The flood waters in Noahs day lifted up the ready...those who had built the ark in advance. The very same waters drowned those who refused to get ready. The end time tribulation will be the same way: great AND terrible. Turn to Him in wholehearted agreement now...while there is time. Saved is not the same as ready. Do you know what I mean? Jesus told saved people to get ready. Pretrib and midtrib are the same basic eschatology...they both miss the point: the Bride becomes pure and spotless through the tribulation. To hope to be rescued from the tribulation events prevents you from preparing for them! Being ready REALLY pleases Jesus, through. He is offering a plan b to those who really get ready. The tribulation is a test...it is threshing...the harvest method of seeing who is truly His. You dont need to be rescued from Jesus test, but you do want to pass the pretest so you dont have to take the full test like the rest of the world! The Philadelphia Church will be on the earth overcoming, just like the others, but it will be different for them. Trouble wont touch them the same way...because they got ready and persevered in advance. Revelation 3:10 Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth. The tribulation is describing the greatest moment for the ready bride ever...not one she will want to be rescued from. Those who are ready wont want to go away, they will want Jesus to come down! The tribulation will be terrible for the unready people of the church. Jesus promised this: Matthew 25:1-13 “Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten bridesmaids who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. The five who were foolish didn’t take enough olive oil for their lamps, but the other five were wise enough to take along extra oil. When the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep. “At midnight they were roused by the shout, ‘Look, the bridegroom is coming! Come out and meet him!’ “All the bridesmaids got up and prepared their lamps. Then the five foolish ones asked the others, ‘Please give us some of your oil because our lamps are going out.’ “But the others replied, ‘We don’t have enough for all of us. Go to a shop and buy some for yourselves.’ “But while they were gone to buy oil, the bridegroom came. Then those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was locked. Later, when the other five bridesmaids returned, they stood outside, calling, ‘Lord! Lord! Open the door for us!’ “But he called back, ‘Believe me, I don’t know you!’ “So you, too, must keep watch! For you do not know the day or hour of my return. All ten bridesmaids were looking for Jesus to return. Five approached it casually: watching but doing nothing to specifically get ready. The other five got ready in advance. You have to get ready in advance. By the time the whole world knows, it is too late to get ready. What this means is that if you are casually approaching the intense events going on all around us, there will come a time when you will wish you got ready. You will look to those who seemed extreme now and will say help me get ready...and they will look and you and say I cant...it took me time to store up this history of learning my Beloveds plan and then entering into it. that is what Jesus promised. The ready will enter, the unready will be shut out. Saved is not the same as ready. There is promised to be a long dark night. There is promised to be a time of waiting. There is promised to be a need for oil...your history of building readiness with Jesus that will burn in your heart when hearts all around you are failing with fear. If you dont begin earnestly learning readiness now, you will have to endure increased trouble later, and run a massive risk of a failing heart. Jesus doesnt give worthless warnings...He never wasted a word: Luke 21:25-26 “And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. If you think ISIS and Ebola and the other intense things happening on the earth are bad, you have no idea what is coming. We are seeing the first stirrings of tribulation hit the ready church...Smyrna of Revelation 2. She was already ready, which is why tribulation was promised to start there. Tribulation is spreading to unready places as we speak. The world is about to change dramatically...for the better and worse, depending on how ready you have decided you want to be. everyone gets what they want. If you want to go after what the world is chasing, you will get what the world gets: unpleasantly suprised. If you go after Jesus in an abandoned way, you will get Him and all the protection that comes with His presence. It is simple... but it REQUIRES a choice...now...while there is time: Joel 2:11-18 The lord is at the head of the column. He leads them with a shout. This is his mighty army, and they follow his orders. The day of the lord is an awesome, terrible thing. Who can possibly survive? That is why the lord says, “Turn to me now, while there is time. Give me your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Don’t tear your clothing in your grief, but tear your hearts instead.” Return to the lord your God, for he is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He is eager to relent and not punish. Who knows? Perhaps he will give you a reprieve, sending you a blessing instead of this curse. Perhaps you will be able to offer grain and wine to the lord your God as before. Blow the ram’s horn in Jerusalem! Announce a time of fasting; call the people together for a solemn meeting. Gather all the people— the elders, the children, and even the babies. Call the bridegroom from his quarters and the bride from her private room. Let the priests, who minister in the lord ’s presence, stand and weep between the entry room to the Temple and the altar. Let them pray, “Spare your people, lord ! Don’t let your special possession become an object of mockery. Don’t let them become a joke for unbelieving foreigners who say, ‘Has the God of Israel left them?’” Then the lord will pity his people and jealously guard the honor of his land. There is no other plan that will work. Jesus is returning to those who have refused the lie that this is life and have made their lives wait until the author of life returns...those who refuse to settle for anything less than Jesus return. Revelation 19:7-8 Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. There will only be a pure and spotless Bride. Everyone else claiming to be a bride will be threshed out...for real. Luke 3:16-17 John answered, saying to all, “I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather the wheat into His barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.” Jesus said the same thing. The end time reality is unity of the Bride by SANCTIFICATION. That means unity be separation...unity by division. this is a very unsettling concept,but it is Jesus unsettling concept. You have to agree with Jesus if you want Him to be your king. He is not coming to occupy second place. Jesus laid out the broad strokes in John 17: 1. He is not removing people loyal to him from the world. He will keep them safe in the world IF they agree with Him about the Word and sanctification. The word keep in John 17:15 is the exact same word Jesus uses for Philadelphia in Revelation 3:10. This isnt describing the rapture, it is describing being kept through trouble. 2. Jesus set the example when He sanctified himself. He was in the world but NOT of it. He lived different. 3. He sanctified himself so we would live the same way...set apart. 4. He prayed we would be one with Peter, James, and John, and the rest of the wholehearted first disciples. That we would spread the gospel in victory through times of persecution. 5. That we would have a vision for a global harvest that is produced by glory. That living more and more like Jesus would make us look more and more like Him until the literal light of His glory began shining in a tangible way in our faces, our families, our churches, and our cities. This is what began in Acts 5 and will be global in the last days. John 17:15-23 I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth. “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 10:52:18 +0000
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