Imminency of the Rapture, Part 2

CityPoint: Events pointing to the imminency of the Rapture, Part 2

We will not meet this week. Our next study will be Tuesday, May 30th, and we will finish the events portion. Be a Berean and challenge against Scripture what is written here, the words I say or anyone, for that matter, who speaks about the Bible. The church as a whole would not be so far off track if Christians who sit in church would know, study, and challenge all things against Scripture. This is incumbent on all of us.

Remember, the testimony of Jesus Christ is the spirit of prophecy (Revelation 19:10). This is why prophecy is pivotal to our walk with Jesus. He made a promise, and He will fulfill it! Praise HIM!!!

Event 4: Wars and rumors of wars

We can take Jesus at His own words with this event. Matthew 24 contains Jesus’ Olivet Discourse. This chapter takes quite a bit to unpack. We are only focusing on this one portion. Specifically, we can read in verse 6 where Jesus talks about wars and rumors of wars. One thing to keep in mind, this portion of Scripture is Jesus’ challenge to the Jews in what they will experience during the 70th Week, ie the Tribulation or final 7 years before His 1000 year reign. But, just as in all of these events, we will see a building up before the the 70th Week. If we see these things unfolding, we know much more that the Rapture is imminent, therefore, we need to be about our Father’s business and be ready!

I found it interesting that according to the Geneva Academy, there are currently over 114 global conflicts. These conflicts are noted as either nation state against nation state or people groups against each other. In verse 7, Jesus said that nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. The nation part of that is the word ethnos in the Greek which means people group. We see racial tensions here in the US, and it is rampant across the globe. Isn’t it crazy that we all come from one man: Noah. We really just have different concentrations of skin pigment which is the same color at the smallest level, yet we are against each other.

Geneva Academy traces the following conflicts by region: 45 in the Middle East, 35 in Africa, 21 in Asia, 7 in Europe, and 6 in Latin America. These conflicts obviously have varying degrees of intensity, but we can’t watch the news and not see elements of war constantly going on. These will continue. I wish I would have saved the podcast to forward along as I can’t remember where I heard it, but it has been said since WWII there have only been a handful of days collectively across the entire globe where war hasn’t been actively going on. Interesting…

Event 5: Artificial Intelligence

The rapidly progressing AI world is very much prophetic. Consider Daniel 2:43 as it relates to the final world kingdom: “As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men.” I find this fascinating. Literally, there will be a pursuit to mess with our genetic makeup. Consider Revelation 13:14-15: the anti-christ and false prophet set up an image in the temple to be worshipped. They were allowed (remember, God is always in control) to breath life into the image which allows the image to speak and cause many to worship. Literally, an inanimate object is given life.

You see, AI is explicitly noted in Scripture. As we see AI explode, we can know prophecy is being fulfilled before our eyes. You should research Neuralink that Elon Musk is involved with. They literally want to implant an operating system in our brains. The goal is to be able to upload our consciousness to the cloud. You can see big name people talking about achieving eternal life with this, most notably Jared Kushner. You can research that one. It is always interesting to see man trying to achieve what only God will do. This goes all the way back to the Garden and continues today. There is a pursuit for tranquility, eternity, and even utopia in this world without Christ. Such a deception!

Another person you should look up is Klaus Schwab from the World Economic Forum (WEF). Here is an article published by the WEF: https://www.weforum.org/about/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-by-klaus-schwab They believe in a convergence of human and AI as we move forward in our world. This is no surprise to the person who studies their Bible and has their eyes open to what is going on this world.

The most fascinating with AI is how they are recognizing how they must control it. AI has the potential to get out of control and thus control us. There are talks about having a moratorium on AI advancements to ensure we don’t let it get out of control. If one breaks the moratorium, they could be subject to destruction for violating the moratorium. Here is an article about how they had to shut down an AI experiment because two AIs developed their own language that couldn’t be understood: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonybradley/2017/07/31/facebook-ai-creates-its-own-language-in-creepy-preview-of-our-potential-future/amp/

If I may divert for a short bit and discuss similarly with “alien” encounters… My belief is these encounters, if in fact true, is nothing more than interactions with the demonic realm. It is interesting that most of these “alien” encounters involve sexual activity or pursuit thereof between these “aliens” and humans. Pretty interesting in light of Daniel 2:43 for sure especially if we take our Bibles literally with Genesis 6 in the event that the fallen angels had relations with women to create a race of giants. This may seem fanciful, but isn’t it interesting all the gods of the Greeks, Romans etc? Even consider the explosion of Marvel, DC Comic movies who depict such beings. It is even more interesting that nearly all ancient people groups including native North Americans have stories of giants. We see this with Goliath and his four brothers as well as other passages of Scripture. I will leave it at that…

Event 6: Wickedness

Before I dive into this, please ensure you know we are to speak truth in love (Ephesians 4:11-16). All truth with no love surely is just a beat down. All love (which is being pushed from our society) with no truth affirms sins and leads a person down a path of destruction. As Believers, we must be able to speak the truth of God’s Word in love for someone who is lost and needs Jesus! This is a delicate situation, no doubt.

Before, we break this section down, we should first share Scripture. We will start with Isaiah 5:20, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.” Can we see this today? You better believe it. One litmus test that is always a benefit is to balance what we are believing against what society is pushing. If that is well in alignment, we really need to check ourselves. We could share a lot of Scripture with that fact alone.

We can read through both the Old and New Testaments about what is sin and what is detestable before the Lord. Even if you fall into the heresy of disconnecting from the Old Testament, we can read in the New Testament about what is sin and how we need to repent and turn from it. Romans 1:18-32 will be our basis here, but we will expand into other Scripture as well. We can see many sins listed which we will get into just three here.

The warning here in Romans 1 is where we will start though. Verse 28 states, “God gave them over to a debased mind.” II Timothy 3:7 correlates this with, “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” When we continue in our sin, there may come a time where God says, “have it your way.” That is scary as the heart of man is wicked. We can learn this from Pharaoh. You can read this through the account with Moses. Pharaoh hardened his heart, then it says God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. The Lord is long-suffering, no doubt, but there may come a time where God turns us over to our own desires because we reject Him. Then, we get to the point where we can’t even see truth.

It may not even be us in our own sin. It may be us affirming sin. Consider Romans 1:32, “…but also approve of those who practice sin.” Our society wants us to bow to a demonic doctrine of wickedness. We don’t have to practice it, but we have to acknowledge it is ok. This is very dangerous ground! We fall victim to the same sin by affirming sin in others. Let us get into a few we see rampant in our world…

Earth worship: Romans 1:25 talks about this: “worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” In essence, worshipping that which is created compared to God Himself who created all things. This doesn’t mean we don’t need to be respectful of that which we have been entrusted with. But, we have flipped things that we are setting ourselves on a course to destroy our planet and have to in essence bow to it. Consider Genesis 8:22, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.” What the world is pushing is a lie. Earth Day is a day to worship the earth.

Sexual Immorality: Sexual immorality is simply any thought or action outside the Biblical confines of marriage. What is marriage? A union between a man and a woman. Jesus Himself even said to look at a woman with sexual desire is adultery. Look it up! Unfortunately, we live in a day where society has confused man and woman. Consider this….

Jeremiah 30:6 says, “Ask now, and see, whether a man is ever in labor with child? So why do I see every man with his hands on his loins like a woman in labor, and all faces pale?” Now, this is talking about the trembling of man during the tribulation as we can read in verse 7. The interesting part is the rhetorical question that leads this verse off. Obviously, the answer is no, a man is never in labor with child, yet society is pushing us on that it can happen. They are also mingling with the seed of man to see if it can happen, read above under AI.

Matthew 18:6 is a verse in context of Jesus talking about children. It says, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” Pretty harsh especially for our time. We are literally debating in our society at what age it is okay for us to chop off a little boy’s penis to make him a girl. SICKENING! Obviously from Romans 1 and II Timothy 3 we can now see how people can’t see the truth as God has turned them over to a debased mind.

Matthew 19:4 says, “Have you not read that He made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female’…” I love this verse as you can destroy both our society pushing transgenderism as well as anything but a literal six day creation. God them male and female from the beginning. If there were millions or even thousands of years of creation or evolution which comes from a debased mind before man came on the scene, Jesus lied. If there are more than two genders, Jesus lied. That is what we are saying if we bow to what society is pushing.

Child sacrifice: This seems so blatantly obvious, but we still have Believers who normalize this to whatever degree they allow themselves. We aren’t even going to tackle the typical verses of being knit in the womb here as those are so obvious they are clearly obscure to some Believers’ thinking.

Isaiah 49:15: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget.” God has each and every child in mind from conception to beyond the womb. Enough said!

Deuteronomy 18:9-14. This is a passage about the Canaanite abominations. Some struggle with why God would lead the Israelites into the Promised Land to destroy the Canaanites. It is simple, they were wicked to the core. People who like to also disconnect from the Old Testament may have a problem hearing that Jesus most quoted Deuteronomy. We should disconnect from the most quoted book by our Savior?! Heresy!! Verse 10 says, “there shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire…” Now, abortion is a little different technique than what the Canaanites used to kill their children, but it isn’t about the technique. At the heart of it, we are sacrificing our children to the god of self or whatever other reason. There is nothing new under the sun. Child sacrifice is just the same.

The final event we will finish up with on May 30th will be the Global System. After that, we will progress into The Doctrine of the Rapture…

MARANATHA!!!