True Peace and Safety :: By Terry James

 

Today, as the new year begins, the cry for peace and safety rings more loudly than ever. I’ve written about the fears and calls for remedy of those fears in numerous posts. The prophecy below is one of the clearest in indicating when judgment will fall.

“For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape” (1 Thessalonians 5:3).

Following the Rapture of the Church, that cry will become much more urgent. As a matter of fact, the cry will be demanded from most everyone on earth at that time. The Antichrist will step forward and presumably have the answers to the deluded masses’ life-threatening dilemmas.

We can hear the cries even now beginning to build—not so much by the masses of peoples under the increasingly despotic governing authorities, but by the governing authorities themselves. Their fears, I think the evidence shows, are because they don’t wish their safe havens of ever-increasing wealth-building they’ve carved for themselves to be disrupted.

These fear-mounting threats to world peace

China wants to be number one in all matters of world domination. The CCP wants to retake Formosa (Taiwan). The Communist Party’s dictatorship has lost its fear of the US vanguard against their aggression with the current American presidential administration. The Chinese have, with patience and clever, even brilliant, strategies, tied up the US and much of the Western world with economic/monetary chains.

Vladimir Putin and the Russian military threaten the Ukraine and other neighbors. They have, by taking advantage of the Biden administration’s foolhardy green environmental/anti-petroleum policies, rearranged things in Europe and elsewhere in a way that places increasing hardships upon the average citizenries.

Israel, in the view of the globalist elite, presents a great threat to their drive toward one world by demanding that Iran get off its nuclear weapons ambition. Israel is seen as the hold-up to peace in the Middle East to a large extent, despite that it is the Jewish State’s surrounding enemies that declare almost daily that they will wipe Israel off the map.

The very wealthy and privileged among us are picking up the mantra of peace and safety in the entertainment world as well. The very purveyors of ideology that has been at the forefront of the “woke” cancel culture and the rest of that insanity now seek safety from their constituent masses. It would be humorous if it wasn’t a sin infection that will ultimately enlarge the chambers of Hell.

The following report tells more.

After years of rising crime in Los Angeles, elites in wealthy neighborhoods are finally panicking about the recent string of high-profile retail robberies and home burglaries. Experts say wealthy individuals are purchasing bulletproof cars, safe rooms, employing armed guards, and even constructing walls with barbed wire around their properties.

The issue of violent crime is nothing new to Los Angeles, but a spillover to upscale neighborhoods has put elites on edge. The Hollywood Reporter reports agencies that provide private security are seeing increasing demand for private patrols….

Estate manager Bryan Peele, president and founder of the L.A.-based Estate Managers Coalition, said his clients have “fully equipped safe rooms that they can live in for a few days, if necessary, that are completely hard-wired with phone cables, Internet, everything.”

One of Peele’s clients has three bulletproof cars and wears fake Rolexes. “This guy will take a $200,000 Rolex and copy it, using stainless steel and other metals, so it looks like the original but costs maybe $2,000-$3,000 per watch. So, in the event that it’s stolen, the client is out a lot less money,” he said.

Many upscale homes are installing more cameras, constructing fences with barbed wire, and employing 24-7 security details that will protect them once their private jet touches down to their mansions. (“Hollywood Elites Panic-Buy Armored-Cars and Safe-Rooms Amid Rising Violent Crime,” Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, December 28, 2021)

Crime in the most elite sections of LA and the surrounding area has risen dramatically since so-called reforms to law and justice have taken place. The madness has caused cries for peace and safety from the most vocal “wokes” in the nation.

Criminals can steal as much as $950 worth of goods and receive only slaps on the wrist. What comes to mind is the scriptural reminder, “Be sure, your sins will find you out.”

Woke culture is reprobate thinking manifest for the entire world to see. Turning one’s back to God, as we are reminded in Romans chapter 1, brings about upside-down thinking.

Sadly, many–most—will never experience true peace and safety, either in this fallen world or, even more tragically, in the world to come—in eternity.

True peace and safety are found only in Jesus Christ. Only He can provide the shelter from the Tribulation storm to come and offer us safety throughout all of eternity during life after death.

Read again the words of the Lord of all lords—the Savior who came to take away the sins of the world. Hear through your spiritual senses the compassion and love in His prayer to the Heavenly Father.

When the Lord Jesus prays, the heavenly Father ALWAYS grants His Son’s prayer. Jesus prayed for the children of God—all children past, present, and future, saved through Christ’s precious shed blood:

“I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them….

Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.

O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17: 9–10, 20–26).

Church Not in Tribulation, Pt. 1 of 3 :: By Grant Phillips

The Tribulation is a 7-year period that God has reserved for Israel’s discipline and for His judgment upon a decadent and unbelieving world. It is known as: the Day of the Lord (Isaiah 2:12, 13:6-9; Joel 1:15, 2:1-31, 3:14; 1 Thessalonians 5:2) and the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jeremiah 30:7). It is also called “trouble, tribulation and wrath” in Zephaniah1-3, then “time of trouble” in Daniel 12:1.

Daniel 9:24-27 speaks of 70 weeks (or sevens), 490 years that God has declared for the Jewish people [1] to finish the transgression, [2] to make an end of sins, [3] to make reconciliation of iniquity, [4] to bring in everlasting righteousness, [5] to seal up the vision and prophecy, and [6] to anoint the most Holy.

This period began with the decree to rebuild Jerusalem (Daniel 9:25 and fulfilled in Nehemiah 2), then stated that after 69 weeks, the Messiah would be cut off (Jesus’ death on the cross). Daniel 9:26 prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. by the Roman General Titus. Then the remaining one week (7 years) is mentioned in Daniel 9:27 with the Antichrist confirming a covenant for one week (7 years). Revelation 6-18 describes in detail this remaining one week (the Tribulation), or seven years, that will come upon the whole world.

This rather short description of the Tribulation is to emphasize God’s wrath during this time upon a corrupt and unbelieving world and also upon the Jewish nation of Israel.

FULLNESS OF THE GENTILES

For nearly 2,000 years, mankind originally consisted of just Gentiles, from Adam to Abraham. With Abraham began the Jewish nation of Israel. Then there were two groups of people: Gentiles and Jews. At Pentecost, nearly 2,000 years from Abraham, another group of people was introduced by God called the Church. Now we have three groups of people: Gentiles, Jews, and the Church.

The Church is composed of anyone who will put their faith in Jesus Christ as the only way to God the Father, whether they are Jews or Gentiles. At first, the Church consisted of all Jews who came to Christ, and then Gentiles also came to Him to be saved. Today, most all who are of the Church are Gentiles, but all may be saved, Jews and Gentiles, if they believe upon the name of Jesus.

God initiated the Gentiles through Adam via creation. He initiated the Jewish nation with a promise to Abraham, and then finally He initiated the third group, the Church, with a fulfillment in Jesus Christ: His death, burial and resurrection.

Since Israel (the Jews) rejected their Messiah, God temporarily put them, as a nation, on the backburner (Romans 11:7-12) and is now calling out the Gentiles to come to Him through the same Messiah that Israel rejected. When the number of Gentiles in His Church is complete, He will remove the Church at the Rapture and return to His dealings with Israel during the Tribulation (Romans 11:26-32).

“For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” (Romans 11:25).

GOD’S WRATH

Without a doubt, the Tribulation is a time of God’s wrath that will come down in full force upon all humanity … except for the Church. The Church is the bride of Christ, and Jesus has made it very clear that His bride, the Church, will never suffer His wrath.

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18).

His wrath will come down upon all ungodliness and unrighteousness, but not on those clothed with the righteousness of their Savior Jesus Christ.

“Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation” (Romans 5:9-11).

Every true Christian is a part of the Church and, therefore, the bride of Christ. Having been justified by His blood, we are reconciled to God and saved by His life from His wrath.

“And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others” (Ephesians 2:1-3).

Notice the “past tense” in these three verses: “were dead,” “once walked,” “once conducted.”

All true Christians, before they were saved, were also once children of wrath, as others who do not know Jesus as Savior and Lord. We are no longer children of wrath.

“Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 5:6).

Those who make up the true Church are children of God, not sons of disobedience.

“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Romans 8:16).

“For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26).

Again, all true Christians are not of the sons of disobedience and children of wrath but instead are children of God.

“Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them” (Colossians 3:6-7).

Once again, this verse is not referring to the children of God.

“For they themselves declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10).

Those who have turned to God through Jesus Christ are not under wrath but delivered from wrath.

“For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus. For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Judeans, who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they do not please God and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins; but wrath has come upon them to the uttermost” (1 Thessalonians 2:14-16).

The enemies of God will face His wrath, not the Church. He says in the next verse:

“For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him” (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10).

Jesus died for His bride. He is not going to show us His wrath. He shows us His love.

“Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth” (Revelation 3:10).

Jesus made a clear promise to His Church, His bride, that she would not be a part of the “hour of trial,” the Tribulation … His wrath.

“And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?'” (Revelation 6:15-17).

Only those who have rejected Jesus will hide from Him to avoid His wrath. To the contrary, the Church, His bride, longs to see Him and bow before Him in love.

Grant Phillips

Email: Phillip5769@twc.com
Pre-Rapture Commentary: http://grant-phillips.blogspot.com
Rapture Ready: https://www.raptureready.com/featured/phillips/phillips.html