CHRISTMAS THOUGHTS
(Every once in a while I hear a Christmas song that isn't called that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5Tc_B1dBew)
At this time of year things cross my mind related to the end times:
Christmas is a time chosen to celebrate God's' gift to the world: himself in human form, Jesus separate from Him for the first time in eternity.
During this blog, we have seen the Lord with many different faces, from the Angel of the Lord to the human in Flesh amazingly not fallen and then in his Final Spiritual Flesh. In every instance, we see what we were meant to be in perfected flesh, see how we have continually let God down and how he has continually lifted us up. The story reaches everyone, is meant for everyone and changes everyone who believes. It even changes those who don't believe.
But something else abides in my mind, a concern raised by the Antichrist and his coming antics. One voiced by the works of Harlan Ellison and his idea of modern techno gods, one "borrowed" by author Neil Gaiman for his American Gods novels. One episode of the TV series based on that book portrayed on a cable network supposedly displayed Jesus in many different aspects, from the rich guy to "Jesus Prime" the guy who was fully human in their thinking. All the aspects have been appropriated by the "goddess" Ishtar to keep her own power alive with the Easter celebration.
We never discuss how the Christmas celebration was appropriated from the winter solstice pagan worship, using everything from the holly and the mistletoe used in pagan seasonal orgies to the Druidic tree worship, all brought in to bring pagans to the church and church membership seen as salvation. It became a tradition and we see this image of a baby in a manger, of a man on a cross, and we wrap Him in our social prejudices and our notion of Him.
I recall the blue-eyed Jesus repped by Jeffery Hunter in King of Kings. I recall a very white Jesus from a picture at the little brick community church where I grew up. It was in the children's Sunday School. It wasn't a lesson I should have learned.
I recall a movie with a black Jesus in an attempt to balance the racial view.
I recall someone saying they never saw an Oriental Jesus, back when that was an acceptable word for Asian.
And a song comes to mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEBI0JhSzz8
I wonder if I would know Him. I will because he will return in the clouds and take us up and I will because he has filled me with the Spirit and I will see beyond the veil. We will all see.
1Co 13:10 But when that which is complete is come, then that which is in part will be no longer necessary.
11 When I was a child, I made use of a child's language, I had a child's feelings and a child's thoughts: now that I am a man, I have put away the things of a child.
12 For now we see things in a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now my knowledge is in part; then it will be complete, even as God's knowledge of me.
13 But now we still have faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
(BBE)
The real danger in Amillennial beliefs lies in these moments we are recounting at the beginning of the end. Right after the Rapture, right after the voice of the Spirit has been refined to the two witnesses and those who will listen. Ministers and preachers in New Age influenced churches, in Amil churches where the ministers are there for the job. for possible glory in the pulpit, In Name Only believers. Leaders will be preaching that this is to be expected, that Jesus wants them to go through these trials up to the end. The examples of Enoch and Noah will never be seen a representative of how He keeps his people from hte Final Judgement of his wrath, from the unleashing of the evil we have fostered by our unbelief and our seeking after false gods.
This examination of Issiah by Chuck Smith touches on both prophecy and false gods in a way that identifies the connection I see in the denial of prophecies about Christ and the growth of the Antichrist in power.
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/smith_chuck/c2000_Isa/Isa_041.cfm
But in the end times, these will be the only gods left and so many will be deceived even as there are those who will not be fooled. There is a mighty revival out there in that wilderness after He has gathered us to Him. The true Jesus will be preached and we will pursue that in a bit later in the blog. For now I want you to know that a false Jesus will be preached and depicted, sometimes in what where actual churches for Him.
My point, the only real one I want to make here is this: everything says it's almost time. Every event from Russia, from the USA, from Europe, from China, indicates we are running out of time here on Earth. There are literally billions of lives at stake every second, waiting to hear the Word, in a way they can understand, in a language they comprehend. Every one of us has reason to say that Word. If we love, if we cafe, if we are here to think of the Master, of his gift, every one of us has a reason to witness. Please do. On what might be the last real Christmas, please do. Witness with your life, with who you are and with your voice. With all the false gods that may remain, every voice now, heard and unanswered will remain in the hearts and minds of those who hear it going into this time. I can't imagine the pressures they will face, to sign with the antichrist or starve to death without the mark. To lose a job for Christ. To maybe lose your family, your hope of tomorrow. But so many face it NOW in so many countries. it will hardly seem like a change. In my safe little USA place, I cry against both today and tomorrow with so much against Him and the power of God for Him and us. Think of them now: think of the ones after the AC begins his reign.
Somewhere to pray for:
https://www.persecution.com/
https://www.compassion.com/sponsor_a_child/default.htm?gclid=CjwKCAiA693RBRAwEiwALCc3u2eBx0PMoNvpBEJA6JIjB_nF6BX2MSazfyWQ-ojWiRmLzu4ocfBKnhoCvXcQAvD_BwE
(Every once in a while I hear a Christmas song that isn't called that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5Tc_B1dBew)
At this time of year things cross my mind related to the end times:
Christmas is a time chosen to celebrate God's' gift to the world: himself in human form, Jesus separate from Him for the first time in eternity.
During this blog, we have seen the Lord with many different faces, from the Angel of the Lord to the human in Flesh amazingly not fallen and then in his Final Spiritual Flesh. In every instance, we see what we were meant to be in perfected flesh, see how we have continually let God down and how he has continually lifted us up. The story reaches everyone, is meant for everyone and changes everyone who believes. It even changes those who don't believe.
But something else abides in my mind, a concern raised by the Antichrist and his coming antics. One voiced by the works of Harlan Ellison and his idea of modern techno gods, one "borrowed" by author Neil Gaiman for his American Gods novels. One episode of the TV series based on that book portrayed on a cable network supposedly displayed Jesus in many different aspects, from the rich guy to "Jesus Prime" the guy who was fully human in their thinking. All the aspects have been appropriated by the "goddess" Ishtar to keep her own power alive with the Easter celebration.
We never discuss how the Christmas celebration was appropriated from the winter solstice pagan worship, using everything from the holly and the mistletoe used in pagan seasonal orgies to the Druidic tree worship, all brought in to bring pagans to the church and church membership seen as salvation. It became a tradition and we see this image of a baby in a manger, of a man on a cross, and we wrap Him in our social prejudices and our notion of Him.
I recall the blue-eyed Jesus repped by Jeffery Hunter in King of Kings. I recall a very white Jesus from a picture at the little brick community church where I grew up. It was in the children's Sunday School. It wasn't a lesson I should have learned.
I recall a movie with a black Jesus in an attempt to balance the racial view.
I recall someone saying they never saw an Oriental Jesus, back when that was an acceptable word for Asian.
And a song comes to mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEBI0JhSzz8
I wonder if I would know Him. I will because he will return in the clouds and take us up and I will because he has filled me with the Spirit and I will see beyond the veil. We will all see.
1Co 13:10 But when that which is complete is come, then that which is in part will be no longer necessary.
11 When I was a child, I made use of a child's language, I had a child's feelings and a child's thoughts: now that I am a man, I have put away the things of a child.
12 For now we see things in a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now my knowledge is in part; then it will be complete, even as God's knowledge of me.
13 But now we still have faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
(BBE)
The real danger in Amillennial beliefs lies in these moments we are recounting at the beginning of the end. Right after the Rapture, right after the voice of the Spirit has been refined to the two witnesses and those who will listen. Ministers and preachers in New Age influenced churches, in Amil churches where the ministers are there for the job. for possible glory in the pulpit, In Name Only believers. Leaders will be preaching that this is to be expected, that Jesus wants them to go through these trials up to the end. The examples of Enoch and Noah will never be seen a representative of how He keeps his people from hte Final Judgement of his wrath, from the unleashing of the evil we have fostered by our unbelief and our seeking after false gods.
This examination of Issiah by Chuck Smith touches on both prophecy and false gods in a way that identifies the connection I see in the denial of prophecies about Christ and the growth of the Antichrist in power.
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/smith_chuck/c2000_Isa/Isa_041.cfm
Now I like this. God makes a challenge to those false gods that the people were worshipping at that time. And He said,
Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and show us what shall happen: let them show the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things that are yet to come. Show the things that are to come after these things, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together. Behold, ye are of nothing, and your work of nought: an abomination is he who chooses you (Isa 41:21-23).
So God speaks out against the worship of the false gods that the Israelites were involved in at this particular period of their history. "Now look, if they're really God, let them tell us something before it happens, so that after it happens we really know that they know what they're talking about." And He's challenging them in the area of prophecy. Now prophecy is one of the strongest arguments for the inspiration of the scriptures. The fact that God has spoken in advance of things that would happen, giving the names of persons, the names of places, and detailing the events that would be happening and the fact that they have been fulfilled becomes one of the strongest arguments for the inspiration of the scriptures.
For you see, when you delve into this area of prophecy, in order to prove the inspiration of the scriptures, it is necessary that you have one hundred percent accuracy. If one word of God failed, then it means that it wasn't God who spoke. But when you have thousands of prophecies that have come to pass exactly as declared, then it begins to give extremely strong evidence that it was indeed God who spoke. Now there was a very tragic day in the history of Israel when the Roman government took away from the Jews the rite of capital punishment. And when the Roman government removed from them the rite of capital punishment, they felt that at that point they had lost their power to govern. For they related capital punishment to government, for when God established human government under Noah, He established it with the provision of capital punishment.
Now you remember when Jacob was pronouncing the prophecies upon his sons on his dying bed, he said unto Judah that, "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah until the Messiah comes" (Genesis 49:10). The sceptre being the ruling power. And when the government of Rome took away in about 12 A.D., they took away from the Jews the power of capital punishment, the rabbis and the priests put on sackcloth. They put ashes on their heads. And for a week they went wailing through the streets of Jerusalem because they said, "God's Word has failed. The scepter has departed. Shiloh has not come." What they didn't know was that in the village of Nazareth at that time He was there growing up. But they really felt that God's Word had failed. And that means that it wasn't God's Word because God's Word can't fail. And to them it was a national disaster that God's Word should fail. But not one word of God's prophecy has failed.
And so God challenges the other gods, "If you're really gods, you say you're gods, all right then, do something. Show yourself. Make us amazed. Tell us something before it happens so that when it comes to pass, we will really know that you are gods." And I love the way God challenges these false gods. Now God goes on to declare,
I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come: from the rising of the sun he shall call upon my name: and he shall come upon princes as upon mortar, and as the potter treadeth clay. Who hath declared from the beginning, that we may know? and beforetime, that we may say, He is righteous? yea, there is none that showeth, yea, there is none that declares, yea, there is none that hears your words (Isa 41:25-26).
God was speaking again of Cyrus. "I've raised up one. He's going to come and you're going to know that I know what I'm talking about. But which of you, the false gods, have declared anything before it happened and it actually came to pass?"
The first shall say to Zion, Behold, behold them: and I will give to Jerusalem one that brings good tidings. For I beheld, and there was no man; even among them, and there was no counselor, that, when I asked of them, could answer a word. Behold, they are all vanity; their works are nothing: their molten images are wind and confusion (Isa 41:27-29).
These false gods that the people were worshipping. God says there's no counselor among them. They're empty. They're vain.
My point, the only real one I want to make here is this: everything says it's almost time. Every event from Russia, from the USA, from Europe, from China, indicates we are running out of time here on Earth. There are literally billions of lives at stake every second, waiting to hear the Word, in a way they can understand, in a language they comprehend. Every one of us has reason to say that Word. If we love, if we cafe, if we are here to think of the Master, of his gift, every one of us has a reason to witness. Please do. On what might be the last real Christmas, please do. Witness with your life, with who you are and with your voice. With all the false gods that may remain, every voice now, heard and unanswered will remain in the hearts and minds of those who hear it going into this time. I can't imagine the pressures they will face, to sign with the antichrist or starve to death without the mark. To lose a job for Christ. To maybe lose your family, your hope of tomorrow. But so many face it NOW in so many countries. it will hardly seem like a change. In my safe little USA place, I cry against both today and tomorrow with so much against Him and the power of God for Him and us. Think of them now: think of the ones after the AC begins his reign.
Somewhere to pray for:
https://www.persecution.com/
https://www.compassion.com/sponsor_a_child/default.htm?gclid=CjwKCAiA693RBRAwEiwALCc3u2eBx0PMoNvpBEJA6JIjB_nF6BX2MSazfyWQ-ojWiRmLzu4ocfBKnhoCvXcQAvD_BwE
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