Heaven and Earth will pass away…
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away."
~Jesus~ (Matthew 24:35)
In just this one statement we can see that Jesus understood and He wanted His followers to understand that the current Heaven and Earth will one day pass away, that this current condition in which we live will indeed come to an end...However Jesus Words will never pass away, every Word will come to pass.
It is important to note that in The Bible there are five "red letter books" That means that there are five books of the Bible where we can find Jesus activly speaking and giving directions, commandments, and instruction. Of course we can find dialog in the "Old Testement" that has Jesus directly speaking to people but in those instances though we can clearly see it is Jesus, He does not directly identify Himself in most of those conversations and so most Bible manufacturers do not make those letters in red (although I wish we would and call it the "revelation of Jesus Bible").
With that said the five books of the Bible where we see the red letters of Jesus directly speaking (not including Jesus speaking to Saul) are the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and...drum roll please...The Book of Revelation.
In the Book of Revelation Jesus directly speaks to the Seven Churches which have become a pattern or type of the many Churches we see all over the World today. Then Jesus allows John to see the coming events of the End Times and the Last Days before during and after the return of Christ.
I can tell you a couple of major things about the Book of Revelation, number one the Book of revelation is God's plan not the devils plan, number two the Book of Revelation is written as a promise and not a threat, and just to add an extra, the Book of Revelation was written as mercy to the followers of Jesus so we would know and be prepared for the events that would occur before Jesus return. We were given this instruction and unsderstanding so that we could be watching and waiting.
1 Thessalonians 5:2 says that the day of the Lord will come "just like a thief in the night"....BUT....1 Thessalonians 5:4-6 says that we are not children of the darkness that the day would overtake us like a thief. In otherwords because we are sober in the spirit and know the Word and promises of God then we are to be "alert" and found watching and waiting eagerly for the return of Jesus.
Revelation 22:17 says that the Spirit and the Bride say, "Come" and then we are instructed not to add or take away from anything written in "this Book" which is the Book of Revelation.
We as the Bride are not only to know what is coming but to be in agreement with it!!!
We are called to announce the coming of Jesus and to show many the evidence of His soon coming return.
This is an exciting time for those whose hope is in Jesus and His redemption of His own people. But if you find your hope in this World to either save you or that there is hope here for a better life and a better world if we get the right President in Office, or there is somekind of revival that staves off the coming inevitiablity of the eventual return of Jesus Christ....I mean think about that for a minuete...What "lover of Jesus" or what person who is fully hoping on the return of Christ, which one of those people would be hoping for Jesus to postpone His return, and then call that "the love of God?" Espessially when this is God's plan???
If my heart is not in agreement with God's Word then my heart is not right with God...period. if my heart is not in agreement with God's Word then it my heart that needs to change...not God's Word.
As we are now standing with our toes over the edge of the diving board of the events of the last days and the end times, we need to undertand the condition of our heart, where we really stand with God, and....Are we are going to jump into the last days obeying the commission that we were given by God to preach the Gospel to all the World? It is clear in Matthew 24:9-14 that when the end times persecution starts up that the response of God's people will be to preach the Gospel to all Nations.
My encouragement today is for all of us to evaluate our own hearts. Do we consider God's Word to be evil or mean, and our own hearts so "loving" that we have created an alternate end times ideology where God will do what we think He sould do because He could learn a thing or two about love from us? Sounds pretty bad, but it just happens to be pretty true.
This war is going on in the hearts of many who love and follow Jesus, but the time has come for decisions to be made.
When Jesus was fasting in the desert for 40 days, at the end of His fast the devil came to tempt Him and He tempted Jesus while challenging Jesus' own identity.
The devil said, "if you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread."
Now if the devil was trying to tempt Jesus with food, he would have just brought a pizza. But he was trying to get Jesus to use His God given anointing, authority, and position to "save Himself" from the position that God had Him in, which was a 40 day fast...The Bible records that when the fast was over that Angels were sent to minister to Jesus. So God had a plan already, and Jesus knew that. So Jesus respoded to the devil and said, "It is WRITTEN, man shall not live on bread alone but on EVERY WORD that proceeds from the mouth of God!"
It is very clear that the devil understood that if he could get Jesus to walk outside of the will of God to save Himself in the desert, that Jesus would have never said "not my will but Your will be done" when He was speaking to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemene.
In other words if he would have failed in the desert, then He would have failed in the garden and the cross would have never happened, nor the ressurection....The devil might be evil but he isnt stupid. But Jesus was way beyond being truly taken out by the devil, but even the Bible records that Jesus prayer in the Garden was so intense that being in agony He was praying fervently and His sweat became like great drops of blood.
He even told His Disciples to pray, lest they "fall into temptation."
So whats my point in bringing this up? Its simple, what I have to say is this, that by the time we have to make the decision to take the mark of the beast or to worship the beast or his image, we will have made those descisions already ahead of time as we responded to the devil throughout all the smaller decisions to be made in the end times.....If you will save yourself in the desert....you will save yourself in the Garden.
The end times are not going to be easy, the last days are not going to be some big revival where the worldly rich transfer their wealth to the believers, that is not scriptural and it is the fodder of the words spoken by the false prophets which Jesus prophecied they must come. They will convince you that the Words written in scripture are too mean and too harsh to represent a loving God and they will lead people into a flase salvation by causing many to follow the "new world religion" which will lead many who claim to follow Christ astray and to as Matthew 24:10 says, they will "fall away" it doesnt just say "fall away" but that "many" will fall away.
One of the quotes of the new world religion will be something like this, "God is love, therefore love is God."
They will pronounce anyone preaching and speaking Gods true Words to be an enemy of humanity and a terrorist, and they will persecute the Church. We must be ready to do three major things. 1) read Gods Word and believe it. 2) Learn to love God's Word and come into agreement with it. 3) Be watching and waiting for all the sign of His return and share it with everyone we can so that they to may come to believe and follow Jesus.
What I am telling you is this thing called, "the truth" this is what is happening and it is what is coming, how we choose to recieve and walk in Gods Word is the defining factor. Some will say to me, "I am listening to the Spirit." Well, John 14:26 says that the Holy Spirit will bring to our rememberance all that Jesus said....And Jesus own Words fill the Book of Revelation revealing God's plan. Again the Spirit and the Bride (they are in agreement) say "come quickly Lord Jesus come!"
The Bride must come into agreement with the Spirit of God and the Word of God and follow Jesus. And we will overcome "because of the Blood of the Lamb, the word of our testimony, and that we did not love our own lives even when faced with death." Revelation 12:11.
Daniel Paul