End Days - He WILL Come Back

If you read the article to which I sent you a link yesterday, do you think our belief of Jesus coming again has any impact on the world?

Yes!

Why?

Apparently any belief in a world beyond this one drives those outside of relationship with Jesus, wild.

Specifically, what is your reaction to:

New Documentary Shows How American Evangelicals Are ‘Praying For Armageddon’ And Pulling The Levers Of Power To Achieve It – CPH:DOX

18 hours ago By Matthew Carey,

Imagine not only believing the world is coming to an end, but wanting it to happen. Eagerly. Then, take it a step further and imagine people with such a mentality engineering American politics and foreign policy to bring about the very thing they seek — the apocalypse.

It may sound outlandish, but there are many well organized fundamentalist Christian leaders and their followers working hard to make this doomsday scenario a reality, an alarming movement explored in the documentary Praying for Armageddon .

Do you believe evangelical, fundamentalist leaders are:

Eagerly wanting and believing the world will end?

Engineering American politics and foreign policy to accomplish ANYTHING?

Seeking the apocalypse, Armageddon?

Well organized?

Among the most prominent of these doomsday evangelists is Pastor John Hagee, who opined in an interview posted to YouTube, “We are in the last days… We are anticipating the rapture of the church at any time.”

The makers of the documentary have made the normal (and Biblical) Christian belief that we are in the last days and the anticipation of the coming of Jesus into a weird, demented, horrible thing.”

Acts 2:14–21 (LSB) But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them: “Men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give heed to my words. 15 “For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is the third hour of the day; 16 but this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 17 ‘AND IT SHALL BE IN THE LAST DAYS,’ God says, ‘THAT I WILL POUR OUT MY SPIRIT ON ALL MANKIND; AND YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS SHALL PROPHESY, AND YOUR YOUNG MEN SHALL SEE VISIONS, AND YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS; 18 EVEN ON MY MALE SLAVES AND FEMALE SLAVES, I WILL IN THOSE DAYS POUR OUT MY SPIRIT And they shall prophesy. 19 ‘AND I WILL PUT WONDERS IN THE SKY ABOVE AND SIGNS ON THE EARTH BELOW, BLOOD, AND FIRE, AND VAPOR OF SMOKE. 20 ‘THE SUN WILL BE TURNED INTO DARKNESS AND THE MOON INTO BLOOD, BEFORE THE GREAT AND AWESOME DAY OF THE LORD COMES. 21 ‘AND IT WILL BE THAT EVERYONE WHO CALLS ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.’

Titus 2:11–13 (LSB) For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, 12 instructing us that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, 13 looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,

1 Corinthians 1:4–8 (LSB) I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, 5 that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all word and all knowledge, 6 even as the witness about Christ was confirmed in you, 7 so that you are not lacking in any gift, eagerly awaiting the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will also confirm you to the end, beyond reproach in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 9:27–28 (LSB) And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, 28 so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.

Revelation 22:20 (LSB) He who bears witness to these things says, “Yes, I am coming quickly.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

If this sounds fringe, consider that Hagee enjoyed access to the Trump White House, and described the 45th president as divinely appointed. “I believe in the core of my being,” he has said, “that God put this man in office at this time.” Hagee personally lobbied Trump to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a decision Trump went on to make over the fierce objections of Palestinians who regard East Jerusalem as the capital of their hoped-for state. Hagee was one of two pastors invited to the opening of the new U.S. embassy in 2018.

Fundamentalist Christians believe that for the Second Coming of Christ to occur, Jerusalem must be controlled by the Jewish people. That’s a necessary precursor to the end times, when the Christian faithful will be “raptured” (i.e brought up to Heaven) before the Earth is destroyed.

According to this eschatology, “Israel has to be strong,” Schei explains. “For the evangelicals this means that the Jewish people need to return to the Holy Land and that the Palestinian people must be expelled from Israel. In their belief, Israel has to claim more land as is prophesized in the book of Revelations.”

Do you agree with this characterization of our beliefs?

If so, where do you see "Jerusalem controlled; “Palestinians”; and “Israel claim more land” expelled as prophesied in Revelation?

This apocalyptic ideology has received a warm embrace from many conservatives in Congress. The documentary highlights the work of Ralph Drollinger, founder of Capitol Ministries, who leads regular Bible study meetings with members of Congress and did the same with Trump’s cabinet. According to the Capitol Ministries website, “Good legislation is important, but men and women can hardly be expected to make policies in accordance with sound, Biblically based principles if they are at odds with the author of Scripture… We believe that the objective of evangelizing and discipling political leaders is of the highest importance in the Capital Community.”

“Drollinger, he’s a big villain to me,” Schei comments. “Just to see the whole architecture of how they are grooming top level politicians with Bible studies and giving them biblical justifications and language in order to get their policies through.”

How horrible! Drollinger is capturing top level politicians, torturing them until they confess Jesus, and then brainwashing them with (GASP!) the Bible.

Politics is not the only arena where fundamentalist Christians are attempting to transform society. Televangelist Paula White, a spiritual advisor to Trump during his presidency, is among the adherents of the Seven Mountains Mandate, a movement that began in the mid-1970s with the intent to take over seven “spheres” of society.

“They want to take control of the most important institutions in the U.S.,” Schei says, including education, religion, family, business, government/military, arts/entertainment and media. “There is this mandate and there seems to be sort of an overarching plan that they are working towards.”

Take control?

Yes, for many years I have promoted praying for the 7 Mountains of Culture.

Do I pray that God will restore a Biblical worldview to those in these areas? Yes.

2009 - (before I was here) I asked our church to pray for the 7 mountains of culture:

Prayer List in 2020: 7 Mountains of Culture

Please pray for these 7 “mountains” of our culture: GOVERNMENT | MILITARY| MEDIA | BUSINESS |

EDUCATION| CHURCH | FAMILY.

SUPREME COURT COURT - 1892 - CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY VS U.S.

Involved the application of a federal law forbidding the importation of foreign contract laborers in a church hiring a pastor from England.

Justice David J. Brewer declaring that the United States is a “Christian nation.”

He provided an overview of references to God in official documents from U.S. history, beginning with the commission to Christopher Columbus and continuing through colonial charters, state constitutions, and oaths of office.

He wrote:

"Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind, and it's impossible that it should be otherwise: and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian."

But we have lost this in U.S. culture. We have lost a Biblical foundation.

The 7 mountains prayer is for a recovery of Biblical foundations — not whatever they mean by “control.”

Praying for Armageddon indicates doomsday evangelicals are making considerable headway within America’s armed forces. In the film, investigative journalist Lee Fang interviews retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a former advisor to Gen. Colin Powell, describing Wilkerson as “concerned about the role of evangelical Christian nationalists in the military.”

“Chaplains are increasingly coming from the fundamentalist sects,” Col. Wilkerson points out. “These evangelical fundamentalist chaplains go to some place where basic training graduates and they say beforehand… ‘These troops are at their most vulnerable. They’ve been wracked and trained to death. Go get ‘em.’” Col. Wilkerson adds that at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina, “they had something like 70 baptisms… at the end of basic training exercises. And they proselytize and get them, take them down and baptize them and then they’re part of the Christian nationalists.”

How terrible! That chaplains would minister to new recruits. So much better if we give them over to a culture of alcohol and prostitutes.

70! Out of how many thousands?

No worse epithet: “Christian nationalist.”

Comments:

John Daniels 11h ago

Hagee, is a crackpot. I'm 58, came to saving faith in Christ, 40 years ago. I'm not PUSHING for the world to end, as much as I'd RATHER be with Jesus, in Heaven, certainly at my advancing age. But I AM expecting it, and just waiting for my Savior's return. But Scripture tells us that it's all in HIS time. There's NOTHING humans can do, to ADVANCE, or DELAY, His coming.

Really? I just read this Sunday:

2 Peter 3:11–13 (LSB) Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens burning will be destroyed, and the elements will melt with intense heat! 13 But according to His promise we are looking for NEW HEAVENS AND A NEW EARTH, in which righteousness dwells.

What stops Jesus from coming right now?

2 Peter 3:9 (AMP) The Lord does not delay and is not tardy or slow about what He promises, according to some people’s conception of slowness, but He is long-suffering (extraordinarily patient) toward you, not desiring that any should perish, but that all should turn to repentance.

Matthew 24:14 (LSB) “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be proclaimed in the whole world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.

Uncle Tio 8h ago

the attacks on Christianity continues.

📷Christians are doing it to themselves. Andrew Chase 6h ago

As we study this lesson it is a breath of fresh air in the foul dung heap of our current culture.

The standards of current society are so-o-o far from its Biblical underpinnings it stinks!

Wednesday Bible Study End Times -He Will Come Back

March 22, 2023

The word heaven brings various images to people’s minds. An old Christian song says, “This world is not my home. I’m just-a passing through. My treasures are laid up, somewhere beyond the blue.”

Group Discussion: What thoughts and feelings do the words of this song evoke?

Personal Reflection:In Robert Frost’s poem “Death of the Hired Man,” the hired hand Silas comes home to die. The old farmer, reflecting on the inconvenience this will mean, says:

“Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”

The farmer’s wife had a better grasp of the matter when she replied,

“I should have called it something you somehow haven’t to deserve.”

What thoughts and feelings does the word home awaken in you?

I had a dysfunctional home growing up, and I am sure the home I tried to create is far-far from what it should have been — but I guess I have a romanticized version of home in my memory:

A place where people love one another

Care for one another

Make allowances for one another

Purpose: To explore the relevance of our present experience of the Holy Spirit to the process of waiting for the Second Coming of Jesus.

In this study we discover how Jesus in his farewell address promises an eternal home to his followers. Remarkably, in John’s Gospel the time between the farewell of Jesus in his earthly body until his Second Coming is not a time of empty waiting.

If we will one day have an eternal dwelling with God, we may immediately have a real experience of the presence of Jesus through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, called the Comforter or Advocate in John’s Gospel.

John’s special contribution to end-times living is his emphasis on the continuity between life in Christ now (through the Spirit) and the life we will have when the end fully comes.

In both cases our home with God is “something you somehow haven’t to deserve”—a matter of sheer grace.

Read John 14:1–14.

1. What indications does Jesus give that our ultimate destiny is much more than a mere place like an unassigned hotel room (vv. 1–4)?

Question 1. Remarkably Jesus stresses the ministry of preparing heaven for us rather than merely preparing us for heaven!

The meaning of monai (“rooms,” v. 2) is not entirely clear.

Only used in John 14 (also in verse 23)

While some have translated this “mansions” or “resting places,” it appears from the context that permanent abodes are meant.

While nothing is said about the nature of the place being prepared, it is enough to know that the believer will be with Jesus.

In this passage “where” gives way to “how” and ultimately to “who.”

Even the Second Coming, which has a lesser place in the fourth Gospel in comparison to the others, is presented in these personal, Christ-centered terms:

Christ must come again to take us to our ultimate home.

2. What reason does Jesus give here for the importance of his coming back a second time after his death and resurrection?

That where He is WE will be.

He longs for and WANTS us to be with Him.

3. How is it possible for true disciples of Jesus to decide not to be troubled as they face the unknown future, even the prospect of death?

We get to decide?

How?

By choosing upon what we focus:

Psalm 43:5 (LSB) Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why are you disturbed within me? Wait for God, for I shall still praise Him, The salvation of my presence and my God.

By choosing to focus and stand upon the promises of God revealed in His Word:

Isaiah 43:1–2 (LSB) But now, thus says Yahweh, your Creator, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine! 2 “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, Nor will the flame burn you.

Does promises made to Jacob or Israel apply to us?

Romans 2:28–29 (LSB) For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. 29 But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.

Romans 11:11- 24 - speaks of being “grafted in.”

Jesus does not make this statement in a vacuum.

Question 3. In John 13 Peter has just heard that he will deny the Lord three times.

A great trial is imminent.

And now Jesus is speaking of his departure.

They have left everything to follow him and now he is leaving them.

So Jesus is not speaking to people who are untroubled, but rather to those racked with anxiety.

The reasons for faith offered in this chapter are not merely rational but include their experience of the Spirit, who will be given when Jesus leaves.

So great is this coming assurance that Jesus dares to say, “If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I” (Jn 14:28).

4. How does this promise of Jesus (to prepare a place for us) help you to face your life-challenges with faith rather than fear?

The future is NOT an unknown.

It is a place my loving Savior, who died on the Cross for MY sins, has prepared for me.

We KNOW (Know fully; understand, recognize) that through the Holy Spirit given to us. The Holy Spirit places a CERTAINTY within us:

1 Corinthians 2:12 (NLT) And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.

1 Corinthians 2:12 (AMP) Now we have not received the spirit [that belongs to] the world, but the [Holy] Spirit Who is from God, [given to us] that we might realize and comprehend and appreciate the gifts [of divine favor and blessing so freely and lavishly] bestowed on us by God.

Not “hope so” — Know fully; understand, recognize

5. What deep need does Jesus claim to meet through his answer to Thomas’s question (vv. 5–7)?

Question 5. Often the claims of Jesus to be the way (and not merely to show the way), to be the truth, and to be the life are taken to be exclusionary, and Christians are criticized for their bigoted claims.

However, it is important to note that it is Jesus who makes these claims for Himself and not merely Christians who are making statements about their religion.

In contrast to the claims of religious leaders who offer hope and blessing for the spiritually enlightened, Jesus offers relationship with Himself as an all-sufficient way that could potentially include everyone.

Philip’s question (14:8) is a veiled request for a revelation of God such as occurred occasionally in the Old Testament (Ex 24:10; 33:17; Is 6:1).

Jesus’ answer is that the Father and the Son live in such mutual interpenetration that Jesus is truly the full and final revelation of the Father.

To see Jesus is to see the Father (Jn 1:18; 12:45; 13:20).

As Leon Morris says, “Faith that there is a mutual indwelling of the Father and the Son is part of the faith whereby a man commits himself to Christ. If there is no such indwelling there can scarcely be full commitment” (Morris, Gospel, p. 645).

6. What ultimate desire does Jesus claim to satisfy through His answer to Philip’s question (vv. 8–10)?

To see the Father.

Read John 14:16–27

7. What fresh meaning does Jesus now bring to the statement “I will come to you” (14:18)?

Question 7. This question has led many scholars to argue that for John’s audience, now discouraged that Christ has not come back soon after his ascension, the real hope is their present experience of the Holy Spirit. This is the Second Coming. And in a limited sense this view is partly correct. As “another” paraclete (meaning comforter or legal friend), the Holy Spirit is, as it were, another Jesus to the disciples. In John’s Gospel the Spirit is closely linked with the work of Jesus—making Jesus present and interpreting his words. The Spirit is the presence of Jesus when Jesus is absent. C. K. Barrett says, “The Spirit’s work is to bear witness to Christ [and] to make operative what Christ had already effected. The Spirit is thus the eschatological continuum in which the work of Christ, initiated in his ministry and awaiting its termination at his return, is wrought out” (quoted in Gary M. Burge, The Anointed Community: The Holy Spirit in the Johannine Tradition [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1987], pp. 83–84). The coming of the Holy Spirit continues and completes the ministry of Jesus. This is expressed in the five sayings of the Spirit in John: (1) “he lives with you and will be in you” (14:16–17); (2) he “will teach you all things” (14:26); (3) “he will testify about me” (15:26); (4) “he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment” (16:7–11); and (5) “he will guide you into all truth” (16:13–15). But to the question “Is the paraclete in fact Jesus returned?” we must answer no, even if only John’s Gospel were considered. Jesus’ use of the words going and coming have a double reference: to the coming of the eschatological Spirit, and to his final coming in glory.

8. What new dimension of the meaning of “home” does Jesus now explore (v. 23)?

Question 8. This is the only use of monē (“room”) other than verse 2. And here it is reinterpreted to point not to a heavenly dwelling but to a present indwelling of the Father and the Son in the believer through the Spirit (v. 17). As Gary Burge shows, Judas’s question in verse 22 points to the expectation of a personal, visible return of Christ in the clouds so that every eye will see him. “But John 14 presents a new definition. Jesus’ personal indwelling along with the Father (vv. 23–24) will be Judas’s own personal epiphany” (Anointed Community, p. 144).

9. In what ways will the presence of the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, be an appearance of Christ?

Question 9. John’s special contribution to living in the end times is this double “coming” of Jesus, first in the Spirit, who is in a real sense Jesus come back. Indeed, while the disciples might have been satisfied with fellowship with Jesus alone, it would not be possible to have a permanent indwelling of Jesus without the coming of the Spirit (Jn 20:22). From our postascension perspective one cannot be a Christian without an encounter with the dynamic Spirit.

Why will the coming of the Spirit not be the complete Second Coming of Jesus?

Question 9. But the second meaning of “coming” points to Christ’s final coming that is suggested when Jesus speaks of “my Father’s house” (14:2) and promises to take the disciples to be with him (14:3). Having the Spirit is even better than having Jesus in the flesh. And having Christ come again visibly and finally in history is best of all!

10. How does your present experience of the Spirit affect your time of waiting for Jesus to come back?

11. What prerequisites must be met to be “at home” with God?

Thank the Father, Son and Spirit for making a home in you.

Now or Later

The passage as a whole provides multiple reasons for believing in Jesus:

(1) To believe in Jesus is the same as to believe in God (v. 1), that is, faith in Jesus is not something additional to believing in God since there is no other way to God than through Jesus (v. 6).

(2) The words of Jesus are not his own but are the true words of God (v. 6).

(3) The works that Jesus does are signs that point to God who is working through him. The “greater works” that will be accomplished by disciples when Jesus leaves are most probably centered in the mighty works of conversion that will be accomplished through the Spirit.

The coming of the Holy Ghost was not merely to supply the absence of the Son but to complete His presence.

Bishop Gore[1]

Stevens, R. P. (2004). End Times: 13 Studies for Individuals or Groups: With Notes for Leaders (pp. 68–70). IVP Connect: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press.