My Hearts Cry

My Hearts Cry

If I had just been saved, or just awakened to the knowledge that Jesus was coming for us soon and my life wasn't pleasing to Him, you wouldn't be able to get my nose out of the Bible, because I'd be studying it for all I was worth every spare second I had! And when I didn't have a spare second to study it, I'd be practicing it. The thought wouldn't leave my mind, because I'd be expecting Him any moment and I'd want to be as ready as I possibly could. Every day that went by without the rapture happening, I'd dedicate myself to even harder studying and harder practicing, so that when I met the Lord on that wonderful day, He would smile and be pleased with me, and I wouldn't have to stand before Him ashamed.

That has been my hearts cry to everyone for several years now. I've had a very strong inner urging to warn everyone, unbelievers and believers alike, that time is running out. My heart aches for all the people who will have to stand before Him ashamed and be unable to do anything about it because they ignored all His warnings, or else didn't take them seriously enough. For some reason, I feel this even stronger now and pray that I and everyone I know, will study just as hard as they can and apply His Word to their lives with all their hearts, all their minds and all their strength, every moment of every day. Then we'll be able to stand before Him rejoicing in His salvation and thanking Him, knowing we're unworthy, but not having to be ashamed.

Please join me in praying that we will all be ready for His coming.

1 John 2:28 —And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. *

1 John 4:17 —In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. *

Hebrews 10:35–38 —So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. *You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. *For in just a very little while, “He who is coming will come and will not delay. *But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.” *

Philippians 1:20 —I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. *

Hell On Earth

As I read Isaiah again, I'm continually reminded of so much, including how very few people will live through the tribulation. And that again just goes to show that the pre wrath and post trib positions are false. There won't be that many people left, besides that fact that to be joyful about looking forward to a rapture at that point is ludicrous! Listen to Isaiah:

Isaiah 13:12 —I will make man scarcer than pure gold, more rare than the gold of Ophir. *

Isaiah 24:5–6 —The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant. *Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt. Therefore earth’s inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left. *

Isaiah 34:2–3 —The LORD is angry with all nations; his wrath is upon all their armies. He will totally destroy them, he will give them over to slaughter. *Their slain will be thrown out, their dead bodies will send up a stench; the mountains will be soaked with their blood. *

Other verses in Isaiah and other books also paint this same picture, and if that's not enough, Jesus himself tells us that no one would survive without divine intervention:

Matthew 24:22 —If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. *

It is going to be hell on earth during those 7 years, not just the last 3 and a half. I'd say the only difference between the first half and the second half of the tribulation is that we can just barely imagine, barely! what the very beginning of the tribulation will be like. And that's not even really accurate because there's most likely going to be a gap between the rapture and the start of the tribulation, and it's that "gap" really, that we can imagine what it will be like. That and the first few months of the tribulation our minds can grasp, but after that....no. If you study, what every book in the bible says about that period of time, you can't help but come away from it knowing that it's going to be like nothing mankind has ever even thought of in their worst nightmares!

I think the reason so many think that only the last half is going to be really bad is because so many authors and teachers stress the point that the judgments get worse as they go along and that as far as the Jews and Christians being martyred goes, that becomes a lot worse in the 2nd half of the trib. That's all quite true, but instead of realizing that the entire tribulation is going to be quite literally like hell on earth, instead we tend to think of it as starting slow and easy so that it's not much different then now. That's not true though.

The birth pangs we're seeing now are like "mini previews", and I do mean "miniature" in every way. Compare the worst natural disaster you can think of with a world wide earthquake that's so severe it's off the scale and kills billions. That's the difference. The difference between the first half and the second half of the trib, ONLY in the way the Jew's will be treated, is that during the first half they'll be treated generally the same as the Christians- tortured and killed. During the second half though, what happens to them will make the holocaust look mild!

To start with there are going to be at least 3 major earthquakes during the tribulation and two of them will be world wide....world wide! One of the world wide earthquakes will be during the first quarter of the first half of the tribulation and another toward the end. The bible says that during these two earthquakes there will also be many volcano's erupting and that ash and debris will fill the sky. We can only attempt to imagine what will happen with the oceans...tidal waves... talk about horror! And friends, God has set the first earthquake to happen during the first quarter of the first half of the tribulation.

There are 182 weeks in 3 and a half years. If you divide them by 4 that's 45.5 weeks. As you can see then, this first earthquake will happen before the first year of the tribulation has gone by. And that's just one of the many horrors that's coming, and coming soon. It's just one of the things that our neighbors are going to go through if they're not saved beforehand. If we can't work ourselves up to being bold enough to speak up to them about Christ and His salvation because we know they will spend eternity in hell, surely knowing that they will be going through this should cause us to run over and start pleading with them to give their lives to Christ!

On the other hand, if you believe God is the kind of God who would put His Church through this - for any reason, then I guess it just doesn't matter since they'd go through it anyway. Sorry, but it's just ludicrous to me that anyone could believe such a thing, or that if they did suspect it might be true, wouldn't then grab their bibles and not take their noses out of it until they'd studied the entire book from Genesis to Revelation with God's help to determine what God really says about it.

That right there shows another reason why these kind of false teachings are being taught. Because even if people do pick up their bibles, they're just studying the "proof verses" they're given or at most the main books they think it's talked about in, like Revelation, Daniel and Isaiah. The problem is that they can't get the whole picture until they know the whole bible. God had a reason for every word He gave us and if we don't know it all, then we can't know His plans for us, the Jew's or anything else. No Christian should just accept what I say, what their pastor says, or what any famous author/teacher/pastor says. They should instead commit to obeying God and knowing His Word and finding out for themselves what's true.

How we can tell the end is nearly here!

You know what's really bad about all the false teaching and the way many churches have turned into country clubs? Look at what God says about it in Isaiah:

Isaiah 29:13–14 —The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. *Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.” *

When people have been told the Truth and refuse to listen to it, refuse to accept it, which is exactly what we're seeing today, then God makes them spiritually blind, just like He did Israel over 2000 years ago. It's not a sudden blindness, but rather their hearts harden more each time they refuse to accept the Truth, and each time that happens, they become more spiritually blind, until finally God says "enough!" and then they will just accept more and more lies, never the Truth. (See John 9:39–41 and 2 Thes 2:1–12.)

That's what scared me every time I told someone the Truth, and they refused to accept it. Most of them continued to deny it as truth, insisting that the false teachings they were following were instead. I knew their hearts had just been hardened again, whether they realized it or not, because God says so. It made me not want to tell them the truth sometimes but the Lord says we must, and so I continued. But what was even worse, were those who would hear or see something and acknowledge that it was something God had said, but would still refuse to accept it. Oh, they "believed" it, but they wouldn't accept it and would literally say so! Those are the ones I felt the worst about and feared for the most.

And then, you all know how many times, and how many ways, I've tried to call people back to God's Word, and remind them that God commands us to "stay" in His Word daily; that it's to be like our daily food and drink. Again, many have "believed", but also many have refused to accept it, to apply it. That makes me just weep for them, for we never know when our chance to accept God's Truth will be over. Like that verse from Isaiah says, they come near to God with their mouths, but not with their hearts. In Ezekiel 33:31, God says that they listen to his words, but don't put them into practice, with their mouths they express devotion, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain. They seek God's hand but not His face, they want what He will give them, but not enough to do what He says or to seek Him with all their hearts. And again, that's what we're seeing today. Over and over Jesus and the apostles tell us not to be just hearers of the Word but doers of it, and that too isn't just a suggestion.

We know that we are living in the last days of the end times and that Satan is very active right now. We've talked about how the list of what people will be like during these times in 2 Timothy 3, is about "Christians", which should really shake us up because it sounds like the worst of unbelievers! But the Christians it's talking about are those who refuse to acknowledge or accept the Truth, and insist on hanging on to lies instead.

What's the next thing to happen after this? 2 Thessalonians 2 says, next, the lawless one is revealed! We know that the rapture happens before that (which is in that passage too) but I wonder how many people really realize just how close we are to that???? We've heard the expressions like "He's standing at the door", or "you can almost hear His footsteps" and others like that so many times, that I think it's kind of lulled us to sleep somewhat. Instead we need to be fully awake and alert, waiting expectantly for His call to join Him, and doing all we can till He calls us, to wake up everyone we know that's still sleeping. For as long as we're here, they still may have a chance to accept the Truth. We really need to act on that, praying that the Lord will open their eyes and soften their hearts so they'll accept His Word with the honor it deserves.

Romans 13:12–14 —The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. *Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. *Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. *

1 Peter 4:7–8 —The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. *Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.