Pastoral chat

Yesterday I got the delight of meeting  with a fellow pastor.  In my families’ journey of faith, the Father God has led us to his congregation to be fed.  It was a real delight, getting to fellowship with a brother in the faith.  Below I'll give an overview of our conversations and meanderings disscussing current events.

Since we’ve only recently come to his church, we haven’t yet had the chance to sit down and talk concerning the current situation of world-affairs, and the overwhelming number of Biblical prophecies that are being fulfilled around us, other than through email links and videos shared.  So we finally got a chance to sit down and talk yesterday.

It was so refreshing to talk to someone who saw and understood the import of all that is occurring in the world around us.  That in itself is a fulfilled prophecy concerning the last days: Daniel 12:4   ⁴ "But as for you, Daniel, conceal these words and seal up the book until the end of time; many will go back and forth, and knowledge will increase."

Around the world, natural and man-made disasters are occurring at a more frequent, and intensifying pace.  The New Age, through her spirit channelers (mediums in contact with demons, who are liars) tell us that “mother earth” is traivailing in death throes of survival, and that she is trying to move into the next dimension, and without cleansing herself (a.k.a. rapture), she will not make it. 

The demons themselves have laid in place the deception to explain away the rapture of the saints, so that the world’s populace will not believe God’s word, which He gave to us that we might be saved from our sins.  And don’t think that people will be able to choose salvation when the rapture happens (Rom. 8:6-7). 

2 Thessalonians 2:10-12  ¹⁰ and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.  ¹¹ For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false,  ¹² in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.

If you are saved after the rapture, you have missed the time of God’s grace, but you may still find mercy.  But it will not be your choosing (John 15:16).  The rapture is not the end of the world.  The saints will be “caught up” to be with the Lord forever (Rev. 3:10).  But this will commence the final week of seven years for Israel, according to Daniel’s prophecy (Dan. 9:24,27).

Daniel 9:24  ²⁴ "Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place.

One can see online the Temple blueprints for the Third temple, which itself will be destroyed by the end of the seven years, but then will be rebuilt by the nations of the world, under the leadership of Messiah Yeshua.  I think we can go ahead and start calling him by his Hebrew name.  His return is so close.

But you know, talking to my pastor friend yesterday, we did in fact discuss the big, “What if” question.  “What IF, it doesn’t happen?”  Well, you know, that doesn’t negate the truth of scripture.  It just means that the rapture is going to take a bit longer than we thought, and that things are indeed going to get rough for those who profess faith in Christ.

But praise be to God, who gives us the victory in Christ!  To depart from the body is to be present with the LORD.  And what should I choose?  I desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is better by far.  ⁷ But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  ⁸ More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but [shit ~ for so the force of Paul’s wording in the Greek] so that I may gain Christ,  ⁹ and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,  ¹⁰ that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;  ¹¹ in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.  Philippians 3:7-12