Picking Up Speed
Picking Up Speed
"His chariots of wrath the deep thunder-clouds form, and dark is His path on the wings of the storm." (Hymn 9, PCNZ)
"Look eagerly for the coming of the day of God and work to hasten it on." (2 Pe 3.12 NEB)
During this year of 2013 I expect to see:
(1) A dramatic and alarming acceleration of the decay, decline and disintegration of the nations. This is going to take place because and as, increasingly,
"The kings of the earth take their stand...against the Lord and against His Anointed", whom the Lord has already "installed (as) My King upon Zion, My holy mountain"! (Ps 2.2&6)
For just as surely as the Lamb of God "was slain from the creation of the world" (Rev 13.8), so The King is already "set" upon His Throne on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Israel! And therefore, just as surely, those kings and nations who "set themselves" against Him must experience the fulfillment of the prophecy of "The Stone which the builders rejected",
"He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust." (Mt 21.44)
This hastening of events is also in itself the beginning of the fulfillment of another of the Saviour's End Time' prophecies,
"Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short." (Mt 24.22)
Once again, this truth brings us into collision with contemporary (Western) Christian arrogance and naivety, which expects (demands?) to pass through history's ultimate crisis with heads resting dreamily upon the pillow of the religious and ecclesiastical status quo. (Doing the same thing over and over again, whilst expecting a different result or consequence every time, is surely one definition of madness and futility?)
The enthronement of The King of Heaven and earth in Jerusalem will be a complete over-turning of the whole natural, social and political order. It is not going to be a bit of a repair or patch-up job, but absolute revolution...the utter overthrow and destruction of all that has ever gone wrong with this world since the Fall, and the total restoration of God, His Word, works and ways.
"And the Lord will be king over all the earth; in that day the Lord will be the only one, and his name the only one." (Zec 14.9, 2 Pe 3.10-11)
Do not at this time be Born-again and yet unwise, trying to spin a cocoon of denial and phony optimism. Rather, let us see in the storms and earthquakes (both natural and supernatural) which must precede the return of The King, strong evidence that our greatest hope is on the very eve of its fulfillment.
"There will be...men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory." (Lk 21.25-28)
But this "speeding up" of history will by no means be restricted to the negative and destructive. God's outworking of His grand End Times' plan is also going to dramatically accelerate. This time next year, many Believers will report with joy, "It's astounding how much has happened and how much has changed in such a short space of time!"
"The days are coming...when the reaper will be overtaken by the ploughman (ploughman shall tread on the heels of reaper) and the planter by the one treading grapes." (Am 9.13)
This hastening of events is foreseen by the prophet Amos, occurring during Messianic times...i.e. the restoration and occupation of David's throne (v11).
Likewise The King Himself warns that at such moments in history we should never complacently or smugly announce, "Four months more and then the harvest"! In the dramatic count-down to The King's return and enthronement, God's "clock" will tick more rapidly then man's timepieces. (Mt 24.22)
There will be fewer days, but no fewer eschatological events. By cutting time short, He is by no means truncating His predestined, 11th hour deeds of mercy and justice. Being caught-up and swept along in such a quickening tide of salvation-judgement history, ought not to strike Believers as being strange or foreign. Of all the world's peoples, we are those called by God to,
"Live in constant expectation of the coming of the day of God, and...do everything possible to hasten (lit. 'speed up') its coming." (2 Pe 3.12)
(2) An intensification of the chastenings of God upon His beloved Israel.
The necessary restoration of the Jewish State to The Land in 1948 has become for many a "false" end in itself...rather than the vital stepping-stone. Even many sincere, Christian Zionists are blind to God's ultimate goal for His beloved Jewish People...their "marriage" to Messiah, who is our Saviour and Redeemer.
It must never be forgotten (for the sake of theological sanity) that "without repentance, faith in Christ, and holiness of heart, no individual Jew or Gentile shall ever be saved". ("Israel's Present & Future" by David Baron, 1890) (1)
Prior to the Holocaust and the creation of the present-day State of Israel, this Messianic father taught that Jeremiah 30.4-7 and Ezekiel 22.17-22 forecast "a yet future baptism of fire" which succeeds their "gathering into the midst of Jerusalem".
"The ordeal announced here," David Baron predicted, "through which Israel is to pass is terribly sharp, but brief in its duration...and it ends in their salvation.
"It is clear that there is a time of purging by fiery judgement awaiting Israel after their return to their land, which will immediately precede their national conversion and the revelation to them of their Messiah, whom, as a nation, they have so long rejected."
"In that day (a time of trouble for Jacob)...I will tear off their bonds...they will serve the Lord their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them." (Jer 30.8-9)
As with the increasing upheaval (and overthrow) of the nations, so the intensification of Israel's trials and tribulations. Neither is evidence of a plan going awry or off course. Rather both are serious and accurate indicators that The King is "right at the door". (Mt 24.33)
They both ought also to act as fierce goads which sting the Church into renewed alertness and action concerning our absolutely unique responsibility...to be "a holy and royal priesthood"! (1 Pe 2.5&9)
This does not mean that Christians are of themselves "royal" (although you could be forgiven for thinking that, the way some prance and strut about God's meeting houses!) We are "a royal priesthood" insofar as we devoutly and authentically serve The King...especially immediately prior to His return and enthronement.
Our most significant responsibilities are to:
(a) Not panic.
"Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful (fiery) trial you are suffering, as though something strange (foreign) were happening to you." (1 Pe 4.12)
"My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves and punishes (chastens) everyone he accepts as a son." (Heb 12.5-6)
The whole point of prophecy is to help us prepare today, for what God is going to do tomorrow. As beloved Israel appears more and more to be getting the rough-end of world events and opinion, it will be of paramount importance that the Church neither panic (fearing our enemy is getting the upper-hand), nor fall-in with the increasingly vociferous and vicious anti-Semitic assaults from "all the nations of the earth"! (Zec 12.3)
(b) Pray "always" and "without ceasing". (Eph 6.18, 1 Th 5.17)
It is the Church, and the Church alone, who are called to be a corporate priest for God unto Israel, and for Israel before God. If not us, then who will go up,
"To the breaks in the wall to repair it for the house of Israel so that it will stand firm in the battle on the day of the Lord."
"And stand before Me in the gap on behalf of the land so that I would not have to destroy it." (Eze 13.5, 22.30)
Israel's existence and The King's return are contiguous. Most importantly, His return is contingent upon Israel still being in existence (in spite of satan's last ditch, maniac determination to annihilate them!) in Jerusalem, from whence they utter the decisive cry for Him to come back. (Mt 23.39)
It is impossible to find the words to describe the absolute cruciality, utter viciousness and ultimate grace of this final great conflict between Israel and the serpent. (Ge 3.15) Thus it is beyond stretching to attempt to describe in adequate and practical terms, the Last Church's spiritual, intellectual and physical design and dimensions. I believe that God Himself best portrays them when He says,
"My house of prayer." (Isa 56.7)
"My house shall be called the house of prayer." (Mt 21.13)
"My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer." (Lk 19.46)
The serpent will not merely wage his war of absolute attrition against the Lord's Anointed, on Sundays. He will fight against The King returning to the holy hill of Zion, "tooth and nail" every second of every day and every night between today and The Day. Therefore, even the most casual or careless observer of today's Church must view with increasing alarm Western Christianity's relentless trend into a culture of "event", "performance" and "excitement"?
In blunt and holy contradiction of this, God is calling us into the divine (Heaven's) culture of organic, 24/7 fellowship, framed and clothed by prayer...and night-and-day prayer formed by the Holy spirit's unction and His "real life" community.
"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the followship (community), to the breaking of bread and to prayer...Every day they continued to meet together." (Ac 2.42-47)
"May...the fellowship (community) of the Holy Spirit be with you all." (2 Co 13.14)
During the Hitler Years, many Christians in Germany just went on worshipping in their church meetings and services as had ever been their custom. While they did so, trains loaded with God's beloved Israel rattled by outside on their evil ways to antichrist's death camps. It is a most terrible lie to say that "good" Germans did this because they did not know what was going on right under their noses. They did know...but were (in a sense) forced to look the other way, because they were not equipped to either see clearly enough through the serpent's deception or rise up together and oppose this tyranny of wickedness. In a word, they were an institution, an organisations, a club. They could not "resist the devil" (Jas 4.7) because they were not who they were called to be...God's house "called of all nations the house of prayer"!(2)
Tragically, in the 11th hour of these Last Days, there will be Believers still gathering for their mega-Sunday events...glamorous worship leaders all a-glitter, congregants panting and salivating for a "word" and a "touch" from the latest, greatest person of "faith and power"! Desperately ill-equipped for their destiny, they too will look away (seduced and subverted), as antichrist at The End attempts havoc against everything and everyone significant and vital to The King's return.
The bona fide, authentic, faithful "Tribulation Church" will prove to be like unto that agent of the Holy Spirit's resistance to the antichrist Hitler...Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Finkenwalde Community. Hidden, insignificant and provisional though it was, nevertheless it "appeared" an almost perfect reflection of our Older Brother and Redeemer,
"This servant of His (will) appear among us, unregarded brushwood shoot...no stateliness, no majesty, no beauty to win our hearts...Yet this is He that will purify a multitude of nations; kings shall stand dumb in His presence." (Isa 53.1-2, 52.15 Knox)
(3) Germany will increasingly become the strongest nation in Europe. This is no mere geo-political observation or event, but the fulfillment of a key eschatological waymark, "painted" vividly in The Revelation,
"One of the heads of the (sea = of the nations) beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was astonished and followed the beast. Men worshipped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshippped the beast..." (13.3-4)
It is difficult for many today to grasp how "miraculous" has been the re-unification of West and East Germany and its resurgence. At the end of WW2, Germany, "the centre of the old (European) power structure, had effectively ceased to exist...partitioned into zones occupied by the Russians, Americans, British and French"!(3)
Likewise, it is equally difficult for many today (for whom yesterday is ancient history, according to "f-book"?) to really appreciate the prophetic significance of British war-time PM Winston Churchill's contention that Hitler's success would mean "the whole world...including all that we have known and cared for will sink into the abyss of a new dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science."
Indeed, modern, militant Islam is the current, direst threat to the existence of the present State of Israel. However, Hitler's Empire incarnated a desire and a plan for the extermination of that whole People...brought into existence by and for and beloved of God.(4) At The End, that same demon power (which fuelled and fired Nazi anti-Semitism) will rise up again as if from the dead in and through an "empire" led by Germany. Its goal will be to complete what it began in Europe in the early 1930s. The means may differ; the goal is the same. God has appointed the Tribulation-Prayer House Church to fight these demonic fires, which will finally and forever be extinguished...but by The King Himself, as He returns,
"The lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendour of his coming." (2 Th 2.8-9)
This prediction concerning Germany's pivotal role in leading Europe and "all the nations of the earth" against Israel at The End, is not merely a prophetic marker...as important as that in fact is. It is also yet another divine incitement to immediately and wholeheartedly engage the 11th hour, revolutionary fusion of the Last Church's contemplative, missions and local church "streams"! (Read more of "Three Become One" in Prophetic Insights at www.revivalstreams.co.nz. Also the book at www.thetribulationchurch.co.nz)
As I have already said elsewhere and earlier, the Tribulation-House of Prayer Church is going to be brought into existence for the End Times. And is going to be established and built up on either our pre-determined good intentions, or out of the ashes of the redundant that we clung to for too long, in our Western complacency, indifference, pride and narcissism!
POSTSCRIPT: The purpose of this essay is neither to "dump on" nor "demonise" a particular nation or people. It is an attempt to shine some more prophetic light on a very difficult subject at a very dangerous time. Germany's (unfinished?) dealings with the spirit of antichrist must serve as a terrible and chilling warning to all nations and peoples. "That Germany (the embodiment of many of the most central features of civilization) should fall prey to (the) collective derangement (of Nazism) suggested that something had been wrong at the root of that civilization itself"? That is really a great question which the West and the Western Church ought to be examining today! (3)
(1) David Baron (1855-1928) was a religious Jew of Russian descent, who co-founded the "Hebrew Christian Testimony to Israel" in England.
(2) The noted German author, Jenny Erpenbeck, recently observed in an interview (with the "NZ Listener"), "The Jews are gone (from Germany), the prejudice (against them) stays"!
(3) The Pelican History of the World, JM Roberts, 1980.
(4) Hitler said, "The annihilation of the Jews will be my first and foremost task." Current Islamic anti-Semitism is the "random" rage and violence of a pogrom. Hitler's was "the cool, systematic, legal and regulated violence of the state expressed through law and police power". (A History of the Jews, Paul Johnson, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1987)
