I THOUGHT I SAW IT COMING - by Jack Kinsella

It is incredible, yet true. We are witnessing the unfolding of events long prophesied to take place during the last generation before the return of Christ. We knew that it was coming – we were almost eager to see this day because it means the Rapture is that much closer.

 

But as the day approaches, it becomes less an abstract notion and more a crushingly painful reality. It has made that transition from theoretical possibility to actual fact. 

 

We always knew, in theory that, one day Christians would be marginalized to the point of insignificance.

We always knew that one day, some new religion having two horns like a lamb but speaking as a dragon would overspread Planet Earth. For decades we’ve made a guessing game out of what it would look like and who would be its leader.

 

As we see the hard-and-fast answers crowding out our best guesses, the game isn’t as much fun as it used to be. In fact, it isn’t any fun at all, any more.

 

This IS what we’ve been expecting. It is what the Bible forecast for the last days. Jesus said the Tribulation Period would be a time so terrible that if He didn’t return to put a stop to it, there would be no flesh saved out of it. 

 

So it is entirely reasonable to expect that the period leading up to it would be, ah, unpleasant, to say the least. Jesus prophesied that the time will come when those who kill you will think they do God service.

He reminded us that the world MUST hate us because it hates Him - but that doesn’t make it any easier when it happens. 

 

There are two competing sets of values here and it is out of that conflict that all the angst arises. If we are where I believe that we are on Bible prophecy’s timeline, then America’s (and the West’s) days are numbered.

If we are where I believe we are, then the decline we are experiencing is both inevitable and unstoppable. This is only part of the Big Picture – there are other, bigger and scarier parts yet to come.

 

Why are they scarier today than they were, say, ten years ago? It isn’t as if Bible prophecy changed in the last ten years. What we are experiencing is the realization of our expectations. 

 

Did anybody really think that witnessing the unfolding of last days’ prophecy would be fun?

If you did, now you know.

 

You also know why you were but one of only a tiny handful of ‘prophecy nuts’ in your church. I say ‘were’ because as we move forward on the Bible timeline, prophecy doesn’t seem so nuts anymore.

 

In the grand scheme of things, very few Christians in these last days have been called as watchmen. Even fewer have responded to the calling. It’s not for everybody -- for some it is too much. That is why we are necessary – to give the warning.

 

God has set each of us in the place He wants us to be for this time and place in human history. That doesn’t mean it is a pleasant place – we had our pleasant time. But God in His wisdom, and for reasons known only to Him, has called us – you and me and others like us – as witnesses.

 

He promises a special crown for us at the Bema Seat. There are only FIVE crowns and this is one of them. So what made you think that earning it would be easy? It is supposed to be hard. 

 

Out of all the living Christians on this planet, God called YOU to bear witness for all those too afraid to look.

 

Yes, it is frustrating. Yes, it is infuriating. Yes, it is frightening. And YES – it is unfair. Why can’t YOU be one of those Christians just strolling through life, tra-la-la-la-la, in blissful ignorance?

 

I dunno. Because you can’t. God called you and you answered the phone. Sorry. This is a bell that you can’t unring. Read through your assignment again -- note in particular the parts in italics.

 

“I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.” (2nd Timothy 4:1-5)

 

Somebody has to watch in all things, do the work of an evangelist and make full proof of the ministry to which God called them. That’s the charge. You accepted it -- or you wouldn’t be reading these words now.

Now the evil days are upon us and somehow, we are surprised to find we don’t like it. I am not saying that sarcastically – I am as surprised as anybody at how surprised I am, if you can follow my drift.

I thought I was made of sterner stuff than that.

 

So, what are we to do as Christians? Our job. Be witnesses. Watch and observe and give the warning. You know, the Bible says that Noah preached for one hundred and twenty years and never made a single convert. 

 

But when the rains came down, Noah still got to ride out the storm in the ark.

 

It is easy to become discouraged, frustrated and even angry. It’s natural. But it is part of a plan that the God of the Universe has not only let you in on, He has included you as a necessary part.

 

“Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.” (Jude 1:24-25)

 

He can keep you from falling. He will present you faultless before the Throne with exceeding joy. He knows what He is doing, and He has let you in on some of the details. 

 

Here's what we know -- and we know it for sure. There is lots to be scared of. But nothing to be worried about. Because He is able. And He loves you more than you know.

Maranatha!

 

 

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AfricânerAlbanêsAlemãoAmáricoArabeArmênioAzerbaijanoBascoBengaliBielo-russoBirmanêsBósnioBúlgaroCanarêsCatalãoCazaqueCebuanoChicheuaChinês simpChinês tradChonaCingalêsCoreanoCorsoCrioulo haitianoCroataCurdoDinamarquêsEslovacoEslovenoEspanholEsperantoEstonianoFilipinoFinlandêsFrancêsFrísioGaélico escocêsGalegoGalêsGeorgianoGregoGuzerateHauçaHavaianoHebraicoHindiHmongHolandêsHúngaroIgboIídicheIndonésioInglêsIorubaIrlandêsIslandêsItalianoJaponêsJavanêsKhmerLaosianoLatimLetãoLituanoLuxemburguêsMacedônicoMalaialaMalaioMalgaxeMaltêsMaoriMarataMongolNepalêsNorueguêsPachtoPersaPolonêsPortuguêsPunjabiQuirguizRomenoRussoSamoanoSérvioSessotoSindiSomaliSuaíleSuecoSundanêsTadjiqueTailandêsTâmilTchecoTelugoTurcoUcranianoUrduUzbequeVietnamitaXhosaZulu

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Resurrection, Rapture, Reassurance :: By Terry James

Published on: April 19, 2019 by RRadmin7 Category:General Articles, Terry James

Reposted by the LightSeed blog author.

 

To preface this article is all-important. This is because I’m fully aware that many who read it will be skeptical of the validity of things herein represented.

I, myself, have been among the most skeptical when entertaining such reports as I am revisiting in thinking on the eighth anniversary of this profoundly strange event – an event that is constantly in the forefront of my mind.

The matter I am about to address is intensely personal, and I have striven over many years to keep the personal pronoun – “I” – out of my commentaries as much as possible. It is an especially difficult struggle to keep from insinuating one’s-self as a commercially published writer, because the writing process itself is such an intensively personal endeavor. But, in the case of the eighth anniversary of my visit to somewhere on the periphery of Heaven, it isn’t possible to avoid use of the “I” word.

So, off-putting as it might be, let me proceed with the most prayerful hope that the reader will consider things expressed here in the first person as not self-aggrandizing, rather as intended to give Glory and Honor to the only Person deserving of such adulation – that is, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Dreams, visions and delusions
While not a secessionist in the purest sense, I have always viewed dreams and visions that are extra-Biblical (not in Scripture itself) with a very critical eye. That is, I have been most often prone to think of those reports as ingesting too much pizza before dropping off to sleep, overactive imagination, or deliberately manufactured stories to get attention for one reason or another. In the case of near-death experiences, I have most often thought of these as brain glitches caused by the dying process, not as true spiritual encounters.

So, it is with realization as I address this personal anniversary that you, the reader, might think of this in a way mentioned just above. Having been Prompted, I believe, by the Holy Spirit to write this, however, I do so without hesitation or apprehension that my motive will be construed as in any way impure.

Resurrection Day drama!
The approach of Easter this year is at the heart of the Prompt for revisiting my Heavenly visitation’s eighth anniversary. In addition to Easter as central to my writing are the consistent emails and other messages we receive that rail against the PreTribulation Rapture view we hold.

Recently, those rants have been mostly of the pre-wrath view. This is the belief that the Rapture will occur basically at the halfway mark of Daniel’s seventieth week. That is, God’s wrath will begin three and one-half years into that seven-year period that we term Tribulation. We, of course, believe and teach that the Rapture of the Church (all born-again believers of the Church Age) will take place before the seven-year Tribulation period begins. This is because God’s Wrath and Judgment begins when the Antichrist (prince that shall come) confirms the covenant of Daniel 9:26-27. This action sets in motion the entirety of Daniel’s seventieth week which then runs to the end of the seven-year Tribulation era that concludes at Armageddon.

Read more  at raptureready.com

The Wise Shall Understand By Pete Garcia

 

By Pete Garcia

April 12, 2019 Originally written 12 June, 2013 (updated 2019)

 

But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end;many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase. Daniel 12:4

Imagine if you will that one-day scientists abandon the flawed and completely illogical theory of Darwinian Evolution.  Imagine all that science could accomplish without having that biased monkey hanging on their neck like a dead albatross?

For many of these men and women, it would revolutionize the way they analyze a problem.  Rapid advances in our civilization came because men like Isaac Newton, Nicolai Tesla, and Albert Einstein did not follow the status quo. 
Like the harnessing of electricity, or the invention of the printing press…mankind’s great leaps forward in time propelled understanding to a new level.  A new paradigm opens up and thus spins off subsequent discoveries like an endless Fibonacci Spiral.  What has largely kept men at bay was our own preconceived notions about what was logical, feasible, and possible.  Because of that reason, knowledge was often bottlenecked at various points throughout the course of human history.

A great discovery is made, and there is an explosion of new ideas that spiral out from that one and continue until it reaches a point when further progress becomes frustrated or stifled.  And whether that roadblock comes in the form of a government, a church, or just our preconceived notions about how to do something.  It would seem that man’s capacity for increased knowledge comes in brilliant, brief flashes…followed by long periods of darkness.

A great example of this is in our understanding of the prophetic scriptures, or in how we have come to know what we know.

Most of the Early Church Fathers (ECF) believed in a literal return of Christ and a literal kingdom that He would establish one day in the end times.  (Daniel 2:44-45, Isaiah 65:17-25, Revelation 20).  I imagine we would have had considerable more information about what their thoughts on the prophetic texts were, but the ECF soon became valiantly engaged in battling the Gnostics, Judaizers, pagans, and skeptics for the better part of 250 years against them making inroads into the Church.  They fought just to keep the basic tenets of Christianity intact.  They were able to do all that, and still face ten periods of intense persecution by a pagan Roman Empire. (Smyrna)

The Sealing
However, beginning in the year 313, Constantine legalized Christianity with the Edict of Milan.  Christianity went from being persecuted and fringe, to being accepted and legal.  Over the course of the rest of that century, instead of Christianity going out into the world, the world would come into Christianity.  (Pergamum)

As Christianity became more acceptable to the establishment (Roman Empire), political correctness got its toe in the door of the church. I imagine it was not very popular to be preaching that Christ would soon return and destroy all the kings and kingdoms of the world, while under the watchful eye of an Emperor.  Allegorizing scriptures provided a way for priests and bishops to remain politically correct and still keep their jobs.  This had begun in earnest by an early “Christian” mystic named Origen in the 3rd Century.  

A century later, a Christian priest named Jerome was commissioned to translate the Bible into Latin, finishing around the year 405 A.D.  Around that same time, a Christian theologian named Augustine of Hippo (who had been influenced by Origen), had begun applying that same method of allegorizing the scriptures to all of his interpretations of the Bible. This type of hermeneutics would create a new strain in Eschatology called ‘Amillennialism’.

Like Darwinian Evolution, Amillennialism (a= negative) clung around the neck of that Middle-Ages church like dead weight. For centuries, Amillennialism stifled the prophetic understanding of the Scriptures by dissuading the literal interpretation of the prophetic texts. It denied that Christ would literally return to earth, but that the Kingdom was spiritual and ever-present.  Since Augustine was in large part, the ‘doctrinal-father’ for the Roman Catholic Church (RCC), ‘Amillennialism’ became THE eschatology for most of Christendom.  Moreover, as the RCC gained power and authority, they retained their clerical power by making the Latin Vulgate the only legal and acceptable translation of the Bible.  The only people still able to read and speak Latin were the clergy within the RCC, which ensured that they would have a monopoly on anything that was called “Christian” for the better part of 1,000 years. (Thyatira)

Removing the Veil
However, the times they were a changing.  A scholar named John Wycliffe in the 1380’s had handwritten a new translation in English. He quickly came under the ire of the Roman Catholic Church. After his death, his works were burned and he was declared a heretic. Another man followed Wycliffe not long after named John Hus who also began handwriting Bibles in English. He did not fair so well as he was arrested and burned at the stake in Germany. 

The first printing press was invented around 1450 (Guttenberg) and the first book to ever be printed was the Guttenberg Bible in 1455 (in Latin). (The first English Bible ever printed was the Tyndale Bible [1526]) Now that the Bible was becoming more accessible, and eventually available in something other than Latin, there was an explosion of interest into Christianity. For the first time in over a millennia, people could finally read the Bible in their own language.  They did not have to rely on a priest to tell them what a Bible said.

The early 1500s brought about a long overdue desire for change within Roman Catholicism. The Reformation began as a protest-movement led by a Catholic monk named Martin Luther who was sick of how corrupted the system had become. With the selling of indulgences for the absolution of sins, the “good-works” salvation system, and the abuses by RCC clergy, Luther had finally had enough. On October 31^st, 1517, he nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle church in Wittenberg, Germany. The rest as they say is history. Protestant groups began popping up all over Europe as the word was put into the vernacular of the common-man. Although the “protesters” may have corrected many of the doctrinal abuses on orthodox Christianity by the RCC, their major failing was that they kept the Catholic Eschatological view point of Amillennialism. (Sardis)

The First Great Awakening occurred toward the end of the 1700’s, and Protestant Missionaries were being sent out around the world to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. An evangelistic movement broke out in Ireland in the early-1800s called the ‘Plymouth Brethren’.  They came together and began to study their Bibles in a literal manner shaking off the confines of dead denominationalism altogether.

Just as Martin Luther rediscovered the soteriological doctrine of salvation by grace through faith, so too did these Plymouth Brethren rediscover some long, lost truths. The result of returning to a literal understanding of the entire Bible, led them to the conclusion that the Bible is a) dispensational, b) Pre-Millennial, and c) that they were somewhere near the end times.  Therefore, it wasn’t that John N. Darby and company created Pre-Millennial Eschatology out of thin air, but really, only rediscovered what had been hidden in plain sight for almost 2,000 years. (Philadelphia)

“About the Time of the End, a body of men will be raised up who will turn their attention to the Prophecies, and insist upon their literal interpretation, in the midst of much clamor and opposition” Sir Isaac Newton

Precept upon Precept
Sir Isaac Newton wrote more about biblical prophecy than he did on any other topic.  He was particularly fascinated by the books of Daniel and Revelation.  Nevertheless, even with all his mental genius and boundless energy to write and study the prophetic word, he remained largely “ignorant” of prophetic events that even the average Bible prophecy student today takes for granted.

Back when I was at the Omega Letter where I had written for a number of years, many of us had looked (and still do) up to Jack Kinsella as not only a pastor, but also a mentor.  He provided a straightforward and simple understanding of not only Bible Prophecy, but of what it means to be a Christian living in these last days. Jack’s mentor was Hal Lindsey. Hal’s mentors were most likely men like Lewis Sperry Chaffer, Cyrus Scofield, and Clarence Larkin.  Larkin and Scofield picked up on what the Plymouth Brethren had been doing decades earlier, which was simply returning to a literal understanding of the Bible. Thanks to those men, we know that we are in that last church age that precedes the coming of our Lord.  (Laodicea)

Each group or generation of men learned from the previous, and that knowledge was passed on, built upon, and measured against the current events of that day.  So we here today, are the recipients of over a 150 years of accumulated learning and study. This learning has been greatly accelerated by the use of the Internet, study bibles, commentaries and teachings.  What had been hidden to many in Christianity only a century ago, has come to light with the return of national Israel to their ancestral homeland.  But even as early as 1919, Cyrus Scofield noted in his Scofield Study Bible, that Israel HAD to become a nation again because a literal reading of Ezekiel 36-37 demanded it.  I imagine he caught a lot of grief for including that in his Bible back then…that was…until 1948.

However, we only know what we know today, because we have stood on the shoulders of giants.  Not only do we benefit from their diligent study and willingness to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit, but also we have accumulated more history then them. We have had the privilege to see Israel become a nation again.  We have seen the formation of revived Roman Empire via the Europe Union, coming together into a single political and economic body.  We have seen the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reemergence of Russia.  We are now seeing Red China rising and the US declining.  We are seeing the push for a New World Order that will one day lead to a one-world currency, religion, and political body.  We are seeing the signs of increasing natural disasters in both frequency and intensity.  We are seeing technology moving at a frightening pace that allows men to play god and computers to become like men. Communications have become global with an instantaneous reach.  Artificial intelligence is leaving the realms of science fiction and becoming reality. There is in increased fascination with the supernatural, occultic, and unexplainable. 

Closing Thoughts

Although I heard, I did not understand. Then I said, “My lord, what shall be the end of these things?” And he said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, made white, and refined, but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand. Daniel 12:8-10

Once again we are reaching that point in time where the prophetic text has been studied, preached, taught, and dissected so many ways…by so many great teachers, that it seems impossible that we could still pull any new information out of what we already know.  Any study, about any verse of the Bible is available many times over in either written, audio, or video formats.  I do not know what else can be brought out of the most intensely studied book in the history of the world. 

These are indeed exciting times, but the watchmen can grow very weary in seeing how rapidly the world is sinking into spiritual and moral depravity.  It weighs heavy on our hearts.  We are instructed to be ready, to watch, and to lift our heads up when these things begin to happen. 

Nevertheless, there is one other thing I do know, and that is we will have the privilege of seeing what the prophets, apostles, early church fathers, and those godly men of old, longed to see.  If we are patient, and watching, we will be that generation in the not too distant future who hears the shout, the voice of the Archangel, and the Trump of God calling us home.

“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. John 14:1-3

Even so, Come Lord Jesus!

CHARLES LAWSON END TIME DECEPTION CERN DEMONIC PORTAL END TIME SERMONS

Via servehiminthewaiting.com 

The Palestinian-Israeli Prophecies of the Bible

Reblogged from www.prophecydepotministries.net  

on Wednesday, April 29, 2015 by Bill Salus  
This article introduces two important Prophecies regarding the twin brothers of the Bible, Jacob and Esau. Jacob was renamed Israel in Genesis 32:28 and he fathered Israeli descendants. Esau, Jacob’s older twin brother, fathered the Edomites according to Genesis 36:1,9. Invaluable insights into the roots of the present Palestinian – Israeli conflict can be gleaned from understanding these twin prophecies.

Presently the international community desperately seeks to join the Israelis and Palestinians at the hip in a peaceful “Two State Solution”: a Jewish State, and a Palestinian State. Did you know that there once was a time when the ancestors of these two people groups, the Israelis and the Edomites, successfully operated in a “Two State Solution” of sorts? However there were two prophecies written in ancient times that foretold of both Israel’s and Edom’s national decline, and at the time of the fulfillment of these two prophecies, their operational “Two State Solution” disintegrated.

Hosea issued the first of the two prophecies, and Jeremiah along with Obadiah issued the second. Hosea declared that the Israelites would be declassified from “My people Israel”, to “not My people”, and Jeremiah, and Obadiah predicted that the Edomites would become “small among the nations”.

Hosea’s prophecy regarding Israel

Now when she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. Then God said: “Call his name Lo-Ammi, For you are not My people, And I will not be your God. (Hosea 1:8-9; NKJV)

Jeremiah’s and Obadiah’s prophecies regarding Edom

I have heard tidings from the LORD, and a messenger has been sent among the nations: “Gather yourselves together and come against her, and rise up for battle!” For behold, I will make you (Edom) small among the nations, despised among men. (Jeremiah 49:14-15; RSV)

The vision of Obadiah. Thus says the Lord GOD concerning Edom: We have heard tidings from the LORD, and a messenger has been sent among the nations: “Rise up! let us rise against her for battle!” Behold, I will make you small among the nations, you shall be utterly despised. (Obadiah 1:1-2; RSV)

In a twist of fate, twin brothers Jacob and Esau would have their descendants share in a similar divine disciplinary action. The two historically infamous peoples, the Jews and the Edomites, would experience their national decline in the same place and at the same time. Both ethnic groups were conquered by the Roman Empire on or around 70 A.D. in what turns out to be the final fulfillment of these two important Bible prophecies.

Back then these two populations co-existed semi-peacefully in a “Two State Solution” of their own. The Jews inhabited Judea, and Samaria, which comprised the Northern and Southern kingdoms of Israel, and the Edomites occupied “Idumea”, and were known as the Idumeans, which was the Greek word for Edomites. Idumea / Edom encompassed land in Southern Israel, Northeastern Sinai, and Southwestern Jordan. The Jewish capitol was Jerusalem, and the central Idumean city was Hebron approximately 19 miles to the south. At the time the Idumeans and Jews both practiced Judaism, evidencing a common bond between them.
 
When the Romans conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the second Jewish temple in 70 A.D., they also fought against the Idumeans. According to the historian Josephus, many Idumeans were either killed, or sold into slavery, and ultimately about 40,000 remaining Idumeans were freed by Caeser to go wherever they desired enabling them to keep their ethnicity in tact. ⁽¹⁾ Indeed by 70 A.D. Edom / Idumea had undeniably been made “small among the nations”.

The attached map represents the layout of the region around 135 A.D. at the time of the Bar Kokhba Jewish revolt. This map depicts Idumea still in existence as a recognized territory. As such one might safely presume that Idumeans still resided in the subject land on or around 135 A.D. ⁽²⁾ This suggests that at least some of these 40,000 freed Idumeans continued to reside, and repopulate in the territory of Idumea.

To further understand the declassification of the Israelites to “not My people” it is important to read the “My people Israel” chapter in my book Isralestine; The Ancient Blueprints of the Future Middle East. (This book has an upgraded version called Psalm 83: The Missing Prophecy Revealed, How Israel Becomes the Next Mideast Superpower). For now it is important to recognize that the declassification of the Jews into “not My people” began at the rejection by the Jewish leadership of Jesus Christ, and found its final fulfillment in the destruction of Jerusalem and the second Jewish temple in 70 A.D. at the defeat by the Romans. Lastly the assumption of the title “not My people” was not prophesied to be a permanent condition, and ultimately the Jews would be reclassified as “My people Israel”, and furthermore “sons of the living God”. ⁽³⁾

Although Edom was made small among the nations in 70 A.D, Edom continued on a gradual decline. Shortly thereafter, Edom seemingly disintegrated as an ethnic group off the pages of further history. If it were not for the end times prophecies contained in Psalm 83, Ezekiel 25:14 and elsewhere regarding the restored Edomite element, there would be no further cause to remember them. They would be for all intents and purposes extinguished, however the Bible suggests they have merely been “made small among the nations”, and will resurface in that reduced national condition in a final confederate effort, described in Psalm 83, aimed at the destruction of the nation Israel.

Herein lies the problem; the Middle East conflict is the derivative of these two former nations attempting to reclaim the land of Israel-Palaestinia. This may seem an over-simplification of the matter; however it is at the root of the conflict. Both formerly notorious nations who experienced their decline at the same-time and in the same-place, are attempting to pick up where they left off in 70 A.D. They are seeking to reestablish themselves now, centuries later, at the same-time and in the same-place.

When Israel became a nation again in 1948, the Palestinians for all intents and purposes became a people. They became the refugees of Palestine as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The surrounding Arab nations protested the reestablishment of the nation Israel and confederated in a war effort against the returning Jewish people. They instructed the Arabs residing within Israel at the time, to vacate temporarily until the Jewish nation was destroyed, at which time these departing Arabs could return into the land.

Amongst the Arabs who left Israel at the time were some of those who had descended from Esau, i.e. the Edomites. History reports that the Jewish people were victorious, and these Edomites became numbered among the refugees of Palestine. Hence at the time they became refugees residing in tents. The Edomites were for all intents and purposes at the time the “tents of Palestine”, or as they are called today, the Palestinian people.
Baqaa refugee camp of Palestinian Refugees (Photo: 1949 UNRWA)
The present plight of the Palestinians is, in large part, the result of the failed Arab war against Israel and therefore primarily the responsibility of the surrounding Arab nations. These Arab nations have done little to absorb and assimilate them into their lands, but have done much to use them as pawns against the developing nation of Israel. Hence we see Israel aspiring to become “My people Israel” again, which is prophesied to successfully occur, and Edom wanting to become greater than the tents of Palestine, which will likely never occur!

Edom will never be great among the nations, as they were permanently “made small among the nations” and that is the best condition they will ever experience. In fact, because of their present attempt to curse the developing nation of Israel, the Edomites will be extinguished as a people according to Obadiah 1:18. In other words the Palestinians of today will likely never nationally ascend much beyond a refugee condition. Listen to what the Psalmist labeled them as in the coming Arab war against the Jews, which is still to find its final fulfillment.

PSALM 83

1 – Do not keep silent, O God! Do not hold Your peace, And do not be still, O God!
2 – For behold, Your enemies make a tumult; And those who hate You have lifted up their head.
3 – They have taken crafty counsel against Your people, And consulted together against Your sheltered ones.
4 – They have said, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, That the name of Israel may be remembered no more.”
5 – For they have consulted together with one consent; They form a confederacy against You:
6 – The tents of Edom (Palestinian Refugees) and the Ishmaelites; Moab and the Hagrites;
7 – Gebal, Ammon, and Amalek; Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre;
8 – Assyria also has joined with them; They have helped the children of Lot.
____________________________
End Notes

(1) The Works of Josephus: Book of the Wars 6 Chapter 8
(2) The Bar Kokhba Revolt map in this chapter http://www.studylight.org/se/maps/browse.cgi?st=170
(3) Hosea 1:9-10, and regarding “My people Israel” Ezekiel 25:14, 36:12, 38:14,16, 39:7
(4) Jeremiah 49:15, Obadiah 1:2

The Scope of the Apostasy… The Delusion pt 1

Reblogged from Pastor Bill Randles blog via servehiminthewaiting.com

Posted on April 12, 2015 by billrandles

Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,  That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;( 2 Thess 2:1-3)

When I read that the President of the United States, Barak Hussein Obama ordered the installation of a gender neutral restroom in the White House, like others I was disgusted and even demoralized. The White House has long been a symbol to many, for it has long represented many Judeo Christian ideals such as servant leadership, human freedom, compassionate use of force, and Government under law and order.

The installation of a gender neutral bathroom is only the latest in a long line of ‘desecrations’ to the White House and various other U.S. institutions held in esteem by freedom lovers everywhere. The Obamas and the Clintons before them seemed to go out of their way to diminish our national symbols.In the case of the Clintons, the installation of  an obscene Christmas tree in the White House, or their renting out the Lincoln bedroom to the highest donors.

The Obamas have used the White House as a backdrop for the honored reception of deserters from the military, sexual deviants, hostile Muslims, the praising of vicious dictators, and the snubbing of treasured allies to the US such as Benjamin Netanyahu. The ‘gender neutral’ bathroom is only the latest insult to the standards and propriety of millions of Americans.

What is going on here? How are we to understand our times? What does the Word of God have to say about it?
What we are witnessing is a genuine moral and spiritual revolution. Fortunately the Word of God has much to say about it. Obama, the Clintons and their ilk are partisans in the revolution, as are most of the world’s “intelligentsia”.

The Scripture I cited above refers to it as the apostasy. The day of Christ is not at hand until the apostasy occurs… . The second Psalm also refers to it, when he predicts a ‘liberation movement’ led by ‘the Kings of the earth and their rulers’.
Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?  The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying,  Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.(Psalm 2:1-3)

The Kings of the earth and their rulers, is an expression that refers to far more than the political leadership of the earth. Rather it refers to the broader ‘ruling elite’ in the culture, the intellectuals, the governors, the leaders in organized religion, the entertainment and opinion shapers, the media, and sciences, the arts and leaders in medicine, finance and education.
We are told that they come to this ‘counsel together’, this unanimous consensus  which is anti-God and anti-Christ.  Where do they take this counsel? They have been imbibing to for about the last sixty to a hundred years in the places of higher learning. The counsel is against “the Lord and his Christ”, in other words it is hostile to the Judeo Christian revelation.

We all now know the common experience of hard-working parents who send their child to higher education in hopes of a better life, only to be disappointed. The first semester he returns home hostile to the capitalistic system, by the second, he is pro gay. At the end of the third he is virulently against Israel, and by the fourth he doesn’t believe in God anymore!
What happened? The second Psalm tells us what happened. The counsel is “against the Lord and His Christ”. 

Then the Kings of the earth launch a liberation movement against the so called “Cords” and “Bonds” of the God of the Bible and His Christ. The moral and spiritual restrictions of the Christian religion have to be stripped away, such as the Christian definition of Marriage, man, woman, and sexuality. The Christian concept of absolute Truth also has to go, and all laws and customs which sprang out of it.

The Clintons, the Obamas and all of our culture desecrators are partisans in this war on reality. They have to trash the constitution and the White House because they are tearing down the old order in the service of the Revolution, i.e. the apostasy.

Too often the apostasy warned of is interpreted as a Christian apostasy, a departure from Doctrine and practice unique to the Christian church. But a study of Christian history will tell us that all along the way , the Christian history has had to contend with false doctrine, heretical teachers, and phony spiritualities. There has always been as much, if not more apostasy in the church as there has been a true church.

This apostasy is something different. It is a World wide departure from revealed truth. There is a sense in which the Christian religion imparted to the world many benefits, which applied whether one is individually converted or not.

The Judeo Christian revelation has given us all the superior Western civilization,with its emphasis on the value of the individual, political freedom, rule by law, stable two parents families, the value of hard work, the protection of children, the sanctity of all human life, civil rights, humility,the role of the male and female, the meaning of family, man-made in the Image of God etc..

The most basic and universal truths about humanity are found in the first eleven chapters in Genesis. The creation and role of male and female, the family, children, Government, culture, in short everything that God wanted us to know as foundational to human life.
What is happening , is the point by point repudiation of these once solid pillars. Who says you have to be a man? Who says marriage has to be between a man and a woman? Why should you want to have children? Brick by brick and pillar by pillar the old order is being assaulted and torn down by the Kings of the earth, their rulers and their willing but naive following.

Obama’s gender neutral restroom is an affirmation of the “Vain Imagination” , that we humans, can redefine ourselves, and find meaning and beauty in this world without God and on our own terms.It isn’t really progressive, in fact it is a regression to the pre- Christian past. As we will see, this doesn’t end well, except for the true believers.

With prophetic implications, the Kurds, known as the Medes in the Bible, seize oil-rich region of Iraq. What does it mean?

Reblogged from:Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog

In Uncategorized on June 17, 2014 at 12:39 pm
 
(Washington, D.C.) — Could recent developments in Iraq have prophetic implications? Actually, the answer may be yes — especially with regards to the Kurdish people who live in northern Iraq. Let me explain.

As we’ve been seeing in recent weeks, the Radical jihadist forces of the “Islamic State of Iraq & al-Sham” (ISIS) are on the move towards Baghdad. They are leaving a trail of bloodshed and carnage in their wake.
The objective of the ISIS leaders is to topple the Iraqi government, seize control of all of Iraq, establish a jihadist state under Sharia law, and use Iraq to begin a regional — and eventually global — Islamic caliphate, or kingdom.

Now, the Kurdish leaders have taken advantage of the chaos of this moment to seize control of the oil-rich region of Kirkuk for themselves. (see AP story below)
The oil fields of Kirkuk have been a long-standing issue of controversy in Iraq, especially since the liberation of the country in 2003. Whoever controls those fields would control enormous wealth as the oil there is more fully developed and shipped to markets around the globe.

The Kurds, generally, are Sunni Muslims, but they are not ethnically Arabs. Indeed, many Kurds have a deep hatred for the Arabs. Several decades ago, the world create a special, protected, autonomous region for the Kurds in the north region of Iraq, after Saddam Hussein repeated attacked and tried to destroy the Kurds, including with the use of chemical weapons.

Ultimately, many Kurds want to create an independent country of their own, uniting Kurds living in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. Yet each of those national governments strongly oppose the creation of an independent Kurdistan.
What’s fascinating is that the modern Kurdish people were known in ancient, Biblical times as the Medes. Here is where things get interesting.

Bible prophecy indicates that in the End Times, as we get closer to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, God will allow the Medes to gain power, even as the Lord allows the Arabs to gain power and rebuild the kingdom of Babylon in the heart of Iraq.
The Book of Revelation, for example, tells us that Babylon will be the epicenter of evil in the last days of history, and will eventually face the judgment of God. The Hebrew prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel tell us this, as well, indicating Babylon will be completely destroyed and when the judgment is complete, Babylon will be completely uninhabitable. Indeed, Isaiah 13:20 says of Babylon, “It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation; nor will the Arab pitch his tent there, nor will shepherds make their flocks lie down there.”

What’s more, Bible prophecy indicates that God will raise up the Medes — that is, the Kurdish people — to be an instrument of judgment against Babylon.

• Isaiah 13:17 — “Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them [the Babylonians]….”
• Jeremiah 51:11 — “The Lord has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because His purpose is against Babylon to destroy it; for it is the vengeance of the Lord….”
• Jeremiah 51:28-29 — “Consecrate the nations against her, the kings of the Medes, their governors and all their prefects, and every land of their dominion. So the land quakes and writhes, for the purposes of the Lord against Babylon stand, to make the land of Babylon a desolation without inhabitants….”

 How exactly will these eschatological prophecies come to pass? It’s too early to say for certain.
But after studying these prophecies, traveling four times to the Iraqi Kurdistan region, meeting with senior Kurdish leaders — including Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani — and tracking developments there over the past decade or so, I think it is fair to say we may be seeing some of the prophetic battle lines developing:

• The hatred of the Kurds/Medes against the Arabs, and vice versa, is steadily growing.
• The Kurds/Medes and the Arabs are in a continued struggle to control the oil resources that will make either or both of them enormously wealthy and powerful in the End Times.
• The Kurds/Medes are, step by step, forming into their nation, and possibly their own country.
• The Kurds/Medes are developing an increasingly effective military force that is able to overpower the Iraqi Arabs at times. 

Please keep the Kurdish people in your prayers. There are a growing number of truly born again Christians living in Kurdistan, including many MBBs, Muslim Background Believers. Please pray that they would boldly preach the Gospel, and be able to make many disciples, and help the believers that grow deep in their faith in Christ, especially amidst all the chaos and carnage. 
For more on the latest geopolitical developments, here are excerpts from a recent article from the Associated Press, “HOW THE KURDS SEIZED KIRKUK.”

• “After a decades-long dispute between Arabs and Kurds over the oil-rich northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, it took just an hour and a half for its fate to be decided,” the Associated Press reports. “As al-Qaida-inspired militants advanced across northern Iraq and security forces melted away, Kurdish fighters who have long dominated Kirkuk ordered Iraqi troops out and seized full control of the regional oil hub and surrounding areas, according to a mid-ranking Army officer. He said he was told to surrender his weapons and leave his base.
• His account was corroborated by an Arab tribal sheik and a photographer who witnessed the looting of army bases after troops left and who related similar accounts of the takeover from relatives in the army. All three spoke to The Associated Press Friday on condition of anonymity because they feared retribution from Kurdish forces.
• “They said they would defend Kirkuk from the Islamic State,” said the Arab officer, who oversaw a warehouse in the city’s central military base. He asked that his rank not be made public.
• He insisted the Iraqi troops had not planned to retreat before the Islamic state. “We were ready to battle to death. We were completely ready,” he said at a roadside rest house just inside the semi-autonomous Kurdish region.
• The Kurdish takeover of the long-disputed city came days after the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and other Sunni militants seized much of the country’s second largest city of Mosul and Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit before driving south toward Baghdad. Their lightning advance has plunged the country into its worst crisis since the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. troops.
• A spokesman for Kurdish forces, known as the peshmerga, said they had only moved in after Iraqi troops retreated, assuming control of the “majority of the Kurdistan region” outside the semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government.
• “Peshmerga forces have helped Iraqi soldiers and military leaders when they abandoned their positions,” including by helping three generals to fly back to Baghdad from the Kurdish regional capital Erbil, Lieutenant General Jabbar Yawar said in a statement on the regional government’s website….
• Kirkuk, 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of Baghdad, is home to Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen, who all have competing claims to the oil-rich area. Kurds have long wanted to incorporate it into their self-ruled region, but Arabs and Turkmen are opposed.
• In the 1970s and 1980s the Arab-dominated government in Baghdad drove hundreds of thousands of Kurds out of Kirkuk and surrounding regions, settling Arabs from the south in their place in an attempt to pacify a region that had seen repeated revolts.
• During the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 the highly disciplined peshmerga swept down from the semi-autonomous Kurdish region and established a strong presence in a belt of largely Kurdish towns and villages stretching south toward Baghdad.
• But the disintegration of Iraqi forces this week seems to have led the peshmerga to assume full control in areas they have long coveted, further enhancing their autonomy from Baghdad and undermining hard-fought U.S. efforts to bring about a stable, multiethnic Iraq.
• “To a great extent Kurdish forces had been de facto in control of Kirkuk for some time, but now they’re completely in control,” said F. Gregory Gause, III, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Doha Center.
• He said it was unlikely the Kurds would seek formal independence from Iraq, however, because such a move would be strongly opposed by neighboring Turkey and Iran — both of which have sizable Kurdish minorities — as well as Washington.