Monday, March 11, 2024

THEN SHALL THE END COME

Jesus was speaking, not just to Jews, but to those who follow Him — His disciples.

They asked Jesus, “What shall be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the world?” (Mat 24:3).

Jesus is coming again. This question was about his last coming at the end of the world.

Jesus was speaking of the time when Satan will be bound for one-thousand years and He would rule the world for that millennium, to wit:

And I (John) saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (Rev 20:4)

This event is called the ‘second coming of Christ.’ We are assured that after that, “The rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection” (Rev 20:5).

There is a question concerning the first resurrection. The real ‘first resurrection’ was before the writing of the Revelation of John. The prior resurrection was when the dead saints in Christ arose with Christ, “And came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many” (Mat 27:53). That resurrection came before John saw into the future. The first resurrection comes after the Great Tribulation. The subsequent resurrection comes, according to John, after the millennial reign of Jesus.

How many times does Jesus appear, or come to the world? He has already come once, then died and was resurrected. That was His first time coming.

Paul wrote that Jesus would come a second time; for what? Unto salvation. To save those who belonged to Him: “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation” (Heb 9:28). The second coming of Christ points toward His life as the first coming.

Just when is the second coming of Christ? 

I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. (1 Thes 4:13:15)

 Paul wrote of the first coming of the Lord; when He lived, died, and arose to Paradise. Then Paul wrote of Him coming again… “unto the coming of the Lord.” When Jesus comes the second time when the rapture (snatching up) occurs: 

The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (1 Thes 4:16-17)

The rapture of Christians, both dead and alive, when John wrote it about 90 AD or so, was the second coming, and the first resurrection.

Theologians call the ‘second coming of Christ, the ‘millennial reign of Jesus.’ If that is the case, then what is the coming of Christ at the rapture? After all He did come again, did He not?

In a moment of honesty, I am not the final authority about when the rapture of Christians occurs. Theologians recognize three alternatives: (1) pre-tribulation, (2) mid-tribulation, or (3) post tribulation.

The eternal security of Calvinism — the preservation of the saints — depends on the rapture to be pre-tribulation to coincide their doctrine.

Eternal security comes from several verses in the wisdom literature: 

O love the Lord, all you His saints: for the Lord preserves the faithful. (Psalm 31:23)

The Lord loves judgment and forsakes not His saints; they are preserved forever: but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off. (Psalm 37:28)

You that love the Lord, hate evil: He preserves the souls of his saints; He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked. (Psalm 97:10)

He keeps the paths of judgment and preserves the way of His saints. (Prov 2:8)

 The Greek (agios) indicates that ‘saints’ are ‘awful things’ that have become pure. They are the holy ones. The Hebrew affirms that; they are the ‘holy ones,’ indubitably those who go the Way of God.

‘Preserves’ are fruits that are sealed. Saints are the ‘fruits,’ and the seal is by God. “Who (God) has also sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts (2 Cor 1:22).

If any preserve is sealed properly, the fruit should last quite some time. When God seals, the fruit is meant to be sealed until the end.

Like any fruit that is not perfect, the seal can be broken from within… speaking to Christians at Corinth, Paul wrote, “Your glorying is not good. Know you not that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” (1 Cor 5:6). If a little leaven is within the sealed vessel, it leavens the whole. Leavening is corruption; it changes what is good inside to make it unpalatable. Oftentimes the vessel may explode, or the seal blows out. God seals but godly saints can still perish if their fruits go bad.

We should never accept a doctrine just because it conforms to the doctines of the individuals or groups. A pre-tribulation rapture does conform to Calvinism’s fifth point — preservation of the saints. It makes sense to them that if they are preserved, then their ‘vessels’ (souls) would be removed from the hazards.

However, true preservation is preserved despite the hazards. Preservation would be during tribulations, or even during great tribulation.

For the Christian who had fornicated, Paul wrote his judgment, “To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor 5:5).

Just when is salvation? Many have been told time and again that you are saved. That has been repeated so much, along with security, that repetition has made it true to you.

Where should a disciple of Jesus go to find the time of salvation? To the Word of God; “That the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor 5:5).

Salvation is of the spirit within the souls of Christians. Fornication is a bad work but that does not condemn a Christian. Only a lack of faith in Christ condemns. A Christian can still fornicate, repent, and still be saved. Nobody can be unsaved. That process is irrational since ‘salvation,’ according to scripture, is in the day of the Lord Jesus, when He comes again.

When Jesus comes again is at the rapture (1 Thes 4:16-17). That is His real second coming, but perhaps it might coincide with the millennial reign of Jesus that theologians call the ‘second coming of Christ.’

Unknown is when great tribulation arrives. It may be now or much later. However, the time of the second coming of Christ at the rapture is unknown as well. How can “The Great Tribulation’ be recognized? “As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man” (Luke 17:26).

What happened in the days of Noah? It began with tribulations (Gen 6) when mankind got so evil that they were willing to change their humanity to fornicate with devils from another realm (Gen 6:4). The sacred Books of Adam and Eve even mentioned drunkenness and pedophilia.

Noah, who had found grace (Gen 6:8) lived in a time of tribulation. Then when the storm came, Noah survived even greater tribulation even though He had found grace from God. God had put onto his flesh a ‘life preserver;’ Noah, according to the Book of Jasher, put on the Garment of Adam (Gen 3:21) to make it through the Great Tribulation of the deluge.

Although he had found grace, Noah suffered tribulations while building the ark in the form of mockery and ridicule, and great tribulation from the turbulent waters. Of course, the flood was a prototypical event revealing the end of time, but it would have similar events.

Of course, soon after Noah was safe, he sinned again in several ways: (1) him becoming the ‘husbandman’ rather than God and (2) him drinking of the vine until he was drunk. According to Jasher, Ham stole the Garment of Adam while Noah was naked, and Noah lost his safety. Of course, he was not damned because Jesus had yet to be crucified for his iniquity.

However, because both Noah and Ham sinned, Canaan was cursed. As such, the generations of Canaan were damned (Gen 9:28) because of the sin of his father. It was the original sin all over again and it was through genetics.

Without a question, the coming of the Lord in the sky for those both dead and living saints should be the ‘first resurrection” and comes after the Great Tribulation and before the millennial reign of Christ.

John wrote that the first resurrection was with the coming of Christ for His millennial reign. If that event is the second coming, then the writers of scripture, failed to count His birth at the first coming just as they failed to count the resurrection of Christ nor the rapture as the first resurrection.

The point herein is that the sequence of events is fairly clear in the Bible but what they are called and what we call them is much less clear. As such, I take precaution; although my hope is that the rapture of Christians comes before the tribulation (‘pre-tribulation’), I must be prepared for the worst case, the ‘post tribulation’ rapture. We all will be part of the post-millennial rapture for judgment.

On the other hand, God has grace! The tribulations common to the first 3-1/2 years are much like the goings on this moment. Tribulations have been common since the time of Christ, Paul wrote, “I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation” (2 Cor 7:4).

The tribulations in the days of Noah were genetic. The genes of mankind were fouled again with miscegenation between men and angels.

Things were to come that were as in the days of Noah. Recently, beginning with the waning of the Christian Era (Pisces), genetics can now change the very identity — the genetics — of mankind through simply cutting out natural DNA, and replacing it with synthetic. We indeed are now the ‘gods’ and we can design an unnatural being.

I believe that is the ultimate sin, and perhaps now is salvation nearer than when we first believed (Rom 13:11). That one verse proves that salvation is not when we first believe, but sometimes after that; it is either at death or the rapture whichever comes first. For most of us, including the saints of past, salvation was at their demise, hence as Paul wrote, “For me to live is Christ; and to die gain’ (Phil 1:21). Death is salvation from the world and the reward for those in Christ. It is then that the soul is saved to an eternal existence in Paradise.

Not to be funny, but to be saved already you must be dead already! However, Christians are not saved but safe from the wiles of the devil whose device is such... “as a roaring lion, walk about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet 6:8). To avoid death by deception, Paul wrote to Peter that a Christian must remain ‘sober and vigilant.’

What would be the Devil devouring a Christian? Great Tribulation, or at least tribulation!

The end of days indicates that Christians will not be raptured before the Great Tribulation, the second 3-1/2 years of the Tribulation period. Christians can hope for a rapture soon, but should act as if they must undergo great tribulation to never succumb to the wiles of the Devil themselves — the Antichrist (some man or being with Satan in him.)

Maybe the Antichrist will not even be totally human as we think of humans. Because of the Tree of Knowledge, that tree would be his strength. Myself, I believe that the Antichrist will be some synthetic person, maybe even a female, whose knowledge base contains the knowledge of both good and evil in the world.

I believe that knowledge base has already been created, and the creator of it has already shared that knowledge, to wit: (Wikipedia;  ‘DNA Data Storage’):

In June 2019, scientists reported that all 16 GB of text from the English Wikipedia had been encoded into synthetic DNA. In 2021, scientists reported that a custom DNA data writer had been developed that was capable of writing data into DNA at 18 Mbps.

The question is in whom or what will that synthetic DNA be written? And for what purposes? Perhaps to create an image in the manner of the Serpent; perhaps an Antichrist with the knowledge of both good and evil in a tree-like structure, one subject in Wiki hyperlinked to the next to form branches of a tree.

Have we already been prepared for the tribulation to come? Has the material already been prepared for making a new, synthetic being? I submit that it may have already been done! 

He Jiankui, the Chinese researcher who stunned the world last year by announcing he had helped produce genetically edited babies, has been found guilty of conducting "illegal medical practices" and sentenced to 3 years in prison.

A court in Shenzhen found that He and two collaborators forged ethical review documents and misled doctors into unknowingly implanting gene-edited embryos into two women, according to Xinhua, China's state-run press agency. One mother gave birth to twin girls in November 2018; it has not been made clear when the third baby was born. The court ruled that the three defendants had deliberately violated national regulations on biomedical research and medical ethics, and rashly applied gene-editing technology to human reproductive medicine. (Normile 2019)

 Note that the birth of the three babies, with the gender of the third unknown, was at the dawning of the Age of Aquarius in 2019 — the Age of the Lucifer. Is that third infant the Antichrist? It has been reported that to this day they all are doing well.

Could 2019 be the beginning of the Tribulation period? Is it coincidental that the ‘Great Reset’ coincides with synthetic humans and the Age of Lucifer?

Indeed, many ‘coincidences’ may make one truth!

If we are already in the beginning of tribulation, why are Christians still here? Why have we not been raptured? Is the pre-tribulation rapture a deceptive ploy on the part of the Antichrist to make Christians think that they are already saved and secure from the wiles of the Devil?

Note that Matthew wrote of the ‘beginning of sorrows,’ and names the global evidence of it (Mat 24:1-8). “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and you shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake… But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved” (Mat 24:9, 13).

That is the time of salvation, not when you first believe! “Then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Mat 24:21).

Jesus broke the end-of-time into eras: (1) the beginning of sorrows, (2) tribulation, and (3) great tribulation. He was speaking to His disciples — Christians — and warning them of things to come; things which they must endure to the end.

How much clearer could Jesus have been. He ended the discourse with what theologians call the ‘rapture:”

Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (Mat 24:29:31)

Hence, after the time of sorrows, after tribulation, and after the great tribulation; Christians who endure all those things shall be saved. ‘The elect’ are not those who precede or enter the tribulation but those who endure it.

Of course, I am not the final authority, and I must admit that if there is a first resurrection, then perhaps there is a second one which I fail to understand. Will Jesus come twice to save the elect, one before the great tribulation and again after it? I just do not know! However, as I write a second time, we must hope for a pre-tribulation rapture, but be ready (sober and vigilant) to endure all that the Devil may plan for us.

Some theologians define two resurrections: (1) before the great tribulation, and (2) another resurrection after the millennial reign of Jesus. Perhaps that is true, or maybe it is our hope!

However, John wrote that the resurrection at the end is the “first resurrection’ and that is after great tribulation. With that said, perhaps the second resurrection is judgment day when everyone will be resurrected from all ages for Jesus to reveal to them why their judgment, and both the damned and the saved will go to their places.

Perhaps you may now understand why so many disagree with the chain of events. We just are not to know the plans and futures that God has for us or then we would wait for the last minute for conversion.


picture credit: Pixabay

 

 

 

 

 

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