NOTES FROM THE DESK OF A MODERN CIRCUIT RIDER: – PART II

1. In The Fullness of Time
2. THE NATURE OF THE COMING JUDGMENT
3. The Power of The Parousia

SCRIPTURE. “For you yourselves know perfectly well that the day of the [return of the] Lord is coming just as a thief [comes unexpectedly and suddenly] in the night. While they are saying, ‘Peace and safety [all is well and secure!]’ then [in a moment unforeseen] DESTRUCTION will come upon them suddenly like labor pains on a woman with child, and they will absolutely not escape [for there will be no way to escape the judgment of the Lord].” – 1 THESSALONIANS 5:2-3, AMP; emphasis my own

QUOTATIONS

“The bow of God’s Wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and Justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood.”
― JONATHAN EDWARDS, ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,’ 1741; edited

“I know I have seen the appearance of the Finger of God against this Nation … My directions are simply to CRY ALOUD and share these Warnings in every way possible … I know people will call me an alarmist, a sensationalist, and a preacher of doom and despair. Even well-meaning ministers and Church leaders will refute the message as ‘not from God’ – before they have shut themselves in the secreet closet of prayer to see if these things really be true.” – DAVID WILKERSON, ‘Racing Toward Judgment,’ 1976; edited; emphasis my own

“God’s Wrath, properly, is an aspect of His Love: It is because God Loves human beings with a steady, unquenchable passion that he hated apartheid, that He hates torture and cluster bombs, that He loathes slavery, that His Wrath is relentless against the rich who oppress the poor. If God was not Wrathful against these and so many other distortions of our human vocation, He is not Loving. And it is His Love, determining to deal with that nasty, insidious, vicious, soul-destroying Evil, that causes Him to send His only, special Son.” – N.T. WRIGHT, ‘Lent for Everyone: Mark Year B,’ 2012; edited

“I am the Maker of all things. By My Word were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of My mouth. I spread out the northern skies over empty space; I suspend the earth over nothing. I clothe you with skin and flesh and knit you together with bones and sinews. I form the Light and create Darkness, I bring prosperity and I create disaster.” – ZHANG YUN, ‘Understand God’s Word – Walk in the Truth,’ 2013; edited

Selah. Selah.

1. FIRST THOUGHTS

Like so many of you, I cannot count the number of times I have been called “A Hater,” since I began in 2015 to speak and write so often of Truth and Honor during a time of America’s desperate and accelerating Apostasy from the Christian Canon.

Make no mistake, however: I am not about to make this about ‘me.’ Yet, like you, I am Microcosm of all who face similar viciousness, even from members of our own households and workplaces and even our churches.

My Point: True Christians are under unprecedented and intensifying assault, overwhelmingly and painfully, ‘from within’ our own ranks.

THE DIVISION. Here is superb introduction to the Nature of our Internecine War building inside the Church, that I find compelling – and doctrinally responsible, even refreshing. Please consider the Biblical Wisdom of author and Bible scholar CODY LIBOLT, as he launches his Commentary with a reference to Paul’s Letter to Titus.

And why I sometimes choose to shout.

“‘After a first and second warning REJECT a divisive man [who promotes heresy and causes dissension—ban him from your fellowship and have nothing more to do with him], well aware that such a person is twisted and is sinning; he is convicted and self-condemned [and is gratified by causing confusion among believers].’ – TITUS 3:10-11, AMP (Next Study Series)

Is the Apostle Paul claiming that the person taking a stand for Sound Doctrine is being divisive? Not at all. Consider:

‘I urge you, brothers and sisters, to keep your eyes on those who cause dissensions and create obstacles or introduce temptations [for others] to commit sin, [acting in ways] contrary to the doctrine which you have learned. Turn away from them. For such people do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites and base desires. By smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting [the innocent and the naive].’ – ROMANS 16:17-18, AMP

The Sin of Divisiveness happens when someone promotes Ideas that go ‘against’ the Teaching of the Apostles … If your Pastor is unskilled in moral reasoning, and if he has absorbed a worldview from what is popular in today’s Christian Leadership Industry more than from the Bible itself, then he will likely differ from you about which topics are worth defending or worth dividing over. But The Standard is not determined by your Pastor. It is determined by Scripture.”

Then he presses the argument to these courageous and Truth-honoring Questions for every Priest, Penitent and Pastor in America:

“Is your Pastor standing against the divisive false teachings that seek to take over in your church? Or is he standing against those who try to speak out against those dangerous teachings? If your Pastor’s standards for morality do not line up with Scripture’s, then his ministry is eventually going to be propagating lies and reproducing more liars who will do the same. Do you want to be GIVING your moral imprimatur and financial support to such a man, or to such a church? – “On Division in the Church: Who is the Divisive Man, According to Paul?” ‘Christian Intellectual,’ July 18, 2020; edited; emphasis my own

RIGHT REPLY. Allow me to answer for you, in the words of the Apostle as many as 20 times, as recorded in the New Testament: “May God forbid it!”

1. GOD’S FIRST JUDGMENTS

“For the time [has arrived] for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will [be] the end of those who do not respect or or believe or obey the good news (the Gospel) of God?” – 1 PETER 4:17, AMPC

CULLING THE HERD. This Divine Priority is inexorable in the Kingdom of God, for a number of reasons – some self-evident, others not so much. But one reason is primary, concisely summed up in this Commentary from the EDITORS at ‘Answer for Christians,’ published on February 15, 2021; edited, emphasis my own

“The Lord Jesus said that when He comes back in the Last Days, He will do the work of Harvesting and Winnowing, and will ‘SEPARATE’ the wheat from the tares, and the good servants from the evil. If God Returned in the Last Days only to Judge the unbelievers, how would these prophecies be fulfilled? Actually, in the Last Days, God does the Work of Judgment beginning in the House of God in order to sort people according to their kind. He will ‘Separate’ the sheep from the goats, and the wheat from the tares, that is, Differentiate true believers from false believers, and the righteous from the wicked, and then He will reward good and punish evil …

Just like when the Lord Jesus became flesh and came to work, He revealed the hypocritical priests, scribes, and Pharisees. In the same way, when God becomes flesh in the Last Days to express the Truth and do the Work of Judgment beginning in the House of God, it is also easy to reveal man’s satanic nature. Only in this way can God completely ‘Separate’ the sheep from the goats, and the wheat from the tares, and the good servants from evil servants. Thus, people will be Separated according to their kind, and evil shall be put with evil, good with good. This is the Wisdom of God’s Work.”

THE CHARGE. This is why, beloved, I have repeatedly warned against presuming you ‘get to go’ in the rapidly approaching Rapture of the True Church. Jesus has said as much in absolute, non-negotiable terms, save through Obedience, or in its absence, Repentance.

Therefore, do I challenge us all with this from the Lord’s Apostle:

“Examine and test and evaluate your own selves to see whether you are holding to your faith and showing the proper fruits of it. Test and prove yourselves [not Christ]. Do you not yourselves realize and know [thoroughly by an ever-increasing experience] that Jesus Christ is in you—unless you are [counterfeits] disapproved on trial and rejected?” – PHILIPPIANS 2:12, AMPC

THE SILENT CHURCH. This is also why my voice has admittedly become so strident: The American Church is, by any wise reckoning, nearly fully Asleep at the Helm. They simply will dare not speak with a loud voice (or any voice), to the desperate condition of our Houses of Worship.

Here is an excellent Summary of the primary Reasons that Pastors will not, cannot, Confront the most pressing issues of day. It is by an elderly, humble and exhilaratingly honest Pastor-Teacher named JIM MEYER, in a piece entitled, “Six Reasons Why Most Pastors Won’t Teach on Controversial Issues,” in ‘Restoring Kingdom Builders,’ July 17, 2015.

This article was published nearly one year after the devastating report by DR. GEORGE BARNA that found Pastors refuse to teach on these difficult matters, largely because they are ‘afraid’ – that’s the word – afraid to do anything that would diminish tithes and offerings. Read it for yourselves, beloved. – cf. HEATHER CLARK, “Study Reveals Most Pastors Silent,” ‘Christian News,’ August 12, 2014

THE SIX REASONS. So here is the analysis by Mr. Meyer that summarizes all these findings nicely, and I might add, with more compassion than I have toward them.

1. “First, most pastors are feelers rather than thinkers.”

• “Second, most pastors lack the time or motivation to properly research a controversial issue.”

• “Third, most pastors would rather address spiritual topics than cultural ones.”

• “Fourth, many pastors are afraid they will turn off potential converts by discussing hot topics.”

• “Many pastors are afraid they will hurt or offend people in their congregations.”

• “Finally, many pastors don’t believe that a sermon is the best place to address issues of controversy.”

FEELINGS, FEAR & FAILURE. To summarize this shameful list of beliefs and motives in the Church today from my years of research and observation, it is captured in a single, devastating phrase: FEAR OF MAN.

That’s right: Our Pastors are Terrified (or terrorized, bullied) from pretty much anything or anyone that would offend the congregations, or their peers, or the power brokers in our nation, which would endanger their own position and income.

And we all know what God thinks of that. Or do we? Perhaps a few reminders will help about here; rendered in the AMPC translation.

• PROVERBS 29:25. “The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever leans on, trusts in, and puts his confidence in the Lord is safe and set on high.”

• LUKE 12:4. “I tell you, My friends, do not dread and be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have nothing more that they can do.”

• JOHN 12:42. “And yet [in spite of all this] many even of the leading men (the authorities and the nobles) believed and trusted in Him. But because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, for fear that [if they should acknowledge Him] they would be expelled from the synagogue.”

• 2 TIMOTHY 1:7. “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control.”

• REVELATION 12:11. “And they have overcome (conquered) him by means of the blood of the Lamb and by the utterance of their testimony, for they did not love and cling to life even when faced with death [holding their lives cheap till they had to die for their witnessing].”

I trust God’s Words have made the His Point rather forcefully, in the very Spirit of Jonathan Edwards’ Angry God who has had quite enough, and will not take it anymore. THE GRAPHIC of the Lion of Judah speaks volumes of His Mood, as I discern it by the Scriptures. Selah.

Now to the examination of the Nature of the Coming Judgments upon the Church.

1. THE NATURE OF CHURCH SIN

When Jesus Christ let loose on what I shall call the Religious Establishment of His day – the High Priests, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Scribes, indeed, the entire Governing Order of the Religious Elites, it was for a number of reasons, and TWO in particular.

MATTHEW 23. Here are Christ’s fiery Declarations against these Elites, that represent “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God,” more dramatically than any other in the Gospels. Yes, beloved, God does get angry! In deference to JONATHAN EDWARD’S incandescent Remonstrance in 1741, it behooves us greatly to address a Central Question here:

What makes God Rage?

THE SEVEN WOES. “And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.

Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it.’ Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that ^[e]sanctifies the gold? And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obliged to perform it.’  Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift? Therefore he who swears by the altar, swears by it and by all things on it.  He who swears by the temple, swears by it and by Him who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits on it.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’

Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.” – MATTHEW 23:12-36, NKJV

Selah. Selah.

TWO MORTAL SINS. Now an excursion into the very Heart of our King to discover the two things that He Hates more than any other, especially in His own House.

1. EXALTATION. Taken from the Greek, ‘Hupsoó’ [ὑψόω], translated thus: “To life or raise up [one’s self]; to set on high; haughtiness; to make great; to raise to the very summit of opulence, dignity, honor and happiness [or pleasure]; to elevate in power, wealth or rank [above all others]; to raise with pride; to make undue pretensions to (self) estimation; to magnify, praise or extol [self].”

HYPOCRITE. Here the term, used seven times in a row with Christ’s epic ‘Seven Woes’ (some expositors say eight) is, ‘Hupokrités’ [ὑποκριτής]: “One who answers, an actor; lit. a stage-player; a dissembler, pretender; properly, a judging under, like a performer acting under a mask (i.e. a theater-actor); (figuratively) a two-faced person; a ‘hypocrite,’ whose profession does not match does their practice – i.e., someone who “says one thing but does another;’ in sum, a willful liar.”

COMMENTARY. “PRIDE was the darling, reigning sin of the Pharisees, the sin that most easily beset them, and which our Lord Jesus takes all occasions to speak against … The Scribes and Pharisees were enemies to the Gospel of Christ, and therefore to the salvation of the souls of men. It is bad to keep away from Christ ourselves, but worse also to ‘keep others’ from Him. Yet it is no new thing for the show and form of godliness to be made a cloak to the greatest enormities. But Dissembled Piety will be reckoned Double Iniquity. They were very busy to turn souls to be of their party.” – MATTHEW HENRY, ‘Exposition of the Old and New Testaments,’ 6 vols., 1708-1710; edited; emphasis my own

If anything will ignite the full-orbed Wrath of God, it is this TWO-FOLD ABUSE of the calling of the Teacher or Pastor. He shall no longer abide it in His Houses, as we have run the gamut of His Warnings for some 120 years now (and 6 months).

“¡Se acabó!”

So, to what sort of Judgment? That is the subject of our next section.

1. THE NATURE OF GOD’S JUDGMENT

SCRIPTURE. “For you yourselves know perfectly well that the day of the [return of the] Lord is coming just as a thief [comes unexpectedly and suddenly] in the night. While they are saying, “Peace and safety [all is well and secure!]” then [in a moment unforeseen] DESTRUCTION will come upon them suddenly like labor pains on a woman with child, and they will absolutely not escape [for there will be no way to escape the judgment of the Lord].” – 1 THESSALONIANS 5:2-3, AMP; emphasis my own

Mr. MacDonald again prepares us for study.

CONTEXT. “The guilt of the past would come on the generation or race to which Christ was speaking [Matthew 23:36], as if all previous shedding of blood somehow combined and climaxed in the Death of the sinless Savior. A ‘torrent of punishment’ would be poured out on the Nation that hated its Messiah without a cause and nailed Him to a criminal’s Cross.” – WILLIAM MACDONALD, ‘Believer’s Bible Commentary,’ 1995, p. 1291; edited

I have written of it before: What America and her Church are now doing increasingly during the past four years, is screaming, ‘Give us Barabbas!’ Effectively thereby, Crucifying the Savior a second time. And nothing less!

Therefore, this “Torrent of Punishments” just Prior to His Return.

• SUDDEN DESTRUCTION! From the Greek word, ‘Olethros’ [ὄλεθρος]: “Unexpected ruin, death or injurious force; unhindered corruption; doom, but not necessarily annihilation or extinction; rather it emphasizes the consequent ‘loss’ that goes with the complete ‘Undoing;’ the destruction of the flesh; imp. littleness of faith; in prolonged fashion; demolition; a pulling down; subversion; murder; slaughter; massacre; can mean eternal death.”

• ‘ALL THESE THINGS’. A clear reference to the ‘BIRTH PANGS’ of the Lord’s Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24:4-14, and His specification of the first Five Seals of Revelation 6:1-11: (1) Rise of the spirit of antichrist and the Antichrist himself;(2) False messiahs, and doctrines; (3) Wars and rumors of wars; (4) International and internecine conflicts; (5) Famines, pestilence and earthquakes; (6) Persecution of the saints; (7) A great falling away from the faith; (8) Rapid increase of deception and lawlessness as consequence of accelerating confusion and chaos; (9) False claims and covenants of peace.

COMMENTARY. “The impenitent and wicked world will be sunk in Carnal Security when He comes. They will regard themselves as safe. They will see no danger. They will give no heed to warning. They will be ‘Unprepared’ for His Advent. So it has always been. it seems to be a universal truth in regard to all the Visitations of God to wicked people for punishment, that He comes upon them at a time when they are not expecting Him, and that they have no faith in the Predictions of His Advent. So it was in the time of The Flood; in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Jerusalem; in the overthrow of Babylon: So it is when the sinner dies, and so it will be when the Lord Jesus shall Return to Judge the world.

One of the most remarkable facts about the history of man is, that he takes no Warning from his Maker; he never changes his plans, or feels any emotion, because his Creator thunders damnation along his path,’ and threatens to destroy him in Hell.” – ALBERT BARNES, ‘Notes on the Old and New Testaments,’ 1847-1885; edited

Note here that “the impenitent and wicked” will surely include the countless millions of Apostatized ‘Christians’ who are not only unprepared, but in the Era of Trump, are in active support of the very Spirit of the Beast, having become Christ’s enemy.

SPIRIT OF THE BRUTE. Let me briefly relate a Coffee Shop Incident on July 2, 2021, as a man approached me to angrily order me to “Keep it down! We can hardly have a conversation over here!” My Reply: Not the most Christian as I firmly rebuked his lack of manners, since I sensed I was dealing with the demonic. Turns out his group was talking a big money transfer of $125,000 to fund Trump’s ‘Fake Election’ Narrative.

I daresay these members of ‘Trump Church’ shall not rise with us at The Parousia. That is not the way it works, beloved. Remember this?

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad and easy to travel is the path that leads the way to destruction and eternal loss, and there are many who enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow and difficult to travel is the path that leads the way to [everlasting] life, and there are few who find it.” – JESUS OF NAZARETH, Matthew 7:13-14, Amplified

Selah. Selah.

• FINAL THOUGHTS

For all the Thunder of God’s Voice in this hour, I want to close with a loving reminder that God, even in His fiercest Judgments, acts in Love, Truth and great Power, for the Justice needed to Restore Order to a desperately disordered and disobedient people.

Listen to KING DAVID, as illustration of just who God comes to rescue – and who He comes to battle against.

“May the Lord cut off all flattering lips and the tongues that speak proud boasting, those who say, ‘With our tongues we prevail; our lips are our own [to command at our will]—who is lord and master over us?’ NOW I WILL ARISE, says the Lord, because the poor are oppressed, because of the groans of the needy; I will set him in safety and in the salvation for which he pants.” – PSALM 12:3-5, AMP; emphasis my own.”

CODA. Did you hear that, beloved: ‘He Rises,’ to “set [the righteous] in safety and in the salvation for which he pants.” Even in the midst of our present Chaos and Alarm – He extends what is becoming more and more each day, His Final Offer:

The Pen of MOSES records it beautifully.

“When you are in distress and tribulation and all these things come on you, in the latter days you will return to the Lord your God and listen to His voice.  For the Lord your God is a merciful and compassionate God; He will not fail you, nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them.” – DEUTERONOMY 4:30-31, AMPC

I cannot add anything to these Epochal Promises, save to cry aloud one more time, “Sparing not” (Isaiah 58:1), the loving, urgent and sometimes tearful pleading of so many of you in our many online conversations to your loved ones:

“Get on the Ark!”

Though the Nation is likely lost, there is still room, still a little time, for individuals and families to climb aboard His Ship of Rescue. His Great Storm approaches, beloved, thus by His Command, we are to bring as many as we can along with us. For though we know not the Day nor the hour, we are to know its Season:

‘In the Fullness of His Time.’

Ever your servant, DK