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Christian Chronicles, October 2000 - Volume 4, Issue 59

| The Editor's Pen | Perspectives: Method in the Devil's Madness | Mid-East Update | Fruit of the Vine | Of Diversions and Destinies | Silver Clouds | Things to Come: A Framework of Bible Prophecies | The Friend of Sinners | What Should Our Attitudes Be Today? | The Will of God in Our Lives |

The Editor's Pen

It has been a year or more since we published an issue of Christian Chronicles that was devoted to more than a single doctrine. We do like to focus on just one doctrine in each issue, but occasionally we feel that a more eclectic approach is called for.

There are several topics we want to discuss in this issue, and so, for October, we are going to address a variety of issues. For example, we want to take a brief look at the workings of Satan, the way he works to deceive us. We also believe that it is time to delve a bit more deeply into the end-time prophecies of the Scriptures than we are able to do in the context of our regular column, Middle East Update.

The center article in this month’s issue will be devoted to providing a framework upon which to hang the details of the prophecies yet to unfold on the earth. It will not provide all of the details, but will provide an outline of the major events, the minor events of which form the details. Your own study of prophecy will provide the details to complete your understanding of this timely topic.

Perspectives: Method in the Devil's Madness

The devil has a thousand faces; we have a single faith. He stands in many pulpits wearing the robes of his own righteousness, spreading wide his arms and spouting out the words of “The Social Gospel of the New Millennium” or some trendy homily like that, but leaving out the blood of the cross. He’ll tell a hundred truths, but not the ones that are relevant to anything. He’ll tell you everything except what you most need to know.

Bible teachers more often think of the devil in those terms than in his many other roles. We think of the unsound doctrine, and of the way most churches never preach any doctrine at all, and we consider Paul’s words to young Timothy regarding sound doctrine and what the professing church would be like at the end of the Age (1 Tim 4:1-7).

But passing off leaven as sound doctrine is only one aspect of the devil’s multi-facted approach to diverting the Church from her proper “mission” on the earth. He discourages the believer from doing the things he knows he should do, and encourages him to do the things that he knows he ought not do.

It is not by chance that the first thing the Bible has to say about the devil is that he is subtle (Gen 3:1 KJV). That old serpent has been watching mankind for thousands of years, and he knows every trick in the books by which he might divert the Christian from his labors. He knows every hot button we have, and he knows how to deceive us with his subtlety. Sometimes he reveals his motives in our lives in spectacular ways, but more often than not, he simply turns us quietly onto the roads he wants us to travel, and we are led astray like sheep.

Ever notice, whenever you are to go and perform some ministry, or perhaps attend a Bible study, how all that day you will resent the necessity and the bother? Do you ever get that feeling that you’d really just rather not bother? A nice evening in front of the TV is so much more appealing.

That is probably Satan’s most frequent approach. Or perhaps he will sling a fiery dart or two your way to spoil the mood and make you feel frustrated so that you really won’t want to bother. Often, the stronger the desire is to skip the study or service or whatever the ministry happens to be, the greater the ministry is likely to be if it isn’t skipped. That is, the devil can be counted on to work harder to divert someone from a ministry on a given night if he can see that someone is to be saved that evening. Or if he knows that someone will be especially touched by God’s Word. He won’t work on the person who needs to hear the Word, but he will work on those who are to present it to him. Those who are to be ministered to are often unaffected by the devil’s tactics. He knows that if he can divert the minister the fruit won’t be borne, at least not that day.

There is, therefore, a principle that ought to be operative in every Christian’s life. When an opportunity for ministry or service is presented, do not be dissuaded by your own heart from going. The more you do not want to go, usually, the greater is the need for you to be there. It is not wrong to set aside a night or two each week for study or ministry, but one must be careful not to let habits keep him from performing whatever service is needed on any night of the week. We must remember that an urge not to attend a spiritual event is almost always a sign that we should.

The devil uses many shrewd tactics in his diversion of unwitting Christians. Our preachers tend to preach about how the devil is working in the world of the unsaved, without really touching upon the tactics that he employs against God’s children, not to keep them sinning, but to keep them from performing their own ministries. Most church-going Christians are not even aware that they have a ministry. They think their job is to go to church and be as good as they can be. And that is precisely the point.

For, once the devil has a congregation in that mode, God’s grace will be steadfastly pushed outside the doors and strenuously held there (see Rev 3:20). There will be no fruit, and Satan will have done his job well again.

Mid-East Update

Fruit of the Vine

Jesus said, “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give it you” (Jn 15:16). Many Christians do not perceive the importance of that single verse. Yet, it tells us what our most basic responsibility as Christians is. We are to be fruitful. And what sort of fruit does an orange tree produce? Grapes? No, it produces oranges. And what sort of fruit does a blueberry bush bring forth? Bananas? No, but blueberries. What sort of fruit, then, should a Christian bring forth? Mangos? Well, sort of. We produce men who go to heaven.

Actually we produce no fruit, but God gives the increase. Still, we are responsible to know the doctrines of our faith, and to be able to prove them with the Word of God so that the lost might be saved. The fruitful Christian is the one who has taken the time and done the work to learn as much as he could learn from God’s Word, and who then was faithful in presenting it to the lost at every God-given opportunity. Let us be fruitful!

Of Diversions and Diversities

Altogether too often, when a person is about to receive some sort of ministry from God, or when God is about to move in someone’s life, there comes a diversion to change the course of the person’s life so that God’s purposes might be frustrated. Many is the time a person will be on a road toward conviction and salvation when the devil will block his pathway with some enticement or diversion. As often as not, the diversion comes in the form of another person who will seek to lead the unsuspecting sinner another way. Perhaps the enticement will take the form of some sort of false doctrine, or maybe it will be some untried vice. It may be a novel form of entertainment or it might be some new romantic entanglement. Whatever the form it takes, when God is about to act in a person’s life, the devil may be depended upon to be just a step or two ahead of Him, trying to foil God’s purposes.

The unsaved person has no clue concerning the spiritual battles taking place all around him. Indeed, many Christians are unaware of the fever pitch of the battle between the faithful and the fallen angels. The angelic realm is caught up in a cataclysmic struggle that will persist until the end of the Age, and then again toward the end of the Millennial Kingdom.

The outcome is already written. We know that God wins in the end. In fact, even the small struggles in the lives of individuals are futile. For there is not a person who is chosen by God who will not also eventually be saved. If God is moving His child along a certain road in life, though the way be filled with travail and heartache, sin and lapse, false starts and failures, all of God’s children are predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, and they will be, one by one in life or all at once at the rapture of the Church. The devil may divert us for a time, but God always brings us back into conformity to His will. This, not as punishment for our sins, or to restrict us in some way, but because He knows that He has made us the way He has, with the natures He has given us, and if we are conformed to His Word, we will find our lives blessed, happy.

Silver Clouds

Things to Come: A Framework of Bible Prophecy

It’s really not as complicated as it sounds. There are a lot of details, if one wants to learn everything there is to know about prophecy, but there aren’t really all that many major events left on the prophetic calendar. Those that are left are profoundly important, and will be accompanied by many earth-shaking moments, but an understanding of the framework of prophecies really only covers five major events. These are:

We shall look at them in their proper order, including such details as space will permit. Some will have more detail than others, but it is the order of the events that constitute the framework of prophecy, and upon this order one must hang the details that give him vision and understanding of the Word of God.

The Rapture of the Church

The very next event on the prophetic calendar is the rapture of the Church. That event is imminent. That is, it can occur at any moment. There is no prophecy that must be fulfilled before that one. The rapture is to occur just prior to the beginning of the Tribulation Period. Therefore, as we see the prophecies concerning that dark time of judgment begin to come together, we can know that the rapture is near. That is how Paul indicated that we would know the times and the seasons of the Rapture of the Church, by the onset of conditions which will follow it .

At some point in the future, perhaps the very near future, Jesus will Himself descend to the clouds. An angel shall blow a trumpet and the voice of God shall shout, “Come up here! “ (see Rev 4:1). When He comes to the clouds, He will bring with Him to the clouds the spirits of those generations of Christians who have already died. As he shouts, He will disperse those spirits to their respective bodies, which will immediately come out of their graves, immortal and glorified forevermore. Christians who are alive on the Earth at that time will see these resurrected saints, and will themselves then be instantaneously altered, translated from mortal, corrupt creatures into immortal and incorrupt, glorified and living saints, just like the resurrected dead. It will happen so fast that we will not even realize that it has happened. One moment we will be going about our daily lives, and the next, we will be in heaven with our God. There will be no great shock or sense of surprise, but we shall each be completely at home and blissfully happy. What a wonderful prospect! It is no wonder that Paul should tell Titus that the rapture is our blessed hope. Following the rapture, individual Christians will stand at the judgment seat of Christ, where our rewards will be meted out in accordance with the degree to which we have fulfilled our earthly ministries. After the judgment seat of Christ, the Church will remain in the place that Jesus has been two thousand years building (Jn 14:1), the New Jerusalem, the Bride with her Groom, awaiting that triumphal day when He will take his rightful place upon David’s throne in Israel. As the tribulation period is drawing to its close on Earth, Jesus and His Bride will descend to the Earth bodily to bring Gentile world dominion to an end and to establish His throne in Jerusalem.

Shortly after the Rapture of the Church, Israel will ratify a treaty with her neighbors, brokered by that nation from whence shall arise the sinister character that the world calls “Antichrist.” He will burst on the world stage as an architect of peace, a gentle man who will seem to have all the answers to the crises that were generated by the disappearances of tens or hundreds of millions of people around the world at the rapture. A religious leader will endorse his propositions, and will endorse the individual himself, so that the world will have confidence to follow his leadership. This is the climax of the ages. It is not the end of the world, however, but merely the end of Gentile world dominion. Jesus will finally wrest control of the world from the Gentile nations at His Second Coming, and will establish the throne of Israel as the Throne of thrones, and Himself as the King of kings, ruling over every nation on the planet.

Before His return, and after the rapture of the Church, God’s judgments are poured out upon the Earth as never before. The suffering will be dreadful for everyone, and untold millions will perish in those judgments. The Gentile nations will be judged for partitioning the land that God gave to Israel, and Israel will herself be judged for her rejection of her Messiah. At the end of this time of judgment, Israel will see Jesus returning and will at last accept Him whom they had pierced so many centuries ago. The world calls this time, “Doomsday,” but it is not. Not by a long shot. Following the tribulation, there remains the Millennial Kingdom, the great white throne judgment, and the onset of the eternal state of a blessed and glorified Earth, whose capitol will be situated in the New Jerusalem.

The tribulation period ends when Jesus returns to the Earth. All the missiles of the combined armies of the world will be trained on Him and His armies. Those missiles will be fired, but the saints will prevail. The Word of God shall proceed from the Word of God (the sword proceeding from the mouth of the Son of God) and destroy those armies, leaving blood flowing in the Valley of Jehoshaphat up to the horses bridles. Jesus shall set His feet on the Mount of Olives and it will split in two, creating a great valley. Seventy-five days later, He is crowned King of the world, having put all his enemies in subjection. Every nation will have its king, but Jesus will be the King of all those kings. He will rule for one thousand years. How interesting that Hitler, who sought to eliminate the Jews, wrote of the “Thousand Year Reich.” The devil would have liked to prevent the establishment of Jesus on His throne. If there were no Israel, He would have no nation over which to reign and He would not return. But Hitler was unable to thwart the purposes of God.

The Millennial Kingdom is the time when the leopard shall lie down with the kid and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. It is to be a time of universal peace and blessing. The curse that was placed on the earth in the Fall of Man will finally be lifted and the true glory of God shall shine everywhere. Unprecedented prosperity and plenty will be the order of the day, and love shall be the law. The Sermon on the Mount is the platform of Jesus’ government, and that is the social order that will be imposed upon the Earth during the Kingdom Age. Jesus will rule with a rod of iron, and we shall reign with Him. People will continue to be born and to die during the Millennial Kingdom. The devil will be locked away in the abyss, and sin shall be much muted in that Day.

However, nothing is without a purpose in God’s entire creation, and there is a purpose for the Kingdom Age. It is this: God will show that, even after a thousand years of enforced righteousness and miraculous prosperity, after blessings and a benevolent rule that man has not yet even conceived of, the unconverted heart of man will yet remain rebellious. Sinners will still abound on the Earth. Satan will be loosed for a little time near the end of the Kingdom Age. He will lead a great rebellion, completely surrounding Jerusalem, as in the days at the end of the tribulation period, threatening the throne. But his rebellion will come to nothing, as fire will come down from heaven and destroy his armies. God’s purpose will be to show that only by His grace are men able to be saved. If men could not be good enough during the reign of God on the Earth, then everyone must come to God by grace through faith.

The reason that Satan must be loosed is so that those alive on the Earth who are not yet saved can be killed. Every unsaved person on the Earth will follow Satan in that rebellion, and every last one of them will die in the fiery terror. This is necessary, so that they can participate in the Second Resurrection, the resurrection unto judgment. No saved person will be judged at the great white throne that is set up in heaven. But every unsaved person will see the space where his name ought to be in the Book of Life. He will see that his name is missing, and then the books of his works will be opened and he will be judged out of them.

Because he has not accepted the sacrifice that Jesus made at Calvary, because he thinks that he either can or must be good enough to get to heaven by his own works, because of his unbelief in the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice to pay for his sins, he must bear the judgment for them himself. Jesus has already paid for every sin that ever has been or ever will be committed, but that sacrifice must be accepted and trusted to be sufficient if it is to be applied.

When the unsaved find the blank spaces where their names should be written, and their works are judged, they are cast alive into the lake of fire and brinstone, where they suffer eternally. We do no good to attempt to avoid that truth. The great white throne judgment will be the most sobering event in all of history, but it will be followed by a greater drama yet.

Immediately following the great white throne judgment, the heavens and the Earth are destroyed, and new heavens and a new Earth are created. The New Jerusalem, where we will be while the tribulation unfolds on Earth, will descend from heaven. Some say that it will rest on the new Earth, and others say that it will remain suspended above the Earth for all eternity. Whichever turns out to be the case, it will be the dwelling place of the saints of the Church Age. The New Jerusalem will be the capital of the New Earth, and Jesus will Himself be the Light that illuminates the entire city. All the nations will dwell in the Light of that great city, and New Jerusalem herself will be one thousand five hundred miles on each side, and one thousand five hundred miles high as well, so that it will be immense. Both her size and the fact that the entire Earth will be lighted by the city seem to indicate that it will be suspended above the Earth. The fact that it has foundations seems to argue for an earthly city.

It is in the New Jerusalem where our mansions will be located. It is also there in which the streets will be paved with gold, like clear glass. There shall God wipe away every tear and banish sorrow forever. We know little of our estates there, but we know that it is inconceivably wonderful.

This then is the order of the things to come. Many are the details that cause us to marvel at the workings of God The editors urge all our readers to undertake a personal study of the prophetic Scriptures. We are indeed living in the last days of the Church Age, and it is imperative that we all understand the times and the seasons. The stage is set for the events which follow the rapture of the Church, and it behooves the Bride to be straightening her skirts for the journey home.

The Friend of Sinners

What Should Our Attitudes Be Today?

The Will of God in Our Lives

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