End Times – Meritt Musings

Enough

www.bible.com/1713/mat.6.25.csb

What is enough? Something that I’ve discovered over the course of the last few months is that I have enough clothes. I have more than enough clothes, so much so that since Goodwill finally opened back up, I have been able to donate a dozen bags of clothes. I don’t know how I’ve been able to gather so much, but over a lifetime, with a little here and a little there, It’s not much of a mystery.

I suppose this is the first time I’ve had to do a purge. I possessed a hoard of clothes that just don’t fit me anymore, or needed to be discarded for one reason or another. But I’ve never lacked having enough clothes to wear. That is a blessing. And I know that it comes from the Lord. I also know that I am blessed to live in this nation, because there are many places in the world where having a week’s worth of clothing is considered a luxury.

So I’ve never really worried about what I am going to wear. Neither is food that much of an issue here, and there is always plenty of water. By those standards, I have no reason to worry. If there is a land of milk and honey, then we certainly live in it. And I know it is because of God’s blessing over and over, blessing our land for being founded and continued as a Christian nation. I also know that this is eroding, and our ability to supply food and clothing are also being affected.

My wife went to the grocery store last night and told me a grim story. The beef was mostly gone. What was left was overpriced. I have heard this isn’t because of a lack of beef, but the break in the supply chain. COVID19 has affected everything, but in this case, it seems to have affected the processing plants for the big meat packers the worst. I think as Christians we ought to have our eyes open on this. We have been so blessed for so long, that these interruptions become noticeable. Christians should notice when these basic blessings are interrupted. I think we ought to remember this, because when these things take place, we know that our nation is gently coming under judgment.

It is something that is a long time coming. Anyone familiar with the Scriptures know that Israel stumbled repeatedly, and the Lord sent invaders to chastise them until they fell to their knees and repented of their sins, and then then God restored them. This is a cycle we see repeatedly in the Scriptures. In our case, military invaders are always a threat, but not a serious one. Rather, it is the political invaders, the social invaders, and the medical invaders. Our politics are constantly being subverted, to where today we are willingly closing churches (for health reasons). Our social system is being overwhelmed because strangers and foreigners are overwhelming our social structures (and politicians support this subversion) while veterans and homeless are ignored. Our medical system is being overwhelmed, not only by diseases entering in through illegal immigration but also in more subtle ways, like COVID-19. We may not be a nation overcome with military invaders, but we have invaders nevertheless. Like Rome, our chief problem isn’t that we aren’t the most powerful nation in the world. In many ways we are. But it is the chinks in our armor, the gaping holes where other kinds of invaders creep in and engage in rot and corruption within.

As a Christians, I want you to first be aware of when our basic blessings like food and clothing are being affected. This is a sign that God is placing our nation under judgment. But second, like Daniel (Dan 9) and Nehemiah (Neh 1) we must intervene for our nation before God. We must pray for national repentance, and national forgiveness. As citizens of this country, enjoying the freedoms we enjoy, we cannot ignore the fact that our nation is being eroded, and the strongest power we possess isn’t at the ballot box, but at the altar of prayer. You cannot afford to sit by and shake your head. This isn’t something that is happening to someone else. This affects all of us.

I encourage you as a believer to pray for our nation. Pray against this virus, yes, but also pray that the Lord stays His hand on our nation. Pray that the Lord preserve us for a while longer, that we appeal to His mercy, not because we are good, but because He is.

Dear Father, please hear our voice today. Father please spare our nation. Please do not lift Your hand from our leaders or our nation. We know that if you do, disaster follows, because by Your hand we are blessed. Please Lord, hear our prayers today. May You offer mercy. May You heal our land. May Your judgment complete its perfect work, but that You save Your people, and let this nation once again stand for Your great Name! In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.

Present or Future?

www.bible.com/1713/isa.12.2.csb

What’s next for you? Have you made it yet? Are you coasting to the finish line? Is it all downhill from here? I hope I never find myself there.

In my field, it’s not unusual to go from college to grad school, and not rare to go from grad school to doctoral work. But even to have those initials after your name, it’s still not enough, because you find yourself still yearning to learn. There is a constant need to build upon what you’ve learned, and after each hill you’ve surmounted, there’s still a higher one just beyond. The more you learn, the more you find you don’t know yet.

So while this text on the surface sounds very much like an encouragement to serve God and experience His power in your life, reading a bit before this verse in chapter 11 and then in verse 1 indicates that these are promises to Israel once she has returned to the land and conquered all her enemies and becomes the seat of God’s power on earth. All will look to Zion to find God. Hence the premise of the title. Is this a reference to present reality, or to something in the future? Because in Christ, all that this verse says is already fulfilled. The Lord is our salvation. He is our judge, but also our salvation from judgment. He did this when He took our penalty for sin on the cross.

So do we look to Zion because of a future King enthroned there, or because if a crucified Lord that was risen there? Because I enjoy the benefit of His salvation on account of His resurrection, and that all authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to Him. Jesus is the King we have been looking for, not sometime in the future, but now.

Are you waiting for Jesus to be King someday, or celebrating His Kingdom every day? Present or future?

God bless!

Finding Faith

Luke 18:8

“When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”

This is Jesus saying this. He could see into men’s hearts. He could raise the dead. Is He casting doubt on the idea that at His return, there would ne none to receive Him? This is Jesus facing the rejection and humiliation of the cross, who still believed that His Father would raise Him. The church would be built upon this fact, this rock of the gospel message. But in this he did know the hearts of men.

Did he know that the purity and simplicity of the gospel would be made difficult and impossible to comprehend by the theologians and scholars of the early church? Did he know tests of fellowship, rituals and duties enjoined upon believers would turn people away? Did He know that for many, “faith” required “getting right with God” and “going to Church” because many Christians presented discipleship as showing up for a church service that wasn’t for imperfect people. Did He foresee that evangelism for many Christians was about inviting someone to a Church, and not to Jesus? Did He see many of his disciples pass on their god-given responsibilities to paid clergy? Did Jesus see the Church of today and weep for the souls of the lost?

I find this a very haunting question. Both in the sense that this is Jesus, questioning the very purpose of His crucifixion, and that despite all He will endure, He knows how the Church will prosper and wilt.

Despite this, the question is not hopeless. The question is motivational, because it dares us as even modern Christians to challenge ourselves to faithfulness. Yes we have been saved by grace, and yes we do not earn our salvation by works, but shouldn’t it motivate us to do good works because we are saved? Shouldn’t it motivate us to serve others because He served us? Should not the Lord Jesus find faith in His faithful? Shouldn’t He find it in our efforts to evangelize the lost, or seeking them out and inviting them to relationship with Jesus? Shouldn’t He find us about our Father’s business?

Let us surround the throne of grace with this resounding answer and say with humble confidence: “YES! Lord Jesus!”

Blood Moons

September 28, 2015 was predicted as the last of four “blood moons” to occur, a “tetrad” of lunar eclipses (four occurring in close proximity in time) that when they occur on Jewish Feast days, predict major events for the Jewish people. You can read all about it at http://www.endtime.com/four-blood-moons/ and watch a video by Irvin Baxter. The threat of this blood moon is that “the Bible predicts” the Jews will sign a peace agreement with the Palestinians, and this will start the seven years of tribulation before the final return of Christ.

However, coming so soon after the “Mayan Prophecies” of December 2012, and before that Y2K, and before that September 1988, many people are tired of date-setting for doomsday. Is it possible that God set 9/28/15 as the final nail in our coffin? Yes. Of course it is. But just as soon as a person sets a date, you know he will be wrong, since:

“Now concerning that day and hour no one knows–neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son–except the Father only.” (Mat 24:36)

If the Bible seems pretty clear that no one can predict the Day of the Lord’s return, why do so many try to? In AD 1000, the church predicted the return of Christ, a prediction which caused such disappointment that the church split East and West in 1044 in the Great Schism. William Miller (of the Seventh Day Adventists) predicted Jesus’ return in 1844. Many others throughout history tried to predict it. All failed. Are there certain Biblical markers to determine the timing of the second Coming? Are there any Biblical prophecies that we can say for certain will happen at a certain time?

But this is the dilemma of prophecy. And some prophecy teachers confuse the original return of Israel after the exile to a future return, due in small part to Ezekiel’s prophecy of a Temple. The return of a nation called Israel in 1948 (by UN decree) has stirred the pot of prophecy teachers who are all certain it portends the return of Christ. Now it has been 70 years since 1948, and still no return. And of course, this puts doubt in anyone who believed because of the prophecies.

They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” (2Pe 3:4)

They will say that if the prophecies failed, there must not be a God. I get very frustrated with this, one of my all-time pet peeves. May I remind you of yet another prophecy?

For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear something new. (2Ti 4:3)

Something new? Everyone who comes out with a “fresh word” from God, ignoring the sound words that are already written, is leading people astray. “Sound doctrine” is being put by the wayside because that’s too hard. That requires study and discipline and sound teaching. But this wave upon wave of prophecy teachers, each with their own fresh spin on the prophecies given to Israel 2500 years ago, seems like it will never end, because there is always people with money gullible enough to buy it.

This verse sounds prophetic to me.

Some Notes on The Great Tribulation

Is there a great tribulation awaiting the saints of God? According to some who teach end-times prophecy, a great tribulation of seven years follows the rapture of the faithful to the Lord, and those saved during this troubled time will endure great persecution.

We see the term “the great tribulation” in Revelation 7:14 and this is so in the Greek text (in Revelation the term utilized is thlipseos). But there is a question. Is this “great tribulation” is intended to be the same as in Matthew (there the term is the same, but in a different tense – thlipses)? Is this something that modern Christian need to keep on their rader?

The word is used in various tenses 45 times in the King James Version. It is defined by Strong’s as “pressure (literally or figuratively): – afflicted, (-tion), anguish, burdened, persecution, tribulation, trouble.” Of those 45 occurrences, it is coupled with “great”^¹ on four occasions. Only in Rev. 7:14 is it referred as “the” great tribulation in the Greek. So what does this tell us?

Well, let’s take a look at some context. The tribulation reference in Revelation 7 is in answer to a question addressed to John. In his vision, he had seen 144,000 witnesses, the sealed servants of God who hail from 12 tribes of Israel, followed by an innumerable group of people of all ethnicities who worship around the throne of God. They are wearing white robes. We discover in vs. 14 that this group in white robes had been through “the great tribulation” and endured severe persecution.

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (Rev 7:13-14)

Jesus earlier predicts to Smyrna (Rev 2:10) that they would receive tribulation ten days. Same word, but not a “great” tribulation. From this we may ask a few questions about tribulation in general: Are these ten singular days of tribulation, or ten straight days of trouble? Did only Smyrna receive them? Does their prophecy color our understanding of the great tribulation five chapters later?

Throughout the New Testament, tribulation is spoken of as a regular and expected occurrence of the Jesus’ followers (Rom 8:35). So what is it about the tribulation mentioned in Revelation 7 that makes it “the” great tribulation? That these came out of the Great Tribulation seems to say that during this time, there will be great persecution of Christians, for these are washed by Christ’s own blood.

But there is another prediction of great tribulation made in Matthew 24:21-22.

For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.
(Mat 24:21-22)

In the original Greek text, there is no article “the” for “great tribulation”, saying instead it will be “at that time there will be great tribulation.” Vs. 21 seems to say that this tribulation will be unequaled. The number of dead doesn’t necessarily come into it, because it isn’t about how many died, but that many did die (as implied by verse 22), and they died horribly. in the parallel passage in Luke 21, Jesus specifically says:

“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. (Luk 21:20)

So we are meant to understand that the desolation and destruction spoken of in Matthew 24 (and Mark 13) is also this destruction in Luke 21, that is, the destruction of Jerusalem. Matthew mentions the “abomination of desolation” in 24:15 which parallels this statement in Luke 21:20, as if to say that the Roman armies are the very harbingers of abomination that is the desolation of the Great City.

In the historical record, we find that the armies of Rome did surround Jerusalem in AD 70, besieged the city, and killed anyone who tried to escape. The evil that occurred within the city itself is typical of sieges, with people turning on each other, and often, eating each other for lack of food. The fire that destroyed Jerusalem was started from within the city, and the Romans simply moved in afterward to get at the gold, which had melted between the stones of the Temple Mount.

Thus as Matthew says, it was a great tribulation for the people in the city at that time. It’s greatness magnified by the fact that the very House of God was utterly destroyed, and would never be rebuilt. No more would there be possibility of offering sacrifice for sin upon its altar. Judaism as they knew it ceased to exist.

It’s like Jesus’ crucifixion. The death of Jesus Christ is the greatest death that ever took place because of its significance. It is the same with the destruction of Jerusalem (as suggested by the parallel text in Luke 21:20-24), not that it is the greatest body count, but that it was Jerusalem, the seat of God’s Temple, that was destroyed, burned down, and utterly ruined.

You might suggest that the Holocaust of the 1940’s was worse than the destruction of Jerusalem (70,000? vs. 4,000,000) and you would probably be correct. The holocaust had a much higher body count. But did it carry a greater MEANING than Jerusalem? The Destruction of Jerusalem meant that God had abandoned His people. The Destruction of Jerusalem was prophesied by Jesus and its fulfillment was proof of His divinity. The holocaust just doesn’t carry as much weight in these areas.

So the greater question is if THE Great Tribulation of Revelation 7 is the same as a great tribulation in Matthew 24. In retrospect, it does seem that the two have different subjects. In Matthew, the ones who suffer are the Jews who ignored Jesus’ warnings and suffer God’s final wrath upon them. In Revelation, the subjects are Christians who have suffered a great deal because they were Christians. They present themselves as martyrs for Christ, not those who have suffered God’s wrath.So is there an historic period that corresponds to this?

I might suggest that this period corresponds to the New Testament period. In the time of the Apostles and the Early Church, many died and were martyred for the cause of Christ (And people continue to do so) What makes this early period unique is that they suffered and died before God’s final judgment on Israel.

If you follow chapter 6 and 7, you find that these are martyrs who suffered in that early period, and were under the altar in heaven. They were given white robes until the full number of their brethren arrived. Then they are fully revealed in chapter 7 as those who emerge from THE great tribulation. All of this takes place within the seven seals. Since this takes place before the fall of the Great City, where our Lord was crucified, it seems that this Great Tribulation didn’t refer to Jerusalem, but to the plight of Christians who suffered for the name of Jesus. This may be what Paul means when he makes this reference:

As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Rom 8:36-39)

While modern Christians believe they can rest easy, be warned, if it happened before, it can happen again. There is rampant persecution for Christians today all around the world. Pray for our brothers and sisters so suffering, and pray that our nation never becomes like that.

1 Matt 24:21; Acts 7:11; Rev 2:22; 7:14