentee father who walked out of her life only weeks after her mother’s untimely death.

Wyatt, the soldier her father sends to protect her, sounds just like her dad, raving of conspiracies and warning of impending doom. This team, these loyal-to-her-father men, will stop at nothing to locate their leader.

Nothing about Paige’s life will ever be the same after that knock on her door and Wyatt’s two-minute warning.

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About Lisa:

As an author, Lisa Heaton is a storyteller with a heart for truth. Her greatest desire in her fiction and nonfiction work is to challenge the reader to discover the truth of who Jesus is and who they are to Him. Now, here as we wait for the any-minute arrival of Jesus for His church in the rapture, Lisa’s latest mission is to warn the lost and wake the found and to help others discover their unique voice to share the truth of our times. More at LisaHeatonBooks.com and Daybreak.Team.

What was it like in the days of Noah? Before that question is answered, we must put it into context, and here is that setting – {{Matthew 24:37 “The coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah, ³⁸ for as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, they were marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark, ³⁹ and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away – so shall the coming of the Son of Man be.”}}

The Lord’s Olivet Discourse is entirely set in the Tribulation and the Second Coming, and what happens immediately after. I have argued that frequently, and if people can’t see that, then I can’t help it. In verse 37, the coming is the Second Coming, not the Rapture, so what does that then tell us? The Lord makes the parallel, which is, His coming will be like the coming of the flood. Both are connected with judgment and a new order.

The flood was the greatest catastrophe to hit mankind since creation, and the Second Coming will be the greatest catastrophe to hit mankind since the flood. The two climaxes go hand in hand. The connection is so close, and the NASB uses “just like.” This is all about the wrath of God on sin, nothing whatever to do with the Rapture. With that established, what are the details we know about the days of Noah?

1. From Matthew, they were eating and drinking and marrying, so what does that mean? Only one thing, they continued in life with no regard to the future, no heeding the warnings of God, and probably mocked Noah (the believer). In the Tribulation, they will persecute the preachers and blaspheme God’s servants.
2. It says they did not understand until the tragedy overwhelmed them. The flood was the judgment, so after the Rapture, the Tribulation judgment will fall on the earth. In Noah’s time, they did not understand. Our world is so sinful, it too won’t understand when the Tribulation judgments arrive. What they will not really understand is that great climax coming, which is the Second Coming along with Armageddon, for every nation has its army and troops in Israel, summoned there by the three frog spirits in Revelation 16. That is when final destruction falls on the world.
3. We have a verse from Genesis that tells of something so bad that we will never see the like of it again, not even in the Tribulation – {{Genesis 6:5 “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”}} Great wickedness on the earth, yes, we will have that in the Tribulation, and the makings of it are here now. However, the part, {{“every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,”}} I don’t think will ever happen again. It is hard to conceive of that, that the entire thought process of the human mind and nature was continually evil without exception. Not even one “good” thought.
4. Consider these verses from {{Genesis 6:11 “Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence, ¹² and God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. ¹³ Then God said to Noah, ‘The end of all flesh has come before Me for the earth is filled with violence because of them, and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth.'”}}

I know others have written on the wickedness that is taking over the world, but consider how it was in Noah’s day. As I read those verses, the thought I get is that violence was just everywhere. It is as if the world was saturated in violence. Today we have the satanic Putin, Islamic violence frequently, and civil wars around parts of the world, but I do not think the world is overwhelmed by violence as it was in Noah’s time.

However, let us remember that the days of Noah apply to the Tribulation, not to our current world. Of course, we may see the beginnings of this like a lot of things, as if they have hatched and are starting to find legs. Once the Church is raptured and the Holy Spirit goes, then I expect there will be an onrush of violence as men and evil will be unrestrained, and then in the Tribulation, it will be like the days of Noah regarding violence.

There we have it, just a glimpse of what it was like in Noah’s day. The days of Noah ended in the flood judgment; the days of man’s wickedness will end in the Second Coming. The Lord Jesus used the words “the coming of the Son of Man” to equate with the Flood.

His 2nd Coming Armageddon judgment will break over this world like a flood. The gathering clouds (that must have happened at Noah’s time) to herald something ominous can be compared with the gathering clouds of the great destruction, such as this ominous example – {{Revelation 16:18 “and there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder; and there was a great earthquake such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth, so great an earthquake was it, and so mighty. ¹⁹ The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. Babylon the great was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of His fierce wrath.”}}

There is one verse I want to come back to, one I have spoken on before, but I feel it is not often understood. This is the verse – {{Matthew 24:39 “and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away – so shall the coming of the Son of Man be.”}}

Who were taken away? Well, they were ALL taken away. Those who did not understand, because they were evil continually. They were taken away in judgment.

Now look at these two verses that follow straight on and look at how the verse begins – {{Matthew 24:40 “THEN there shall be two men in the field – one will be taken and one will be left. ⁴¹ Two women will be grinding at the mill – one will be taken, and one will be left.”}}

Verses 40 and 41 are tied into verse 39. Based on verse 39, that can mean ONLY that those who are taken away are taken away in judgment. They are the unrighteous ones. And who are left? Well, I will ask you a question, who were left alive in Noah’s time? It was the righteous ones, and they inherited the cleansed earth, the redeemed ones of the Lord.

So shall it be at the end of the Second Coming. The wicked are taken away, judged, and the righteous ones are left to inherit the cleansed earth under the reign of the King Messiah in the Millennial Kingdom. It is so simple that I wonder how people can’t see it. Second Coming, not Rapture.

PRECIOUS LESSONS FOR US

There is a great lesson in the ark for Christians. Enoch was taken up from the world before the judgment came (albeit some time before), but he walked with God and was removed. Some time afterward, the judgment came. Enoch is a type of the rapture.

Now a question – Did Noah go through the judgment? The answer is important. No, he did not go through the judgment. He was lifted up above it. He was secure, totally safe in the ark. Noah was raised from the earth, and the judgment raged below. It was the ark that separated Noah from judgment.

There is a great lesson for Christians. We will not be on earth when the judgment rages here. We will be lifted up above it, lifted up to Jesus in rapture, protected in the ark. Jesus is our Ark, the One who is our protection.

Think of the ark that sheltered Noah for a moment. It was the ark that was battered that went through the fiercest storm and did not fail and came out safely on the other side. Christ is the Ark who battled the storm of Calvary and was battered as the fierce judgment of sin raged against Him, as the wrath of God beat upon Him. But He never faltered and came out victoriously on the other side.

Christ is our Ark, our shelter from the storm. He is our Protector and our Saviour who went through the wrath of judgment for us but who holds us secure in Him. What a beautiful application and type that ark of Noah was.

THE PITCH INSIDE AND OUTSIDE

{{Genesis 6:14 “Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood. You shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch.”}}

The Hebrew word for “pitch” in the book of Genesis is the same as the word for atonement. Here is Strong’s reference to that – Strong’s Hebrew 3722: וְכָֽפַרְתָּ֥ (wə·ḵā·par·tā) to cover, purge, make an atonement, make reconciliation, cover over with pitch, to coat or cover with pitch, to cover over, pacify, propitiate, to cover over, atone for sin, make atonement, to cover over, atone for sin and persons by legal rites, to make atonement for, to be covered.

It is amazing that God introduces so early in the piece the truth of atonement. It is a covering, and in our case, a covering for sin. Here we have atonement in the face of judgment. What more could we ask for? That is so beautiful.

You will see as well that God required the ark to be pitched inside and outside. That is a double pitching, but it had such a deep meaning, for it was atonement inside and out. God looked at the ark (as if on the outside), and in the judgment, he saw atonement that preserved those inside. Noah looked at the inside, and he saw atonement. He knew judgment was not for him. It satisfied both God and man. The atonement through the precious blood of Christ has satisfied both God and man. God sees the atoning sacrifice of Christ that has covered our sins, and man sees the atonement Christ made and knows he is secure.

THE WINDOW IN THE ARK

{{Genesis 6:16 “You shall make a window for the ark and finish it to a cubit from the top and set the door of the ark in the side of it. You shall make it with lower, second, and third decks.”}}

Have you ever thought about the window in the ark that Noah was in? Well, God placed it so high up, not low. It was high up because while the storm raged on, Noah could only look up to see from where the storm came (to heaven as it were) and to know there was no storm for him. He was not permitted to look on the earth at the destruction and mayhem.

In the Tribulation, we are all sheltered in the Lord, our Ark, removed from the earth. We won’t look down at a sinful earth destroying itself. We will only look up to our Lord. In heaven, the whole focus is on the Lamb of God.

For many decades I have loved the writings of C H Macintosh, and I want to quote him on the matter of the window and the door:

We read in Genesis 7:1, “Come thou and all thy house into the ark”; and when he had taken his place there, we read, {{“the Lord shut him in.”}} Here, assuredly, was full and perfect security for all within. Jehovah kept the door, and no one could go in or out without him. There was both a window and a door to the ark. The Lord secured, with His own omnipotent hand, the door, and left Noah the window from which he might look upward to the place from whence all the judgment had emanated, and see that no judgment remained for him.

The saved family could only look upward, because the window was “above” (Genesis 6:16). They could not see the waters of judgment, nor the death and desolation which those waters had caused. God’s salvation – the “gopher wood,” stood between them and all these things. They had only to gaze upward into a cloudless heaven, the eternal dwelling-place of the One who had condemned the world, and saved them.

Nothing can more fully express the believer’s perfect security in Christ than those words, {{“the Lord shut him in.”}} Who could open what God had shut? None. The family of Noah was as safe as God could make them. There was no power, angelic, human, or diabolical, which could possibly burst open the door of the ark and let the waters in. That door was shut by the self-same hand that had opened the windows of heaven and broken up the fountains of the great deep.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for battling the storm of wrath for sin, and doing it for me. You are my precious ARK.

ONE FINAL POINT

I said that Noah and his family were left to inherit a cleansed earth. That was true, but the heart of man is always bent to wickedness. That will never change until Satan is cast into the lake of fire with his demonic hordes and there is a new heaven and earth where righteousness will dwell.

It was but a short time until sin appeared in Noah’s family, awful sin. And it has continued right down to our time, and it will, beyond our time. When Christ sets up His Millennial Kingdom in a cleansed earth, the “saved” of the tribulation will enter – those who are “the left” from Matthew 24:40-41. However, sin is still present in the old natures, and during the Millennium, some/many people will be of a rebellious spirit. At the end of the Millennium, Satan rounds up the malcontents, and they are destroyed as the Gog of Revelation 20.

There are such wonderful parallels from Noah, his time, his ark, and the actions.

ronaldf@aapt.net.au