Here’s the article in The Atlantic: What ISIS Really Wants: The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it. Graeme Wood. MARCH 2015.
Tag: Messiah
The Gospel in the World
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
John 3:14,15
Matthew Henry wrote:
“Jesus Christ came to save us by healing us, as the children of Israel, stung with fiery serpents, were cured and lived by looking up to the brazen serpent, Num_21:6-9. In this observe the deadly and destructive nature of sin. Ask awakened consciences, ask damned sinners, they will tell you, that how charming soever the allurements of sin may be, at the last it bites like a serpent. See the powerful remedy against this fatal malady. Christ is plainly set forth to us in the gospel. He whom we offended is our Peace, and the way of applying for a cure is by believing. If any so far slight either their disease by sin, or the method of cure by Christ, as not to receive Christ upon his own terms, their ruin is upon their own heads. He has said, Look and be saved, look and live; lift up the eyes of your faith to Christ crucified. And until we have grace to do this, we shall not be cured, but still are wounded with the stings of Satan, and in a dying state. Jesus Christ came to save us by pardoning us, that we might not die by the sentence of the law. Here is gospel, good news indeed. Here is God’s love in giving his Son for the world. God so loved the world; so really, so richly. Behold and wonder, that the great God should love such a worthless world! Here, also, is the great gospel duty, to believe in Jesus Christ. God having given him to be our Prophet, Priest, and King, we must give up ourselves to be ruled, and taught, and saved by him. And here is the great gospel benefit, that whoever believes in Christ, shall not perish, but shall have everlasting life. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, and so saving it. It could not be saved, but through him; there is no salvation in any other. From all this is shown the happiness of true believers; he that believeth in Christ is not condemned. Though he has been a great sinner, yet he is not dealt with according to what his sins deserve.” (emphasis added)
It’s through Y’shuaJesus that death has no sting. Dead. Alive in Messiah. Eternally. In the meantime? We wait. We watch. While I’d like to say: “Mr. Henry, you said the world is worthless, but I disagree, G-d created a beautiful world and said it is good,” I can’t say that. The world even in its beauty is corrupt. The world wasn’t always that way. G-d spoke and the world came into being. Perfect. Then we rebelled. Now we live in a corrupt world. We did it. We are responsible. Sadly, as much as some Christians want to reclaim the world for Messiah, making it perfect and inviting Him to return, it’s just not happening. The world as we know it is ending; it’s becoming more corrupt, quickly.
It’s interesting that while the Word of G-d is the Word of Salvation to us, it is also the Word that condemns us in this sorry world. “Whoever believes in Christ in not condemned,” is what Mr. Henry wrote. We are not condemned in the Eyes of G-d, but now we are condemned in the eyes of a corrupt world that won’t allow there to be only one way to eternal life. The world is inclusive, but we are exclusive. The world says there is no sin. All people are good, and worthy of a wonderful life hereafter. The Bible says we who believe in Y’shuaJesus are the only ones to be received into the eternal life with G-d. We are so intolerant. Hum. . .
For the moment, living in the United States of America is pretty easy for a Believer in Y’shuaJesus. There is some persecution for beliefs. There are some minor penalties for being a voice for conservative values, morals. But here we are not thrown in the squalor of a prison for sedition, for endangering the national security, such as are Christians in Iran, and many, many other countries. The Gospel isn’t illegal. . . yet! One day, perhaps sooner that later. . .
What will it be like when Christianity as we know it today is forbidden? Will a “free” country with a Constitution that protects all religions actual forbid one particular religion? How can that be? There are various ways some think as persecution of Christianity taking place today in the United States. For instance, there are some home churches that have been harassed by local governments. Usually there is some statute called upon limiting the number of people allowed to park in a particular neighborhood, or on a small-sized piece of land. But those statutes apply equally to all, not just the home church. It has the appearance of persecution, but isn’t. . . yet.
At some point we’ll know real persecution. At some point we’ll not be able to buy, sell, or trade. Perhaps we’ll have to make a choice then. Will we choose life in Messiah or a false life in a post-Christian world? Big choice: Does that worry us? Are we afraid that at some time in the future we will have to choose a physical existence at the expense of our eternal, spiritual existence? Are we scared we will let the Lord down by denying Him. Peter denied the Lord. Shall we say we are better than he, and we could never do such a thing?
Well, here’s the Gospel. We’ve already chosen. We’ve been chosen. Our names are already written in the Book of Life, so when asked to relinquish our claim as Believers in the True Gospel of the Lord and Savior Y’shuaJesus, asked to accept the views of those in political authority, we won’t have to worry about a choice for we won’t be able to condemn our selves. We will have to stand up for Y’shuaJesus in us. The powers of darkness have already condemned us, which is a good thing. We are on G-d’s side; G-d is on our side. We are the Gospel in this world. A living Gospel; Y’shuaJesus lives in us. We are the light. We are saved. The world is ending, passing away into oblivion, into hell. We are enroute to a glorious Heaven, where we shall see, face to face, the Living Lord Y’shuaJesus, and dine with Him at the Feast. Thank You, Lord! Hallelujah! Bless the Name of the Lord.
Lord Bless, Keep, Shine. . .
Last Days (4)
Again, let me say that there’s more to the Book of Revelation than death and destruction, the end of the world that is depicted in the doomsday media, which seems only to lead us to think of G-d’s plan for humankind as being annihilation. Yet parts, taken out of context, say just people will die out there. Take a look at these verses:
When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”
Revelation 6:12-17
Fear. Intense fear. Fear that is getting out of control. Fear that makes people want to dig a hole and bury themselves alive. I awoke one night thinking about the use of fear in the media today. Especially in the financial adviser realm, where we become fearful of losing whatever savings we have and think perhaps they may have the answers to save us.
But there’s something within humans that seem driven to want to experience fear. A lot of people like horror movies and “amusement parks.” I don’t. I don’t like roller coasters. But roller coasters are tame compared to some of the new rides. And then there are various other “sports” that people engage in. I admit, I’ve been on one of those long, peak-to-peak mountain zip lines myself. And maybe it has some value beyond the harnessing of one’s fear. And then there’s bungee jumping. Jump off a bridge with a stretch cord wrapped around your ankles designed to stop you just before you crash headlong into the rocks below. Fun!
But what are we doing to ourselves by allowing our senses to be dulled by all these fearful experiences? I wonder. We feed into what the media is all to willing to give us.
I’ve heard it said that the Viet Nam Conflict (Undeclared War) came to an end as a result of journalists graphic reports on the evening news including video of our soldiers dying in combat. Americans watched it during their dinner, and were sickened by what was going on. Sure, we’d had great journalistic reports in the newspapers, especially during WWII. But a picture “is worth a thousand words.” And these pictures were the same day and of bloody kids, American kids. It was a lot more powerful. And Americans were aghast. But we’re desensitized now. We are no longer shocked at combat, death. Or, perhaps we are still shocked, but feel powerless to do anything about it.
Okay. Moving right along. Fear can direct us into a different course of action. Like the movie Contagion, fear of a deadly virus leads us to accept the word of our government that a vaccine is safe, and to take it. Fear can be used to manipulate us into doing things we would not otherwise do. That can be a good thing, too. I suppose. In some circumstances. But in Revelation, at the point of the Sixth Seal, whatever happens certainly will be big, really big. It will be big enough to really get our attention. And it will be the fear of the LORD. Being really afraid, terrified. Horrified. Not the King James Version of fear the Lord in the psalms. That kind means to look with awe upon Him. No, these people have already apparently made their choices against the Lord our G-d. They are fearful of Him. They are terrified of what is going to happen next.
Now, there is a point, before that Sixth Seal experience, in which people during trials and various other calamities come to look for G-d. At this point, many come to repent. They turn from their current ways—ways of the flesh; ways called sinful—and accept Y’shuaJesus as Lord and Savior.
So. I began with the word apocalypse being used as “The End of the World” or doomsday. And for many the Book of Revelation, the Apocalypse, is just that. It’s in the media portrayed as that, too. I mentioned that the definition of apocalypse is from a Greek word that means uncovering. The Book of Revelation uncovers more fully the Gospel of Lord Y’shuaJesus. There’s Good News! Yet, there’s also some really bad news. Bad news for some, at least. The media focus is on those people. It’s on the Apocalypse as death and destruction. In the Book of Revelation there are two seals that we are shown that people can receive. (See Matthew 24 for Y’shuaJesus telling about one seal a person can receive.) One is a seal given in a world with no use for Messiah Y’shuaJesus. The other seal is one given to those who are willing to give themselves to Messiah Y’shuaJesus. Two groups of people. For those sealed with a demonic mark, the Revelation of Y’shuaJesus as Messiah comes too late, and it means enduring the wrath of G-d, suffering destruction, and death.
For those sealed by the Lord’s angels, sealed with the Holy Spirit, there may come persecution, tribulation, but there is Life in Y’shuaJesus.
Lord Bless, Keep, Shine. . .
Trials and Such
The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen: to whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. . . (Acts 1:1-3)
The time between the Rescurrection and the Ascension is forty days. This in-between time was filled with visits from Y’shuaJesus. The visits, I think, were to bolster the faith of those who just weren’t sure about Y’shuaJesus’s mission. Some had believed He was to be a physical savior for the nation of Israel, freeing it from the Roman Empire, leading a Maccabee-type revolt. Others just didn’t understand at all. Disciples discussed the events among themselves. Like the disciples on the road to Amaoz. The disciples all needed to feel the burning in their hearts of the presence of Y’shuaJesus. They needed to be reminded of their true missions.
This time between also must have been a time of trial. The number of days between the Resurrection and the Ascension caught my attention. Forty. It is the number of days Y’shuaJesus was in the wilderness, tempted. It was the number of years Israel spent wandering in the desert. It was the number of Ali Baba’s thieves. (It’s okay to smile, this isn’t your trial/test.) There were a lot of forty-year periods in Moses’s life. After being tossed into the river, he was groomed to be an Egyptian prince for forty years. Then he let his anger get the best of him, and spent forty years in the wilderness. As if eighty years of testing weren’t enough, he gets called back to Egypt to rescue a rather stiff-necked people, and suffer trials with them for another forty years. Not such a great retirement package!
It seems to me our own lives are times in between. I’d thought perhaps we were here just waiting. But it looks more like we’re also being tested the whole time here. Even if we’ve experience a moment of Power from on High, a Pentecost of our own with an in-filling of the Holy Spirit, we are still in test mode. Isn’t life in Messiah exciting? He called us, like He called His disciples and Apostles. He walked with us a while, like He did with them. Then He leaves us for some testing and tribulation, stopping by every now and again to make sure our faith is bolstered, that we remain strong.
But oh, how glorious are those time in His embrace!
And His Spirit He gave to us to give us His Strength, His Power. No, not to get out of the test, but to deal with it. There’s a line in one of the Lord of the Rings books, in which Frodo is in a very dark and gloomy forest. He says something in about it certainly not being a sunny walk in May. He’s scared. He feels lost. Then he looks ahead and sees the sun, shining onto the end of the path. It’s like that with our lives, I think: we aren’t just walking a nice path along the river’s edge. We are running a track meet, an obstacle course, jumping hurdles. There is a promise to a feast for the winner. And we are all winners in Messiah, if we have given ourselves to Him, if we’ve accepted His way of salvation. All will eventually acknowledge Y’shuaJesus. All will eventually knell before King Y’shuaJesus and declare that indeed He is Lord. Will we do it now, while it is still Day, before the Night comes to take some away?
Thank you Lord Y’shuaJesus!
Lord Bless, Keep, Shine. . .
Jonah’s Song 