(Isaiah 22-23; Ephesians 3)

In Isaiah 22, the prophet gives an oracle – a vision – for Jerusalem. I could be wrong, but it appears to me that this is both a lament for what had already occurred and a warning of what was to come with the destruction of the daughter of my people (Isaiah 22:4). A great threat of invasion was hovering over Jerusalem. Prudently, they did what anyone would do in seeing such a menace approaching. Weapons were available elsewhere, so they collected them. They prepared for the attack by assuring they’d have water. In order to keep the enemy hordes from breaching the city walls, they reinforced them (Isaiah 22:8-10). All that they did in preparation was good and sound planning.

However, they neglected one thing to their ruin. Isaiah 22:11 tells us:

“… But you did not look to him who did it, or see him who planned it long ago.”

They did all the earthly things they were supposed to do but had no regard for the One who could truly save them.

The Lord God of hosts called for them to come humbly before Him, seeking His mercy in this situation (Isaiah 22:12); instead, they reveled, thinking they were safe, or if not, believing they’d die in merrymaking, as Isaiah 22:13 says:

“… and behold, joy and gladness,
killing oxen and slaughtering sheep,
eating flesh and drinking wine.
‘Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die.'”

Their fatalism angered God. He declared in Isaiah 22:14:

“The Lord of hosts has revealed himself in my ears:
‘Surely this iniquity will not be atoned for you until you die,’
says the Lord God of hosts.”

How they approached this coming catastrophe was the worst thing they could do in the eyes of the Lord.

He goes on to foretell that one who served Him, because of his attitude of preparation without spiritual guidance, would be uprooted. This man had carved out for himself a place of refuge, but Yahweh had no use for his earthly arrangements; they wouldn’t stand (Isaiah 22:15-19). God would honor another and give him much authority (Isaiah 22:20-25).

This narrative makes me think of what’s happening in the world today. Many secular people see that something is coming that will be bad, but they don’t have wisdom and insight into what that is. They’re preparing for calamity but have no sense of the ultimate disaster that will claim their soul.

Conversely, there are three groups in the church.

One: those who seemingly have little discernment or regard for Bible prophecy and what’s happening all around them. They’ve buried their heads in the sand and are proceeding to do church as if nothing is going on that will touch them.

Two: those who certainly know the times just as the men of Issachar (1 Chronicles 12:32). The problem is that they have misread the Word of God. How ever they got to this point in their walk of faith, they’ve been completely deluded as to what happens next in these end times.

These are the preppers. They’re storing away food and guns, perhaps arranging for an underground bunker or a bolthole to which they can flee. The coming Tribulation is the reality they apprehend and want to make sure they can endure those awful seven years. Some mock the idea of the Rapture; others appear to ignore it. In all cases, they seem to be looking for the soon appearance of great evil in the world, perhaps seeing and preparing for the approach of the Antichrist as the culmination of the coming lawlessness. In the Christian community, there are many who think this way.

Three: the minority of us who place our confidence in the soon return of Jesus through the Rapture of His church. Through wisdom and discernment, we see all that the preppers do, except our approach is entirely different. We may have small quantities of supplies on hand since we know that times could be rough prior to when Jesus comes. However, we are looking up. Our desire is for the Lord to return so that we can join Him in the heavenly realm as His Bride.

This doesn’t mean – as so many scoffers declare – that we are avoiding engagement in the world until that time. On the contrary, those I know with this belief in the accuracy of God’s Word as to the Rapture are engaged furiously in doing what we can to bring others into the Kingdom. To that end, we are doubling down in how we seek the Lord so as to grow closer to Him. At the same time, we’re grieving and praying and reaching out as God allows in these darkening days.

Rather than be like the steward Shebna that God rebuked in Isaiah 22:15-19 because he was looking to his own self-sufficiency, our desire is to be like Eliakim, to whom the Lord said about in Isaiah 22:22:

“And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.”

Shouldn’t our prayer and desire be to wholly serve God in these treacherous times? Should we not respond in the same manner we see that the prophet did in Isaiah 6:8?

“And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ Then I said, ‘Here I am! Send me.'”

[Author Note: Briefly, I want to set the stage for you as to the nature of most of my articles in this season. Each year I read the Bible through completely at least once – that has been my practice since I came to the Lord in 2005. I remain astounded at what God has done in my life because of that discipline! Each day I read from both the Old and New Testaments. I choose a verse from one of those passages and write my commentary and reflection based on that. In the title of my article, you’ll see the verse I chose. In addition, you’ll see the reading for that day if you’d like to follow along with greater context.]

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Gary W. Ritter is a lay pastor, Bible teacher, and prolific author. His Whirlwind Series comprises three books: Sow the Wind, Reap the Whirlwind, and There Is A Time. These books are contained in the collected volume of the Whirlwind Omnibus. Gary has been given the Christian Redemptive Fiction award for three novels: The Tattooed Cat, Alien Revelation, and for his collaboration with Terry James in writing The Minion Protocols, the third book in James’ Second Coming Chronicles.

Earlier this year, Gary released a four-volume set of Awaken Bible Study Notes that comment verse-by-verse through Scripture from a Biblical prophetic lens. He is currently editing a sequel to Alien Revelation called Alien Zombie Plague, which he plans to release later in the fall of 2021. Recently, Gary wrote a novella for the new Kindle Vella platform. That story is called Tribulation Rising: Seal Judgments – The Coming Apocalypse. This seven-part short work can be found at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B099Z462WD.

Each day this year, Gary has been writing commentary and reflections based on his reading through the Bible in a year. The intent in all his writings is to bring a strong Christian witness to what people read. You can see all his books and blog articles and reach him at his website:www.GaryRitter.com or his Facebook Author page: https://www.facebook.com/gritter3390. You can also see his older video Bible teachings on his Gary Ritter YouTube channel – look for the fish symbol, and more recently on Rumble on his Awaken Bible Prophecy channel: https://rumble.com/c/c-783217.

Week that Changed the World: The Day Jesus Cleaned House 

Matthew 21:1-17, Mark 11:1-17, Luke 19:28-48, John 2:13-22, John 12:12-19, Psalm 118:26, Isaiah 56:7

Summary: The Lord Jesus arrived in Jerusalem hailed by the Jews as the Davidic king who would restore Israel. He arrived not for that purpose but to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy of the Suffering Servant who restored all of His people back to God. The first step was to restore His house.

The final week of Jesus’ public ministry had started with His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, being hailed as the rightful heir of David and the One who would finally drive out the hated Roman Gentile oppressors and restore the nation of Israel back to its former glory — or so the people thought.

Their preconceived notion was based on the past glory of the nation. They seemed to have forgotten that God’s relationship with Israel was more important. They also conveniently left out the periods in their history where they abandoned God’s rule and protection in order to go after the foreign idols of the neighboring nations, which included the barbaric and forbidden practice of sacrificing their children to the bloodthirsty “god” Moloch (Leviticus 18:21, 20:3; 1 Kings 11:7; 2 Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 32:35).

They also seemed to have forgotten the years of pleading with the kings and people by the prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel to repent of these and other sins and debauchery that brought down their nation, placing them under the rule of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and now the iron hand of Rome.

The High Priests and other religious officials did not mind Rome being over them as long as their rituals and practices were left alone. They based their own preconceived notion on their roles as “the representatives of God’s holiness” and “keepers of the Law.” The Pharisees and Sadducees believed that these observations of the Law and traditions were sufficient enough to please God, but they had abandoned the true worship of God long ago. The rituals for atonement of the people’s sins had become a rote, emotionless, and dead series of practices, yet were seen by these groups as a means of income not just for the alleged “upkeep of God’s Temple” but to line their own pockets with illicit gain.

The High Priests had established a type of “racket.” They would “inspect” a lamb or other animal that a Jewish pilgrim would bring with them for the annual Passover sacrifice and feast (Exodus 12) and declare that the animal was ‘unclean” or somehow “blemished” and rejected. For a “nominal fee,” the Temple authorities would have on hand an “unblemished” animal that one could use for the sacrifices. The “fee” was much more expensive, naturally, and so were the rates of money exchange. Greek drachmas and Roman coins were not acceptable as donations for Temple upkeep. They had to be shekels, the Jewish coins only. The rate of exchange fee? More than likely a huge sum that few could afford. All of these schemes in the name of faith were nothing more than “cash cows” for the religious elite.

The fig tree (Mark 11:12-14), although it had leaves and bore the signs of preparation to produce fruit, had nothing. Mark wrote that it was not yet the season for figs, yet this tree looked “right” and “ready” to produce its fruit early. It was symbolically all a “show” and a representation of the apostate worship and lives of the people of Israel. On the outside, the Jewish leadership and many of the citizens looked pious, holy, reverent, and ready to please the LORD, but it was nothing but a farce, and Jesus knew it.

While Israel has been and always will be His chosen nation to give the world the Word of God and to obey Him, they have been disobedient, rebellious, idolatrous, and often played the game of devotion and religion to make themselves look good before God. They also had times of deep and earnest repentance for their sins and turned to God after periods of chastisement. We read about these times within the pages of the Hebrew Scriptures, or what is referred to by some as the Old Testament. We are no better, and many of you reading this message know it.

So, as Jesus prepares for what will be His last week of public ministry and final instructions to His disciples before he goes to the cross and completes His mission of atonement for the sins of humanity, He sees three problems for Israel. He needs to confront them, rebuke them, and open the eyes of the remnant of true believers that what they tend to expect from the LORD is all too often the exact opposite, and either a riot or revival occurs.

There never has been any neutrality when it comes to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is either love or hate. With this in mind, His actions are going to stir up hatred from the majority of Israel. He will destroy any concept of the restoration of the country. He will destroy the false and vain religious systems that have replaced the love of God into the hearts of Israel, and He cursed the symbolic holiness and righteousness that Israel claimed to possess. Like the leafy fig tree, it was nothing but empty formalism and ritual that appeared to be the fruit of genuine devotion to God.

We cheer Jesus on from a vantage point of two thousand years as He turned over the tables of the greedy moneychangers and drove out those who bought and sold in the Temple for gain and material prosperity (sound familiar?). We say “Amen, Brother” as He condemned the Pharisees for their rank hypocrisy and adherence to rituals, traditions, and interpretations of God’s laws that oppressed the average citizen instead of being a source of instruction and enjoyment of the Word of God in their lives. We praise the LORD when He quotes the Word to justify what He did in the Temple, which for the first time in years was cleansed of its wickedness and empty formalism that did nothing but send people to hell in the name of piety and goodness.

For a brief moment, the house of God was restored to its original purpose, and the genuine worshippers breathed a sigh of relief from the sounds, smells, and outright debauchery that had invaded what should have been a place of holy reverence and an area to bow before the Sovereign LORD and give Him thanks and praise for His grace, mercy, and salvation.

I am not a betting man, but I would venture to say that if the Lord Jesus entered some of our own houses of “worship” and did things such as overturn the Bingo tables, tear down the coffee bars and bistros, and eliminate the laser shows and worldly music that substitute for “praise and worship,” it would cause shock, awe, and rage.

He would rebuke “pastors” who preach the false doctrines of “prosperity,” “self-esteem,” “you’re a champion,” or “you are a little god,” or “making a deal with God for your best life now” instead of the Holy Scriptures. He would condemn “services” that are nothing more than amusements thrown in to keep the crowds coming, or denying the truth of the Word and the person of Christ, or “buddying up” with causes and groups who demand that we acknowledge them without demanding repentance and a change of heart to the things of God. He would come in with whips ready and a curse on such practices that are allegedly done in “His name.”

He would refer to many “worshippers” as nothing more than those who will be in the group He warned of in Matthew 7:21-23. He would quote the Scriptures (Isaiah 1:11-17, 41:24, 29, 45:20, 57:6; Jeremiah 10:5, 51:17) as He condemns the “false shepherds” who have done nothing but “tickle ears” (Acts 20:31-33; 2 Tim. 4:1-5, 2 Peter 2:1-3) and made their congregations sons and daughters of hell as much as they are now (Matthew 23:15, 33).

Watch the attitudes change from adulation to anger and from worship to rage as their preconceived ideas of Jesus “restoring America” or being only a “God of love who would never send anyone to hell,” or blessing the work of “our little church” comes crashing down around them, and they are faced with the real Lord Jesus Christ of the Scriptures. Their “faith” would dissolve into rank apostasy because what they “thought” about Him is not in any way, shape or form with what they placed on an altar of their own design of Jesus on it and were content with it.

Perhaps part of the great “falling away” of 2 Thessalonians 2 will be those who were faced with the demands of the Lord Jesus and decided that their brand of “Christianity” was better, and they will deliberately walk away from the reality of Christ to embrace the coming deception and blindness that God will put on them and all who reject the Gospel message.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the rightful King of Israel and the coming world ruler who will govern His creation with justice and a “rod of iron” in the approaching Millennial reign and eternal state. He is the rightful and just judge who will expose the sins of everyone who has rejected Him for one reason or another and condemn them to the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:11-15). He will judge the work of His children (2 Corinthians 5:10) and reward them for the great or small things they did for Him in His name. He will cast the devil, demons, and the coming Antichrist and his brood into hell, and evil will be at an end forever (Matthew 25:41; Revelation 19:20-21).

He knows who is genuine in their faith and who is just playing some kind of religious game (John 2:23-25). He is returning to this world to clean house and be done with the sins, debauchery, wickedness, and reprobate acts of the wicked who will still be cursing Him and trying in vain to be rid of Him as He appears in the clouds with His saints at the end of the Tribulation period (Revelation 4-19).

Those of us who have genuinely turned our hearts to Christ and given Him our lives will one day be taken off of this wicked world (John 14:1-3; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Revelation 3:10). I am afraid that it will not be as large a crowd as some of us expect, because like the crowd who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem, cheering Him one day and later crying for His death, there will be many who gave the LORD “lip service cheers,” but not their hearts. They will turn their affections to the coming Antichrist and his deceptions that will sound so good and noble but lead straight to hell (Revelation 14:11).

Please listen to me. This present world is coming to an end, and the days will get more evil and wicked. It is NOT going to get better, and all the “flag waving,” “prepping,” “patriotism,” and hopes for a better nation will not come, period. More and more people are turning to evil and calling it good (Isaiah 5:20-21).

Give your life to Jesus Christ NOW (2 Corinthians 6:2). You have no guarantee of tomorrow (James 4:17). If this were my last sermon, let it end with a plea for you to repent of your sins, surrender your life to Jesus Christ, and then cheer Him as the righteous King of Kings as we enter the portals of glory and then to a new heaven and earth.

Come to Him today. If not now, friend, when?

donaldwhitchard@gmail.com

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Join me for “The Reality City Daily Review” weekday mornings at 10:00 CST on YouTube (USA). It will then be posted on Facebook and on my website. My main area of discussion will be on the basics of the Christian faith but will also deal with prophetic issues and other topics as the Lord impresses upon me to handle.