A Delay, Not a Do-Over :: By Terry James

An emailer, expressing fears over the current conditions in America, asked: “Do you think we will ever return to normal life?”

It’s an interesting question, and it represents a number of such questions I’ve gotten lately. I must admit that, for a while, it was one I, myself, thought about as I looked across the prophetic horizon.

Will life ever return to the way things were before COVID-19 disrupted our lives like nothing in America has before?

It’s true that the Great Depression of the 1930s caused great troubles that were made worse by the advent of the Dust Bowl, which decimated great swaths of middle America. Many folks lost their livelihoods and even their lives during that catastrophic era. But all the while, life had a sense that normalcy was again just around the corner.

People still came together. As a matter of fact, they clung closely to each other in order to get through the dark days, weeks, and months of that time during America’s early twentieth century.

They weren’t told to not congregate. Particularly, they weren’t told they couldn’t go to church. They were encouraged to come together and pray, imploring the Lord to deliver them from the plague of the fiscal and physical disaster that afflicted them.

Now within the country we’re seeing a sense of foreboding that nags at many, even within the ranks of devoted believers. Will we ever see a time like that we enjoyed before the coronavirus? —Before quarantining and social distancing? Before churches were told not to meet at full capacity? Before wearing masks that almost in a sinister way obscure smiles and expressions of hope we previously were allowed to see on the countenances of fellow human beings? Will we ever again return to a time like before, when we received no glares of fear and even anger from eyes peering at us from behind the masks if we choose not to wear them?

The question is legitimate. Fear of this microscopic entity has more than 90 percent of Americans polled indicating that they would like to have government make the mask-wearing mandatory in all public places. Over 90 percent!

Most of those polled want the masks to be required, despite statistics from the CDC itself—figures just released—that show the harmful effects of the disease have been grossly overblown. Of the 180,000 people reported to have died of COVID-19, only some nine thousand-plus have actually died of COVID itself. The majority died, in fact, from age-related and or other health complications.

This is greatly under-reported by mainstream media. I’ve written many times about the reasons for such muddling of truth. The deception involved in the COVID-19 matter, the sequestering of individual Americans one from another (the masking of America—and the world, for that matter) is all part of the answer to the question: “Will we ever return to normal life?”

While the coronavirus is real, it hasn’t proven to present the world-endangering virulence the would-be world masters have claimed. In fact, the flu in its various strains has been much greater in deadly effects than this virus unleashed by China. COVID-19 has been contrived for specific purposes in what I believe the Pre-Tribulation Bible prophecy view presents.

However, while COVID-19 hasn’t been nearly as world-endangering as propagandized, it certainly has been the most world-changing pandemic in history.

That’s saying a tremendous mouthful, to be sure. The Spanish Flu of 1917 killed millions. Many plagues of the past have devastated entire continents and even brought civilizations to an end. Pestilence such as the Bubonic Plague have wiped out many in Europe and elsewhere. Diseases have brought the Incas and others to an end. But COVID-19, as minor as it is in its virulence, comparatively speaking, has literally been the catalyst for bringing all elements together for the wind-up of the age. I and others who hold a Pre-Tribulation Rapture view believe this pandemic is in place to manipulate the masses across the world into being receptive to the post-Rapture world deception. In this, the COVID-19 ruse has been immensely successful.

Will we ever return to normal life?

Converging developments answer with a resounding “no.”

The stage is setting for the powers and principalities of Ephesians 6:12 to bring their satanic world order to the world of God-rejecting earth dwellers.

People worldwide have fallen for the fear-engendering pandemic of pandemics. No matter the political outcomes in November or any other election at any other time, we can’t expect a “do-over.” The nation and the world will not be made better through the human political process. No human government will make things as they have been, in the sense the founding fathers of America intended.

We are deep into the end of this decaying, darkening age.

This being the obvious case—that things will not get back to “normal”—how should we deal with everything evil permeating today’s society and culture?

What is to be our part, since we’ve been providentially placed here at this late moment of the Age of Grace?

We are to fight a delaying action. We’re here to be salt and light in this corruptive, decaying time in human history. The Restrainer—the Holy Spirit—indwells each believer. Each of us is supernaturally equipped to fight as described in Ephesians chapter 6.

The purpose for fighting the delaying action is to restrain evil that we’ve seen increasing over the past several years, months, weeks, and days. That wickedness in high places will only increase, the nearer to the Tribulation the world gets.

The purpose for restraining the evil is so that the gospel can be offered to as many as possible. Pray the prayer prescribed in 2 Chronicles 7:14. Stand up for righteousness at all cost. Make God’s Word, the Bible, your sword that He’s given you to battle evil.

We can’t expect a “do-over” of the way things were before this end-times battle ramped up. But we must be at the heart of the delaying action God has planned for just this monumental time when His Son is at the very brink of stepping out on the clouds of glory and shouting: “Come up here!” (Revelation 4 1).

Romans Lesson 33: God is Not a Loser :: By Sean Gooding

Chapter 11:1-10

1 I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, 3 ‘Lord, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life’? 4 But what does the divine response say to him? ‘I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’ 5 Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace.

6 And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.7 What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks; but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded. 8 Just as it is written:

God has given them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear, To this very day.’ 9 And David says: ‘Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a recompense to them. 10 Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see, and bow down their back always.’”

We live in tumultuous times. Just yesterday I was speaking with a colleague at my workplace, and we were discussing how the last 6 months have been one of the largest transfers of wealth in the history of the world. We have men like Bezos whose worth have just about doubled in the past 6 months (to about 200 Billion Dollars) while smaller companies are still struggling, and many are going out of business. In my little town, there are countless empty storefronts that will never come back. Even very large restaurant chains, some who have been around for 30+ years, have gone under in this COVID debacle.

It is not my intention in this lesson to get into that, but just think that as we move ahead and the push to globalism is shoved down our throats, it will be easier to control businesses if the vast majority are run by a small group of persons. It will be easier to make laws that restrict the smaller stores if the bigger stores own everything. Soon all of our food, medicine, clothing and just about everything we buy will be held in the hands of an oligopoly, and they will be controlled by evil men who are not interested in the individual customer but serve a ‘bigger’ vision.

I was speaking to a Russian couple in my office who have been in Canada for almost 3 years, and they were astonished at the fact that it is very hard to pay for anything with cash. They have the money, but many places will not take more than a few thousand in cash. The legal paperwork and the hoops one must jump through to prove the chain of ownership is circus-like. They blurted out to me that this is all about control. They knew what that was like growing up in Russia, and they were astonished to see it here in North America.

We are like the frog in the pot; the government is gradually turning up the temperature, and we are boiling to death very, very slowly. It would be easy for us to think that the world system is winning, they have the upper hand, and they are about to ‘checkmate’ our King. But nothing could be further from the truth. God’s not dead, and soon He will come out roaring like a Lion.

In the passage above, there are some stark declarations that we will deal with today. I hope to bring some enlightenment and some peace into some troubled lives today. I pray that some light will shine in your darkness and that you will realize that the light at the end of the tunnel is not a train but Jesus coming to clear this mess up.

  1. God is not done with Israel, verses 1-2

There is a devilish doctrine meandering among churches, even presumably conservative churches, that God is done with Israel. Many of the churches that teach this doctrine are Calvinist-leaning, at least here in Southern Ontario. They do not believe that everyone can be saved, and as such, they have written off Israel and teach, erroneously, that the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are not transferred to the New Testament church.

Paul calls this very thought into question in the first two verses of Romans 11: Is God done with Israel? No, He is not. And I am proof of that; I am an Israelite. If God was done with Israel, why am I saved? Paul was the main apostle to the Gentile peoples of most of known Europe, but he was a Jew and he knew that he was God’s reminder that the Jews were not forgotten and cast aside forever. I know some Jews who are saved. They have seen and understood that Jesus is the Messiah, and they have called on Him as Savior. There are entire organizations like Jews for Jesus whose sole job is to take the Gospel of Jesus to the persons of Israel. They have a unique perspective as Jews on how to share the Gospel to their people.

In Romans 11:2, Paul clearly states that God has not cast away His people. How much clearer can one be? Later in this chapter, Paul would write in verse 29 that the ‘gifts of God and His promises are irrevocable.’ God made a covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15, a covenant that Abraham slept through, and God made the covenant to Abraham using Himself only as the giver and the receiver. Thus, this covenant will never expire since the covenant expires at the death of one of the participants. God will never die (Genesis 15: 8-21).

Here we are 2,000 years later, and there are still Jews being saved, still Jews coming to the recognition of who the Messiah is and calling on Him for salvation. A literal reading of the book of Revelation will reveal that God is not done with Israel and will call 144,000 Jewish men to be missionaries to the lost Jews around the world. Then once we get out of chapter 4, the New Testament church is never mentioned again, yet we see saints in the Tribulation period, we see that the whole world is focused on Jerusalem, and the anti-Christ himself will invade and occupy Jerusalem for a period of time. The future events of the end are about Israel, at least the events that take place here on earth.

Sadly, the Jews rejected their Messiah, and for a period of time their eyes have been darkened, but that is for our benefit; we see the Messiah.

  1. God will never be outplayed by Satan, verse 2-5

There is a story from 1 Kings 19 where Elijah has run away from Jezebel and is cowering in fear by a river. There he falls into a bit of a pity party and asks God to take his life as he is the only one left in Israel who is serving the Lord. But God makes it clear that He had more than 7,000 other men who had not worshipped a false god. This seemed to be an eye-opener to the prophet. He was so fixed on Jezebel and her evils ways that it took his eyes off the fact that more than 7,000 other men were serving the Lord faithfully.

This is how it can be today; we see the globalists on TV every day, we see the news and hear of the issues, and we can think that we have lost the battle. We are outnumbered and are being outplayed. But nothing could be further from the truth. God will not be outplayed and outmaneuvered by Satan.

Right now, there are faithful missionaries and countless churches that are doing all they can to share the Gospel. Soon, God will send out 144,000 dedicated missionaries to preach the Gospel to the Jews; we find this in Revelation 7:1-17. There are currently over 7.5 billion people on the planet, and when we look at the people who have gone before, plus the ones that are saved now, plus the ones who will see Jesus in the Millennial Kingdom and be saved, there will be billions upon billions who will be saved, and Satan is going to be outplayed. He will come to the end of himself, and he too will one day call Jesus Lord. It is Satan’s kingdom that will be destroyed, his power eviscerated and his end sure. In the end, there will be one eternal ruler, Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords. His kingdom is forever, and His reign is forever as well.

Don’t be dismayed; any perceived victories by the kingdom of darkness and his minions here on earth are temporary. God is allowing them a false sense of winning and a sense of victory that will embolden them to defy God more and more as they try to create a perfect world without Jesus. They will fail miserably. Their presumption that man is good will be their end; they are not even good themselves. They are evil and in need of redemption.

There is no Utopia without Jesus and salvation. But for now, we are the ones who benefit from the temporary blindness of the Jews. We Gentiles are being saved but soon, sooner than we all think, the Gentile age will come to an end and God will revert to dealing spiritually with the Jews. They will be saved and there will be billions of Gentiles killed in the Tribulation. Those Gentiles who enter the Tribulation having rejected Jesus will die horribly in ways that God has told us will be absolutely amazing. The Revelation makes Hollywood look like they are amateurs in creating ways to die.

Repent; today is the day of salvation. We don’t hear much today about the wrath of God. Not many preachers want to talk about Hell, sin and eternal fires. But the Bible says this in Hebrews 10:31, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God.” We will all meet the Lord Jesus one day; we will either meet him at the Bema Mercy seat or the Great White Throne judgment. Where will you meet Him? The choice is yours.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding

Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

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