Thursday, December 23, 2010

Chronology of Apocalypse: Eternity

After Jesus crushes the rebellion at the end of the Millennium, the final disposition of all things (judgment) will be made. First, the Devil is thrown into the Lake of Fire without further delay (and I would conclude all the demons with him). The Lake of Fire is a condition of torment prepared for rebellious spiritual beings, but is capable of receiving physical subjects as well. There is no escape from, nor cessation of its condition--it is an eternal, perfect state.

Hades is emptied as the dead remaining there are raised to life (body and soul reunited) to face judgment. The sea is mentioned as holding the dead separately from Hades, which is more significant of the bodies which are being restored than it is to the souls of the drowned. Sheol/Hades was never a place of ultimate punishment, but more akin to a storage area for disembodied souls. The natural (created) condition of human beings is physical and spiritual, and all the dead will be returned to that condition before judgment takes place. So, at this time everyone who ever lived will be in their natural condition, ready to face final disposition.

Judgment will by two kinds of books. One is the Book of Life, the others are the Books of Record (my name, not the scriptural name). If one's name is not found in the Book of Life, the Book of Records will determine the nature of judgment against that individual (i.e. how hot will be their eddy in the Lake of Fire). If one is found in the Book of Life, the Book of Records will determine the nature of rewards that one will experience in God's presence (i.e. our normal conception of heaven). Either way, it is true faith in Christ which is the marked difference between one class and the other.

Anyone raptured prior to the Millennium (the Church, the 144,000, the martyred mark resisters) has nothing to fear at all from this judgment, for they all are already in their eternal condition, which is alive with Christ. The dead raised in order to face this judgment are in a heap of trouble, by and large, I'm not certain any of them will escape judgment. Their works will not excuse any of them, and only those who died during the Millennium, unmarked, could possibly have true, saving faith in Christ (otherwise they'd have been raptured). Those found in the Book of Life enter eternity with Christ, those not are thrown in the Lake of Fire to burn eternally.

Everything that had to do with this current, temporal, existence is then done away with: Death and Hades and the damned are thrown into the Lake of Fire, and in a flash, the heavens and earth are made new (no death, no entropy).  God's habitation, the heavenly Mount Zion, the New Jerusalem, descends upon the new Earth, and eternity as it should be takes flight. No Devil, no demons, no death, no disease, and no damned will be there anywhere but bound in the roiling fires of the Lake. The righteous in Christ live on forever, free to move about the cabin, and enjoy the adventure with our heavenly pilot.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Chronology of Apocalypse: The Millennium

After dealing with the Devil, the Antichrist, the Pope and the troops they had gathered at Armageddon, Christ resurrects those who were killed for refusing to take the mark and worship the Antichrist. They, along with all those raised earlier (the Church, the 144,000, and Enoch and Elijah), enter into the Millennial Reign of Christ as his lieutenants, serving as priests to God.

These resurrected saints will be in their eternal state in incorruptible bodies, like unto the resurrected Christ, and will not die nor marry or be given in marriage, not only in this period, but throughout all eternity. The population of Earth not part of Armageddon will continue to reproduce and live in natural, corruptible bodies throughout their lifetimes during the Millennium. The effects of the Fall will be greatly ameliorated during this time: lifespans will dramatically increase, carnivorism will cease, war will be no more.

Christ will rule the world with an iron rod from Jerusalem, the resurrected will be his agents throughout the earth, without any opposition from the forces of spiritual darkness. Though there is no hope for those who took the mark, their ancestors will have known no ruler but Christ, and no kingdom but his. Nevertheless, at the end of the Millennium, the Devil is loosed from his chains and the Abyss and manages to deceive great numbers of them. They gather against Christ and his saints at Jerusalem, but fire falls from heaven and consumes them, ending their rebellion and the Millennium.

Yet to Come... Eternity

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Some Thunder from A Son

You might enjoy some fresh music from a son of thunder. My oldest and one of our youth leaders recorded some original music. Thought you might enjoy it.


Find more artists like Wherever Two Or Three at Myspace Music


Find more artists like Wherever Two Or Three at Myspace Music


Find more artists like Wherever Two Or Three at Myspace Music

Monday, December 13, 2010

Strange but Compelling

The following story brings a new relevance to Matthew 19:12. Not in a way I can condone, and I absolutely hate to admit it, but something inside me instinctively gave a fist pump to this story. Any thoughtful insights out there?
"For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it."   Matthew 19:12

Man castrates teenage daughter's 57-year-old boyfriend

An enraged father who disapproved of his daughter's older boyfriend went to his home and castrated him with a bread knife.

Helmut Seifert, 47, an ethnic German originally from Russia, was enraged when he heard his 17-year-old daughter was having a relationship with Phillip Genscher, 57.
He went to police in the town of Bielefeld where he lives but officers said they were powerless to intervene.
"The man then recruited two work colleagues at his factory and then went to the house of the victim," said police.
"The man was forced to remove his trousers and, fully conscious, he was castrated. The severed testicles were taken away by the perpetrator."
The man was close to bleeding to death but managed to call police. His life was saved but he remains a eunuch for life.
Seifert pleaded guilty and will be on trial for attempted murder next year. But he has remained silent on who his accomplices were.
He told police: "I received a phone call anonymously that my daughter was involved with a guy 40 years older than her. You said you couldn't stop him – so I did.
"I saw it as my duty as a father."

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Chronology of Apocalypse: The Second Half of Tribulation

The Antichrist will elevate the Pope at that time to serve as his viceroy and the vicar of a new religion which worships the Antichrist as god. In conjunction with that worship, a new economic system, which requires everyone to be marked with the name of the Antichrist or the number of his name (666), will be imposed globally. All those who take that mark (and that will be everyone except the Jews) are lost forever. Those that refuse will be arrested and killed. The seventh trumpet has sounded.

All those who took the mark will be stricken with a plague-like disease producing festering sores. I can see it being passed off as an unfortunate circumstance of the technique used to make the mark. The first bowl of wrath has been poured out.

The entire sea will be stricken with a reddish pollution that will kill everything still left in it after the earlier judgments. This may be something akin to red tide run amok. The second bowl of wrath has been poured out.

The pollution spreads to fresh water. The third bowl of wrath has been poured out.

The sun will suddenly become much more active, perhaps a solar flare and a coronal mass ejection, and scorch the inhabitants of earth with intense heat and sunburns. Their reaction will be to curse God. Evidently, their worship of the Antichrist will not preclude them from having at least some reckoning of the true God. The fourth bowl of wrath has been poured out.

Likely the effects of a solar flare from the increased activity of the sun, something will strike Bergama, Turkey and throw the Antichrist's kingdom into darkness. Computer systems will crash, power will go offline, communications will cease, and his kingdom (the three broken off horns) will literally and figuratively be in the dark. This is a local, specific event rather than a global incident. His people's reaction: blasphemy. The fifth bowl of wrath has been poured out.

The Euphrates River, which had been ground zero for volcanism of sixth trumpet, finally dries up all together. It provides troops amassing in the east unhindered traverse to Israel. I believe the troops were originally moving to confront and perhaps unseat the Antichrist, but he, the Pope, and the Devil deftly spin a tale which unites those troops under his banner and against the invasion he is expecting (from outer space, I think). He directs them, along with others from other places, to the Jezreel Valley, near Megiddo. The sixth bowl of wrath has been poured out.

A global earthquake, the largest such event that will ever occur, will shake every city throughout the world. As a result, Jerusalem will be divided into three and Rome turned to ashes. Islands will be inundated and mountains crumble in landslides. Although the related signs of volcanic or asteroidal activity are not mentioned, a rain of large hail falls upon the earth, which makes me wonder if this is yet another aspect of the earlier strikes (i.e. a comet breaking up and hitting earth piecemeal). The seventh bowl of wrath has been poured out.

At that time, Jesus will burst through the skies, with all the saints raptured before in tow behind him. He captures the Antichrist and the Pope and tosses them into the Lake of Fire, which will have been formed at that time. All the amassed troops are killed, their bodies left to the birds. The Devil is bound and locked in the Abyss (and I would conclude all the demons with him).

Jesus has returned to earth, the saints with him, and he will rule with a rod of iron and the saints will reign with him.

Yet to come... the Millennium and Beyond