The End of the Age and What God is Doing in Our Time
As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your Presence and of the end of the age?” Matthew 24:3
Remember the former things from long ago,
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me.
Declaring from the beginning the end
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all my good pleasure.”
Isaiah 46:9-10
If calamity <evil> comes to a city,
has not the LORD caused it?
Surely the Lord GOD does nothing
without revealing His plan
to His servants the prophets.
Amos 3:6-7
“My Father is working until now, and I am working.”
John 5:17
* * *
For All Who Have Truly Longed for His Presence
* * *
What has come upon the world and humanity in our day? Violence and bloodshed is so ubiquitous that many have become inured to it. Fraud and theft and injustice are the order of the day. It seems more pervasively chaotic and comprehensive than anything ever seen in all of human history. And it borders on the definitive words of Daniel 12:1, “And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time.” Where are we headed and where is God in it all?
There is a dialectic playing out everywhere between a systematic theft of all resources and oppression of human beings and all of life in order to obtain through legerdemain, that hegemony which would overarch all societies of the globe, and a world-wide cry for freedom on the part of all subjugated peoples, recognizing that there is but one Sovereign, God, and all others must govern themselves accordingly.
The Satanic urge to govern others and rule over them which is rising as part of the image of the Beast in our time, inspired Thomas Paine to write Common Sense in 1776. In that work he wrote the words which form the title of this article. The time hath found us. He also wrote
“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated” ― Thomas Paine, The Crisis (Dec. 23, 1776)
And as we see it playing out in our own local dominion, we must understand it to be a maquette of the struggle for humanity, which in the end is the struggle to loose ourselves from slavery to sin and death, from subjugation to the image of The Beast.
The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested. The laying a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling; of which Class, regardless of Party Censure, is the AUTHOR. (Common Sense, 1776)
In fact, the Savior Christ Jesus actually listed the principal features of the end of the age when asked by his disciples what the end of this aeon would look like, namely that time which is known also as the parousia (Gk.), the time of His “presence.” And His description resembles our time by more than a little.
Does this actually mean we are in the time of His presence? We may well be, and must return to that question in its appointed time.
For if we answer that affirmatively, then we know much better what God is at work doing and what is soon to come upon us. In Tom Paine’s words made more famous by contemporary members of Congress:
The time hath found us.
Returning, then, to the litany of features which Christ presented to the disciples upon the Mount of Olives just two days before Passover (Matt. 24-25), we see a broad and brief sweep of wars, famines, earthquakes, persecution for His Name’s sake, betrayal by intimates, false prophets, and the misleading of many. All of these seem to have been constant throughout the last two millennia though perhaps heightened in our time.
But it is the final epitome of Sin given in verse 12 that characterizes our era as no other: lawlessness.
Because of the multiplication of lawlessness, the love of the many shall be cooled off.
There it is – in the causative use of the preposition dia, ‘through,’ or ‘by means of,’ – but here, ‘on account of ’ – the two terms are related by cause, with the one expressed as the cause of the other. The chilling of love – perhaps “the love you had at first” Rev. 2:4 – is a direct consequence of the rise or multiplication of lawlessness.
And can there be any doubt in a country where there was no king, but where can a king be found in this country of ours? Again, Tom Paine supplies a fitting response:
Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. But where, say some, is the King of America? I’ll tell you, friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Great Britain… so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. (Common Sense, 1776)
But we are not here to sing the praises of Thomas Paine, a patriot who did not comprehend the solid virtue of God’s Word and ended up blaspheming it out of ignorance. He was a believer in God, but knew not God, for our King authored the Law. Nonetheless, his insights into the human condition and the circumstances of our governance are valuable and bring us to the precipice of seeing the distant plain with greater clarity.
The end of the age is at hand. “The time hath found us.”
And in Christ’s great litany of discernable features, it is the remarkable decline of love, as a consequential characteristic of a rising tide of lawlessness that screams at us. For, much of the recitation of features of Christ’s advent points to external, negative events that are troubling enough. But the lawlessness delineates a stark contrast in that it uncovers an internal, spiritual change consequent to it: the cooling off of love.
And of all places where we see this increase, is it not in Christ’s own church, His very own body, where this should be most definitive? For the context of this enumeration of signs of His Presence and coming is that many would come touting His Name, pointing to Jesus Christ and still misleading. How can that be?
How can it be that evangelical leaders of the Christian religion can tolerate sexual shamelessness in our leaders, support the evisceration of the rights of people of color, the stripping of financial support from the poor, and the incarceration of children and separation from their parents, simply because they sought a refuge in this so-called “shining city on a hill?”
They have committed the violations of love and justice that bring a swift retributive movement from the hand of the Almighty. Listen to the prophet:
Again I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, a flying scroll! And he said to me, “What do you see?” I answered, “I see a flying scroll. Its length is twenty cubits, and its width ten cubits.” Then he said to me, “This is the curse that goes out over the face of the whole land. For everyone who steals shall be cleaned out according to what is on one side, and everyone who swears falsely shall be cleaned out according to what is on the other side. I will send it out, declares the Lord of hosts, and it shall enter the house of the thief, and the house of him who swears falsely by my name. And it shall remain in his house and consume it, both timber and stones.” (Zechariah 5:1-4)
Church leaders, both priest and prophet have stolen from the poor and sworn falsely to their Lord, proclaiming justice, but denying it to “the least of these.” Their whole house shall be consumed and reduced to ash. Just as Jerusalem of old, the House of God occupied by Babylon has taken the name of the Lord in vain, and has proved false to the Law of Love of their Lord, and so will be cursed with the plagues of Babylon. (Rev. 18)
Our leaders have long left behind the love they had at first, and long violated the fulfillment of the law as we see it articulated in Paul’s Galatians letter.
For the whole law has been fulfilled in one word, you shall be loving your neighbor as yourself. (Gal. 5:14)
In this fashion it is deftly demonstrated that the Law and Love are inseparably united, it is the commandment we have had from the beginning (1 John 2:5-7). Love is the first and last word of the Law, it IS the Law.
And what is the consequence of violation of God’s commandment? Without repentance and a return to the deeds they did at first
I am coming to you and I will remove your lampstand out of its place. (Rev. 2:5)
Yes! The whole house will be burned, timbers and stones. The Church of lawlessness will be no more. Jerusalem will NOT be spared. As one of the great prophets proclaimed:
And the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, when a land sins against me by acting faithlessly, and I stretch out my hand against it and break its supply of bread and send famine upon it, and cut off from it man and beast, even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness, declares the Lord God.
“If I cause wild beasts to pass through the land, and they ravage it, and it be made desolate, so that no one may pass through because of the beasts, even if these three men were in it, as I live, declares the Lord God, they would deliver neither sons nor daughters. They alone would be delivered, but the land would be desolate.
“Or if I bring a sword upon that land and say, Let a sword pass through the land, and I cut off from it man and beast, though these three men were in it, as I live, declares the Lord God, they would deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they alone would be delivered.
“Or if I send a pestilence into that land and pour out my wrath upon it with blood, to cut off from it man and beast, even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, declares the Lord God, they would deliver neither son nor daughter. They would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness.
“For thus says the Lord God: How much more when I send upon Jerusalem my four disastrous acts of judgment, sword, famine, wild beasts, and pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast! But behold, some survivors will be left in it, sons and daughters who will be brought out; behold, when they come out to you, and you see their ways and their deeds, you will be consoled for the disaster that I have brought upon Jerusalem, for all that I have brought upon it. They will console you, when you see their ways and their deeds, and you shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, declares the Lord God.” (Ezekiel 14:12-23)
With this stark imagery we can behold visual echoes of the conditions on earth and in our nation particularly, where we are seeing the rising death count based upon the effects of the corona virus, the attendant stress on the food supply which is likely to eventuate in famine here in America, by violence perpetrated by neighbor upon neighbor, and finally the destructive passions of “wild beasts,” those who exemplify the image of the beastly human nature of the old man.
If we are scrupulously honest with ourselves, we can behold in each of the four judgments upon us, the consequences of the increase in lawlessness and the attendant cooling off of love in the greater number. These are the signs of the closing of the aeon which Jesus spoke from Olivet. We see all of his ‘signs’ displayed, but the demise of love is the greatest of these signs, and the reason for which, by virtue of its lack of faithfulness to God, the judgment of the Almighty has come upon us.
And by this sign we can discern that the end of the age has come upon us. This lawlessness is the end time zeitgeist – the ‘spirit of the age.’ The time has, indeed, found us. This is what the Presence of Christ returning looks like – the nations are in turmoil and all the lofty are being brought low. Babylon, the unassailable city is to be brought down quickly (Isaiah 26:5) – “For in one hour your judgment has come.” (Rev. 18:10)
What is God doing?
So the end of the age has come upon us at last, and the world is deepening in its chaos and the pangs of rebirth (Matt. 24:8), and what is God doing about it? The people have supposedly longed for the return of Christ, and yet they want His coming the way they envision it, and not as God said it will be.
Well, if we want the truth, we may hear words we do not want to hear, as in Jeremiah’s time before the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar and the sacking of Jerusalem. But the prophets of today, the seers of end-time Babylon want to give smooth words, and the people of Israel want to hear smooth sayings.
Go now, write it on a tablet in their presence
and inscribe it on a scroll;
it will be for the days to come,
a witness forever and ever.
These are rebellious people, deceitful children,
children unwilling to obey the LORD’s instruction.
They say to the seers,
“Stop seeing visions!”
and to the prophets,
“Do not prophesy to us the truth!
Speak to us smooth words;
prophesy illusions.
Get out of the way; turn off the road.
Rid us of the Holy One of Israel!”
Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says:
“Because you have rejected this message,
trusting in oppression and relying on deceit,
This iniquity of yours is like a breach about to fail,
a bulge in a high wall,
whose collapse will come suddenly—
in an instant!
It will break in pieces like a potter’s jar,
shattered so that no fragment can be found.
Not a shard will be found in the dust
large enough to scoop the coals from a hearth
or to skim the water from a cistern.”
For the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said:
“By repentance and rest
you would be saved;
your strength would lie in quiet confidence—
but you were not willing.” Isaiah 30:8-15
Do these words not resound against the empire of America? Do the Lord’s pronouncements not dig like ox goads into the flesh of the princes of Judah in this land of the New Jerusalem, this America? The oppression of indigenous tribes, or African people bought and sold, of brown people bent over in the sun to pick food for the fat who rest at ease in Zion?
Isaiah’s words are every bit as true today: “These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to obey the LORD’s instruction.”
And what is that instruction? “Bear one another’s burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ.” (Gal. 6:2) It is really that simple, and yet the Church as the end-time House of Israel heeds it not.
It should not be a mystery that God’s curse comes upon them as promised. (Mal. 4:6)
By this we are given a part of the answer to what God is doing in our time. He is fulfilling His promises, both as to blessings and as to curses. He is working until today.
He is causing calamity (evil) to come to the city – namely Jerusalem/Babylon. But why would God do that? The anguished words of the Lord tell us.
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling! (Luke 13:34)
But to be gathered, they must be brought down, reduced to dust, humbled and then shown mercy. (Romans 11:32, Isaiah 2)
Shouldn’t the shepherds know what the Lord is doing? How is it that teachers of Israel cannot disclose what is the Lord’s work today? Look at the words of Amos in the header quote above. God reveals all He is doing to His servants the prophets.
Why is the Lord not helping in this Covid-19 crisis? Why is America the hardest hit of the developed nations? The answer to these questions, I believe, helps to reveal exactly what the Lord is doing, and it is NOT NOTHING.
If YHWH does nothing without revealing His plan to His servants the prophets, how can all of the prophets of the internet today be blind and oblivious to what the Lord is doing in our time, particularly when the signs indicate the end of the age has come upon us?
The Almighty is either bringing about the judgment of the nations and is now Present through Christ in this action, or He is impotent in allowing His creation, even Satan to determine the outcome of events in these end days.
Even Albert Einstein could not accept this kind of God, once saying, “I do not believe God plays dice with the universe.” An all-wise, all-loving, all-knowing God would not leave salvation up to chance.
This understanding about our Creator forces us to delve deeper into the truth of what He has revealed to the prophets, and thus, what He is doing in our time, the end of the age.
And a difficult truth it is. Is the American Church ready to live through the words of Ezekiel 14? With all of the exceptionalism of America, can the pastors and deacons and teachers grapple with God’s judgment on this land that has long conceived itself beyond the Lord’s scorn? Hear His pronouncement through the shepherd Amos:
Woe to those at ease in Zion and those secure on Mount Samaria, the distinguished ones of the foremost nation, to whom the house of Israel comes. (Amos 6:1)
Yes, America is as Zion, fattened and content, and at ease with her many gods as she swears falsely by the name of the Lord, and she has said calamity will not come unto her, but in an instant she will be brought down.
And evil has come to the city – Babylon, the unassailable city (Isaiah 26:5), America, the city on a hill, Jerusalem the city of peace – yes, evil has come to the city by sword, by famine, and now yes, by pestilence, by the coronavirus outbreak, evil has come to this city; and it is from the hand of the Lord.
The Word of God cannot be broken – and God has proclaimed that He has caused it.
Why else would the wealthiest, most militarily powerful nation in the world, with the most advanced medical technology, be stricken by a virus beyond what any other nation has experienced? It is from the hand of the Lord, and the sooner that the religious leaders of this nation can repent and confess their sins to the Lord, the sooner can this plague be stopped. Note the plague that struck Israel in the wilderness (Nu 16:41-50).
Let’s examine a few words of YHWH’s disclosure of His plans for the nations.
God is bringing down the pride of Man. God is exercising His Plan to bring down Babylon (Jer. 50:45-6). He is working until now to accomplish all His good pleasure; He is guiding Man into the perfecting of his being. This is the fulfillment of YHWH’s promise to restore Zion (Isa. 52:8), completing the mystery of God (Rev. 10:7).
Babylon, the unassailable city, the kingdom of this world, the Harlot, and all her children, the synagogue of Satan – these are but a few of the descriptors and metonyms which the Lord has employed to describe this ‘Wickedness,’ the woman in the ephah in Zechariah 5, she who is consigned to destruction. Her judgment is declared incontrovertibly by the voice of Isaiah
I will punish the world for its evil,
and the wicked for their iniquity;
I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant,
and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless. Isaiah 13:11
In a remarkably poetic execration of the entire proud assembly of mankind, Isaiah the prophet speaks to the humbling of the proud in the last days, the day of the Lord:
For the Lord of hosts has a day
against all that is proud and lofty,
against all that is lifted up—and it shall be brought low;
Against all the cedars of Lebanon,
lofty and lifted up;
and against all the oaks of Bashan;
Against all the lofty mountains,
and against all the uplifted hills;
Against every high tower,
and against every fortified wall;
Against all the ships of Tarshish,
and against all the beautiful craft.
And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled,
and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low,
and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.
And the idols shall utterly pass away.
And people shall enter the caves of the rocks
and the holes of the ground, (cf. Rev. 6:15-17)
From before the terror of the Lord,
and from the splendor of his majesty,
when he rises to terrify the earth. Isaiah 2:12-19
While Christendom and the secular political community both want deliverance from the wicked system of darkness of this world, neither wants what it takes for that to happen, for the kingdom of righteousness to be established. The Christian community wants Christ to come – so they say – but do not want what it takes for the kingdom to be established, viz. sweeping away the wicked from before the king. (cf. Proverbs 25:5)
Sadly, they will not give up the precious idols of their hearts – and therein lies the reason for the collapse of their own little fiefdom within the kingdom of this world. The book of Revelation portrays a humanity worshipping demons and the work of their own hands – two symbols of idolatry. Long ago the Lord had declared it to His people as the “stumbling block of their iniquity,” as the prophet Ezekiel wrote:
“Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts, and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? Therefore speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Any one of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols, that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from me through their idols.
“Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: Repent and turn away from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations. Ezekiel 14:3-6
And what is the Lord’s purpose? Is it retributive justice, or is it according to the counsel of His will that He may find a way to lay hold of the hearts of His people. His will is to establish His kingdom on earth, and through repentance and rest, some will enter in.
How does the following declaration come about?
Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying,
“We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty,
who is and who was,
For you have taken your great power
and begun to reign.
The nations raged,
but your wrath came,
and the time for the dead to be judged,
And for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints,
and those who fear your name,
both small and great,
And for destroying the destroyers of the earth.”
Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.
Revelation 11:15-19
The way for the kingdom of God to be established was known long before Christ came to His people:
Take away the wicked from the presence of the king,
and his throne will be established in righteousness. Proverbs 25:5
But we have a second witness to this principle beyond the words of Solomon the king. We have the parable told by the King of kings, Christ Jesus Himself. It is the parable of the nobleman in Luke 19, and addresses some of the lesser known salient features of the judgment coming with the establishment of His Kingdom.
As they heard these things, he proceeded to tell a parable, because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. He said therefore, “A nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return. Calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten minas, and said to them, ‘Engage in business until I come.’ But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to reign over us.’ When he returned, having received the kingdom, he ordered these servants to whom he had given the money to be called to him, that he might know what they had gained by doing business. The first came before him, saying, ‘Lord, your mina has made ten minas more.’ And he said to him, ‘Well done, good servant! Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities.’ And the second came, saying, ‘Lord, your mina has made five minas.’ And he said to him, ‘And you are to be over five cities.’ Then another came, saying, ‘Lord, here is your mina, which I kept laid away in a handkerchief; for I was afraid of you, because you are a severe man. You take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow.’ He said to him, ‘I will condemn you with your own words, you wicked servant! You knew that I was a severe man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow? Why then did you not put my money in the bank, and at my coming I might have collected it with interest?’ And he said to those who stood by, ‘Take the mina from him, and give it to the one who has the ten minas.’ And they said to him, ‘Lord, he has ten minas!’ ‘I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me.’” Luke: 19:11-27.
Contrary to popular belief, this parable is NOT about money usage. It is about the coming of the kingdom of God, just as the introductory comment maintains. And the final verse of the parable reiterates the point in Proverbs 25, the wicked, the rebellious children as they are called above — rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to obey the LORD’s instruction – must be removed from before the king. And so shall they be.
Thus, through our lens of the Lord’s purpose expressed in His Word, we can see more clearly what the facets of His Plan are which will eventuate in the establishment of His everlasting Kingdom. In Christ’s spiritual Presence with us now, we can see how the rebellious who want to rule and not submit to His kingdom, are being exposed and judged before the Lord’s angels, and exactly how they will be plucked out and cast into the harbor (limne) of spiritual fire (pyros) and divine energy (theion) in Rev. 21:8.
Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord GOD of hosts.
Jeremiah 2:19
Here we see the cause of exile and purification in the spiritual fire of His Presence. The goal is to heal and correct that which is not in the divine image. In this schema, the judgment of the Lord is toward education and correction, not retribution. His design is always toward fulfillment of His plan and grand design, accomplishing His purposes in fulfilling the perfection of His will. He came for all! (John 12:32), each in their time.
Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (John 12:31-32)
The Lord’s Presence in returning at the end of the age and the establishment of the Kingdom is as simple as His word on the matter, given in Revelation 11 above: it is a time for the dead to be judged.
All who have no life in them, the spiritually dead, must be realigned and corrected, with their physical death being a component of the judgment. And because of the two resurrections, they will receive another opportunity to come into the fellowship Divine. After all, His will is that all men be saved (1 Tim. 2:4), and that as all are dying in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ, but each one in their order (1 Cor. 15:22-3). It is a process over time and the Elect play a significant role in God’s mercy pouring out.
So we are driven to the realization that our own wickedness corrects us and that this is the lake of fire of those who are the first to be corrected. This correction in the Elect is what qualifies them to be the first kings and priests. And they are God’s implements of salvation to bring in others of the nations, into the fellowship of God and His Christ.
The prophet Haggai in the post-exilic era revealed the underlying distinctive objective of shaking the nations, of bringing this monumental disruption upon the heavens and the earth: to glorify the temple. Hebrews 12 cites this Haggai text, linking it to the coming end of days, and the final completion of the Temple of Spirit that is unveiled in Revelation 11:19. It is for the Lord to be beautified (cf. Isaiah 60:1, 61:3-4). The spiritual fulfillment of Haggai is all about the building of the temple, in shadow and type, first the re-building of the physical temple in Jerusalem, but finally restoring God’s people, the Temple of Spirit.
For this is what the LORD of Hosts says:
“Once more, in a little while,
I will shake the heavens and the earth,
the sea and the dry land.
I will shake all the nations,
and they will come with all their treasures,
and I will fill this house with glory,
says the LORD of Hosts.
The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine,
declares the LORD of Hosts.
The latter glory of this house
will be greater than the former,
says the LORD of Hosts.
And in this place I will provide peace,
declares the LORD of Hosts.” Haggai 2:6-9
The Meaning of the Current Pestilence upon the Earth
Now there are some who will claim that the plague of the coronavirus is from a cabal of evil men conspiring to depopulate the world. And there are others who say this is Satan’s gambit to outfox God in the final part of the days, and to confuse people. The deep theological errors in these two positions exhibit the cost of ignorance about what God is doing in our time. As to the first, God’s work is not Satan’s work, and we will comment upon that in short order – it is a Sin against the Holy Spirit.
As to the latter faux pas, it is blasphemy to assert that Satan can operate outside of his lane and do anything that God has not set him to do. While being an ‘opposer’ of God, he is also a servant that cannot operate without the authority of the Almighty. In the final analysis, the Adversary is but a tool in the hand of God, and he has no authority to act apart from God. But he is certainly useful in “shaking all the nations.”
The opening of the fourth seal in the book of Revelation speaks plainly of authority being given to take away one fourth of humanity from the face of the earth. And as all authority comes from God, this reveals that it is a part of God’s plan to do this. We must understand who is the Blessed and only Sovereign (1Tim. 6:15). All things occur under the watchful eye of “Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will” (Eph. 1:11). The Lord was explicit in detailing the harvest at the end of the age with His parable of the wheat and the tares, and angels gathering the wicked for the fire. (Matt. 13:37-43)
Again we look to Isaiah for insight.
For the Lord spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. Isaiah 8:11-13
The devastating plague known as Covid-19 comes from God, and is let loose to call the people to repentance and rest in God; to seek the One who has bruised them that He may heal them from their bruise (Isa. 30:26). This pestilence has been sent to correct the people and to turn them away from their idols. It is judgment upon the wickedness of the people hardened in their iniquity.
Not to be annoyingly redundant, but what about the nation of America? Is it really God’s special possession? Is it really exempt from the commandment to walk even as Christ walked? How does God view the United States? Is He really concerned that the government of the United States be reformed? Or must the nations be judged for acting faithlessly before Him as we saw in the prophet Ezekiel, chapter 14 quoted above?
All nations are as nothing before Him,
And they are counted by Him as less than nothing
And an unreality. Isaiah 40:17
I suppose that means all nations except the United States in the view of these false shepherds who feed themselves without fear (Jude 12). But they are gravely mistaken.
The exceptionalism of the American mindset is a delusion. This world has entered the time of sword and famine and plague, and no nation shall be exempted from the judgment on their evils.
And as if that were not enough, listen to the words of the Savior — “I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.” (John 17:9)
The world will always be the world. The world has already been judged.
Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. John 12:31
So the answer to the evangelical community regarding Satan’s battle against America is a resounding NO! It is God’s corrective judgment because “thine own wickedness shall correct thee.” (Jeremiah 2:19)
Christendom has misread her own Scriptures. And now she is serving up tables loaded with filthy vomit. (Isaiah 28:8) Evil has been called good and good has been called evil. Woe unto them who say it. (Isaiah 5:20) God has come in like a rushing torrent, rising up to the temple, and all the priest and prophet can declare is that it is Satan. Well if it is Satan that is casting out Satan, then how can the house stand? Then, truly the kingdom has broken in upon you – Christ’s very own testimony he spoke in the flesh (Lu.11:20).
This is Sin against the Holy Spirit, calling that work of casting out the demonic from our midst and the collapse of a demonic empire to be the work of the Adversary when it is God’s work and His stated plan.
The ruler of this world is being cast out NOW, so the kingdom can be established, while the princes of Judah denounce the true prophets and clamor to hear smooth words, pleasing words, but Jeremiah spoke it plainly under the Lord’s hand:
In the prophets of Samaria
I saw an unsavory thing:
They prophesied by Baal
and led my people Israel astray.
But in the prophets of Jerusalem
I have seen a horrible thing:
They commit adultery and walk in lies;
they strengthen the hands of evildoers,
so that no one turns from his evil;
All of them have become like Sodom to me,
and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.”
Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets:
“Behold, I will feed them with bitter food
and give them poisoned water to drink,
for from the prophets of Jerusalem
ungodliness has gone out into all the land.” (Jeremiah 23:13-15)
Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’” [This is the cry of the internet prophets today!]
For who among them has stood in the council of the Lord
to see and to hear His word,
or who has paid attention to His word and listened?
Behold, the storm of the Lord!
Wrath has gone forth,
a whirling tempest;
it will burst upon the head of the wicked.
The anger of the Lord will not turn back
until he has executed and accomplished
the intents of his heart.
In the latter days you will understand it clearly.
“I did not send the prophets,
yet they ran;
I did not speak to them,
yet they prophesied.
But if they had stood in my council,
then they would have proclaimed my words to my people,
and they would have turned them from their evil way,
and from the evil of their deeds. Jeremiah 23:16-22
But in America as in ancient Israel and Judah, “both prophet and priest are polluted, even in My House I have found their wickedness.” (Jeremiah 23:11) And so it is here in the House of Israel of the end days, known in our time as the Church of Christ – EKKLESIA TOU CHRISTOU.
And the people have NOT been turned from their evil way nor from the evil of their deeds. On the contrary, there is now a manifest proliferation of evil ways and evil deeds. And the woman whose name is ‘Wickedness,’ will have her own Temple built in the land of Shinar, ’civil rebellion’ (Zech. 5:11). And she will become a lair for demons and the haunt for every unclean spirit. (Jer. 51:37)
In sum – the meaning of this plague upon the world, i.e. the ‘global pandemic,’ is that the Almighty’s judgment upon the nations has been unleashed. He is visiting the unrighteous with His correction of their behavior, which includes bringing down the system of injustice.
There are those who turn justice into wormwood
and cast righteousness to the ground.
There are those who hate the one who reproves in the gate
and despise him who speaks with integrity.
Therefore, because you trample on the poor
and exact from him a tax of grain,
You will never live
in the stone houses you have built;
You will never drink the wine
from the lush vineyards you have planted.
For I know that your transgressions are many
and your sins are numerous.
You oppress the righteous by taking bribes;
You deprive the poor of justice in the gate.
Therefore, the prudent keep silent in such times,
for the days are evil.
Seek good, not evil,
so that you may live.
And the LORD, the God of Hosts,
will be with you, as you have claimed.
Hate evil and love good;
establish justice in the gate.
Perhaps the LORD, the God of Hosts,
will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”
Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Hosts, the Lord, says:
“There will be wailing in all the public squares
and cries of ‘Alas! Alas!’ in all the streets.
The farmer will be summoned to mourn,
and the mourners to wail.
There will be wailing in all the vineyards,
for I will pass through your midst.” (Amos 5:7, 10-17)
And God’s “four sore judgments” are His clear and indisputable mode of administering His corrective measures. If anything sweeps across the face of the earth like Death, as a Pestilence, more rapidly and certainly than Covid-19, we shall surely know it when we see it. And these will serve as reminders of the haunting words of Revelation 18:4-8.
“Come out of her, my people,
lest you take part in her sins,
lest you share in her plagues;
For her sins are heaped high as heaven,
and God has remembered her iniquities.
Pay her back as she herself has paid back others,
and repay her double for her deeds;
mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed.
As she glorified herself and lived in luxury,
so give her a like measure of torment and mourning,
since in her heart she says,
‘I sit as a queen,
I am no widow,
and mourning I shall never see.’
For this reason her plagues will come in a single day,
death and mourning and famine,
and she will be burned up with fire;
for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her.”
These are sobering words and cause for repentance. For is this not the purpose of the four sore judgments, to bring the people to repentance and to come back to the Lord? That is the message of the Coronavirus Pestilence which is NOT being sounded by the shepherds of Israel – those who feed themselves without fear; those who are the shepherds who scatter and destroy the sheep. (Jeremiah 23:1)
How Then Shall We Live?
What is true for one is true for all and what is true for once is true for all time. That is to say, the exhortation of a divine ethos has ever been upon us, and has ever called us to live out of a higher image and likeness. Nothing reaffirms our calling to love better than the words of the late, great, John Lewis, conscience of the Congress, a prime mover of the nation, and one of the architects of democracy in America – since it had scarcely existed before our time. In his final message to the nation, which he asked to be published on the day of his funeral, and which the NY Times published on July 30, 2020, he said the following.
You must also study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time. People on every continent have stood in your shoes, through decades and centuries before you. The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time. Continue to build union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others.
Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.
What we are called to be and how we are called to act does not change. It has been the same from long ago, from the laying of the foundations of the earth. The exploitation of others frustrates the way of peace, and as Dr. King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” John Lewis addressed the injustice and exploitation at the heart of the ancient message given to the shepherd Amos for the people Israel. We are that people today, and that message is for us. As Peter reminded the early church about the intended audience of the prophets:
It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. (1 Peter 1:12)
That is why the exhortation of Amos ends with the words which Dr. King made to ring from the mountaintops
But let justice roll on like a river,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Amos 5:24
We must live as those who already Live in the Kingdom, for we are a kingdom people. Our love for our enemies will define us and prove in the end that Dr. King as God before Him was right to say that evil cannot be conquered by evil, but only by good. So in the words of our Lord, we must feed our enemies, and make peace with them while we are in the way with them. And this is the special preparation of the faithful for the Lord who is coming, and it is part of remaining faithful to the end. Remaining faithful means abiding in His Truth, and the way of peace, loving all, until our very last breath. Nothing else can do justice to His memory and likewise to the memory of His good and faithful servants like John Lewis.
Preparing for Christ’s Visible Appearance
It is largely unknown, except to NT scholars and pastors who have studied the Koiné Greek of the New Testament, that there is a major distinction between the ‘coming,’ or Presence of the Lord, and His ‘appearing.’ In Greek, that would be the difference between ‘parousia,’ the Presence of the Lord, and ‘phaneroō,’ to Appear, or make manifest. The coming of the Lord, His parousia, is a presencing without a necessary externalized appearance. For this reason we must grapple with the reality that the signs of Christ’s Presence are largely negative – pangs of distress as of a woman giving birth. In the entire apocalyptic section of Matthew the word phaneroō does not occur – there is no reference to a visible manifestation or appearance.
As the Amos 5 text says above: I will pass through your midst.
This distinction is so important and fatal in misapplication as to have sunk many a boat claiming to be a bark of papyrus carrying messages from the Lord. It demonstrates the hiddenness of God, even within the transparency of His operation in Christ.
In light of what God is doing, what ought we to be doing as we move in these days of ‘His coming?’ As one popular new age book title put it, “What to do until the Messiah comes.” Yes, indeed, what to do is the question. Well, we are in a spiritual war, and we are certainly to fight the spiritual battle for the hearts and minds of humanity to be drawn to God and not to the image of the Beast. Further, we must live each day according to the ethos mentioned above, walking in the way of peace.
But there are special instructions given in Matthew 23-25, in Revelation, and throughout the New Testament, that specifically address care to be taken at the closing days of the age. The parables encode much of the guidance which the Lord has given.
Christ tells us not to be misled, and not to be following false prophets and false teachers and false Christs. What the Spirit says to the Churches in Revelation 2-3 also tells us what specifically needs our attention among the commandments of Christ, of which Love is the first, last, and primary. It is to not be misled by false prophecy, prophecy for hire that sacrifices the value of uncompromising truth for economic gain. Like Balaam, these false prophets endanger the pure food of God’s Word, the flesh of Christ, by the pollution of food sacrificed to demons – that teaching, that devilish wisdom that profanes the Name of God, that denies His complete and total Sovereignty, and that repudiates His pervasive and lavish and unselfish love for His children.
The Lord stridently warns those who commit adultery along with Jezebel, a metonym for the woman Wickedness, Babylon, who fornicates with the nations. All of her children are those who commit adultery with the nations of the world, serving other gods, which is the greater spiritual Sin of which physical adultery is but the shadow. Those who look to God for refuge in the church, but exhibit infidelity will perish by pestilence. And do we not see that happening in our very midst today?
Let’s quickly re-visit the commandments to the Church: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the 7 churches (ekklesiai).
- “Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first” (deeds of love). (Rev. 2:5)
- “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.” (Rev. 2:10)
- Repent (from false prophecy and false teaching) (Rev. 2:16)
- Repent (of her deeds, immorality, adultery, idolatrous teaching) (Rev. 2:22)
- “Remember therefore what you have received and heard; and keep it, and repent.” (Rev. 3:3)
- “I am coming quickly; hold fast what you have, in order that no one may take your crown.” (Rev. 3:11)
- “Buy from Me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich, and white garments that you may clothe yourself, and the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see.” (Rev. 3:18)
The faithful who endure to the finish are called afresh to put on the white linen of good deeds, spiritual deeds done in love for our neighbor; to lay down our life so that our neighbor’s life might be picked up, and so that we might find our own as well.
And in Revelation 17 the warfare is distilled down to a battle in which we must conquer the 10 kings of the earth – namely, the totality of the dominion of the fleshly world in all of its political, social, economic, and religious manifestations. It is, after all, Babylon, and it is pervasive. And she rides on the back of the beast whose 10 heads battle incessantly to enslave us to our own image of the beast.
And who is “Wickedness?” Collectively speaking she is the antithesis of the Woman of Zion with her children; she is rather the community of sensual, materialistic, fleshly minded children of wrath; the synagogue of Satan, the nations who worship demons and the work of their own hands.
And who conquers the 10 kings, but the 2 witnesses who do battle and lay down their lives that they may pick them up again? We will live through that dynamic of the 10 and the 2 – like the 10 tribes that were taken by Assyria and came to exist no more, and have never returned. And like the 10 spies who, lacking faith and trust in God, argued against entering the promised land, and persuaded the people to rebel against God’s commandment to enter in, and stood against the 2 Witnesses, Joshua and Caleb, who advocated obedience to the Lord and trust that all would be well in “the land flowing with milk and honey.” Israel could not conquer their fleshly-minded nature, choosing fear over faith. In our time, we must stand with Joshua and Caleb, and be like the two witnesses, exhorting the people to conquer the Beast and his image.
Indeed, Revelation 15 shows us that only those who conquer the image of the Beast can stand upon the crystal sea. The old man must not be allowed to dominate the life of the saint. Rather, the faithful followers of Christ, those who follow the Lamb wherever He goes (Rev. 14:4), overcome the beastly image within themselves and conquer the world with their faith. For the world is passing as the apostle John proclaimed
And the world is passing away and its lust; but the one doing the will of God remains unto the aeon. – 1 John 2:17
These are the days of Elijah – we must serve within the overarching mission of “the restoration of all things.” Why is that so? Simply because if we don’t participate in the restoration of all, including “the faith once delivered” (Jude), then we work against the establishment of God’s kingdom and proclaim ourselves to be those who DO NOT WANT that young nobleman to be the ruler over us!!! (cf. Luke 19:14)
The disciples queried as to why Elijah must come first, before the Son of Man. And the Lord answered them saying, “Elijah is coming, and will restore all things.” (Matt. 17:11) This is the precondition we must accept and rejoice in if we will help in conquering the 10 kings of the earth and preparing the way of the Lord. If we are to see the removal of iniquity from before Him, then we understand the foundations of the kingdom: truth and justice and righteousness.
This knowledge is critical for understanding the how and why of God’s purposeful action at the end of the age; and what it means to say “The time hath found us.” The times of restoration are necessary that Jesus may be sent back to establish His kingdom. Christ’s own sparse declaration of the fact is amplified in Peter’s sermon recorded in Acts 3.
Repent, then, and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped away, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send the one having been appointed for you, Christ Jesus, Heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God spoke through the mouth of His holy prophets from the age. (Acts 3:19-21)
The “times” hath found us. Christ cannot return until “the times of restoration” come first. That is our time – the days of Elijah, and thus the work of the Elect is the work of Elijah, unless one would rather work apart from or contrary to the work of the Father.
And we must prepare for His coming by dressing for the wedding feast, and that means the aforementioned white linen of our good works. It also means following the lesson of the 10 virgins in Matthew 25 and filling our lamps with oil. Since the lamp of the body is the eye (Matt. 6:22), this amounts to spiritual eye salve so that we can see (Rev. 3:18). This amounts to being given eyes to see. That enables us to behold what God is doing.
Let us raise the capstone of our preparation to see Christ Jesus in one word: Sanctification. As we read in Hebrews:
Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. (Heb. 12:14)
Recapitulation of All Things
Our pilgrimage through Scripture and current events leaves us with certain takeaways that are the Lord’s guidance for us in our time.
First, we have come to the end of the age, but few there are who can see it. Those who cannot would do well to buy eye salve from Christ Jesus so their eyes can be open to see it and to know. The end of the age has its own special circumstances because it is a time of turmoil such as the world has never seen from the beginning of the age until now as Daniel penned (12:1).
This end of the age, or aeon, means that the time of the judgment of the nations is upon us and that all are called to repentance, even as Jesus and John the Baptist both called Israel to “Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.”
Fear not, O Jacob my servant,
declares the Lord,
for I am with you.
I will make a full end of all the nations
to which I have driven you,
but of you I will not make a full end.
I will discipline you in just measure,
and I will by no means leave you unpunished.” (Jer. 46:28)
Haggai, quoted by the author of Hebrews and cited above, provides a second witness to this matter which is the judgment of the nations that so many prophets foresaw. There will be a reckoning for all, and the dead shall be judged.
But again, we are compelled to ask why this must be done. Is it simply the wrath of God with no object? Let’s examine Hebrews 12 to understand the divine objective.
See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. (Heb. 12:25-29)
This is the necessary time – this time that hath found us – that prepares for the kingdom of God and His Christ. (Rev. 11) And who can stand in His consuming fire?
Hear, you who are far off, what I have done;
and you who are near, acknowledge my might.
The sinners in Zion are afraid;
trembling has seized the godless:
“Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire?
Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”
He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly,
Who despises the gain of oppressions,
Who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe,
Who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed
And shuts his eyes from looking on evil,
He will dwell on the heights;
his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks;
his bread will be given him; his water will be sure. (Isa. 33:13-16)
This, at last, is what tells us it will take to withstand the Lord’s appearance as a consuming fire, and therefore it speaks to the tremendous surrender and preparation required.
But His Presence will be challenging enough with all of the turbulence mentioned in Matthew 24 leading up to the Great Tribulation and the Abomination of Desolation, at which time it will be appropriate to take refuge in the hills of Judea – let the reader exercise discernment.
That turmoil of the nations is from the storm that is coming – AND THERE IS A STORM COMING! It will shake the heaven (things within) and the earth (sensible things).
It is a storm of fire and earthquake.
It is a storm of war and famine and pestilence and wild beasts.
It is a storm of false prophets bringing apostasy and blasphemy in its wake.
It is a storm of increasing lawlessness, cooling off the love of the greater number.
It is a storm of deceit in the name of Christ that will bring the man of lawlessness.
It is a storm of tribulation and persecution under the abomination of desolation.
It is a storm from the North bringing in judgment at the hands of the Destroyer.
This will shake out everything that is created. And it will leave what God has created, for what He does will remain forever. (Ecclesiastes 3:14) This will leave the Temple of the Holy Spirit He has created in His people – “the holy place properly restored” (Daniel 8:14). This glorious completion of His Holy Ones can only come at the completion of the final week of the 70 week prophesy, at the Time of Restoration (Acts 3:21)
But it comes at the end of the most trying of times in the history of the world (Daniel 12:1). And the end of it testifies to the sublime truth that God worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. (Ephesians 1:11) And notwithstanding some ‘appearances’ to the contrary, His plans are for our welfare (Shalom) and not our evil (Raa); to give us a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)
Paul does indeed echo this truth in his letter to the Romans:
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers. (Romans 8:28-29)
Yet there remains to us the command Shuv, Return! Whether in the words of John the Baptist, or Christ Jesus, or of the end time Elijah turning hearts of fathers to sons and sons to fathers, we must purify our hearts and repent.
The prophet Joel spoke to ancient Israel, and yet God’s words spoken through him resonate throughout all time and space within the aeons of the earth. They speak to us now, to our priests and pastors and congregations.
“Yet even now,” declares YHWH,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to YHWH your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
and he relents over disaster.
Who knows whether he will not turn and relent,
and leave a blessing behind him,
a grain offering and a drink offering
for YHWH your God?
Blow the trumpet in Zion;
consecrate a fast;
call a solemn assembly;
gather the people.
Consecrate the congregation;
assemble the elders;
gather the children,
even nursing infants.
Let the bridegroom leave his room,
and the bride her chamber.
“Be glad, O children of Zion,
and rejoice in the Lord your God,
for he has given the early rain for your vindication;
he has poured down for you abundant rain,
the early and the latter rain, as before.
“The threshing floors shall be full of grain;
the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.
I will restored to you the years
that the swarming locust has eaten,
the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,
my great army, which I sent among you.
“You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,
and praise the name of the Lord your God,
who has dealt wondrously with you.
And my people shall never again be put to shame.
You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,
and that I am the Lord your God and there is none else.
And my people shall never again be put to shame.
Joel 2:12-16, 23-27
Return to the Lord, call a solemn assembly and sanctify the congregation, that they may see the Lord Jesus Christ at His return.
Prepare for His Appearance, for He is present now, and is threshing out the fields of harvest. The harvest is great and the workers are few. Put on His yoke.
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and You shall find rest for your souls.”
Behold, He comes quickly.
By: Bruce D. Curtis, MA, M.Div. ©2020